Here’s what you need to know:
- Fiona Hill will urge Republicans to abandon ‘fictional’ story about Ukraine meddling in 2016 election.
- President Trump lashes out ahead of impeachment hearing.
- Hill can detail how Bolton saw Giuliani as a ‘hand grenade’ meddling in Ukraine policy.
- Hill has said that Sondland bragged that Trump put him in charge of Ukraine policy.
- An embassy official who overheard a Trump-Sondland phone call is expected to recount a memorable conversation.
- Before then, catch up on some important background on the impeachment inquiry.
Fiona Hill will urge Republicans to abandon ‘fictional’ story about Ukraine meddling in 2016 election.
Fiona Hill, the former top Russia expert on the National Security Council, will criticize Republicans on Thursday for propagating what she calls a “fictional narrative” that Ukraine, not Russia, meddled in the 2016 elections, according to a copy of her opening statement for the impeachment hearing.
The impeachment inquiry centers on the accusation that President Trump withheld a White House visit for Ukraine’s president and security aid for the country as leverage to push the government to announce investigations into his political rivals and to validate the claim that Ukraine conspired to help Democrats in the 2016 election.
Ms. Hill calls the claim a fake story invented by Russian intelligence services to destabilize the United States and deflect attention from their own culpability.
“In the course of this investigation, I would ask that you please not promote politically driven falsehoods that so clearly advance Russian interests,” Ms. Hill plans to say, according to her testimony. “These fictions are harmful even if they are deployed for purely domestic political purposes.”
In her opening statement, Ms. Hill will urge the committee to focus on Mr. Trump’s actions instead of the conspiracy theories put forth by Republicans.
“If the president, or anyone else, impedes or subverts the national security of the United States in order to further domestic political or personal interests, that is more than worthy of your attention,” Ms. Hill plans to say, according to her testimony. “But we must not let domestic politics stop us from defending ourselves against the foreign powers who truly wish us harm.”
Ms. Hill is also expected to testify Thursday morning about the reaction of her boss, John R. Bolton, the former national security adviser, to the pressure campaign on Ukraine led in part by Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer. She has said in past, closed-door testimony that Mr. Bolton considered Mr. Giuliani a “hand grenade” that would eventually blow everyone up.
In her opening statement, Ms. Hill takes a veiled swipe at Mr. Bolton’s refusal to testify in the impeachment inquiry, saying that she plans to answer questions about “what I saw, what I did, what I knew, and what I know” about the Ukraine situation before she left the National Security Council last summer.
“I believe that those who have information that the Congress deems relevant have a legal and moral obligation to provide it,” she plans to say in a likely reference to Mr. Bolton.
President Trump lashes out ahead of impeachment hearing.
Before the day’s hearing began, the president posted a string of angry tweets about Democrats and the impeachment investigation.
The Democrats leading the impeachment investigation are “human scum,” he said.
The public hearings over the last week are “the most unfair hearings in American History.” And, “never in my wildest dreams” did he think his name would be linked to the “ugly word, Impeachment!”
Mr. Trump also revived his complaints about the special counsel investigation into whether his campaign or aides were involved in Russia’s election interference.
Hill can detail how Bolton saw Giuliani as a ‘hand grenade’ meddling in Ukraine policy.
In previous closed-door testimony, Ms. Hill described in detail a July 10 White House meeting during which Gordon D. Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union, told Mr. Bolton that he was working with Mr. Giuliani to press Ukraine to investigate Democrats in exchange for a White House meeting for the country’s new president.
Mr. Bolton was so disturbed that he abruptly ended the meeting and instructed Ms. Hill to tell the National Security Council’s top lawyer about what Mr. Sondland, Mr. Giuliani and Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, were up to, Ms. Hill has testified. Mr. Bolton told Ms. Hill that he was not “part of whatever drug deal Sondland and Mulvaney are cooking up.”
Later, Ms. Hill said that Mr. Bolton told her that “Giuliani’s a hand grenade who’s going to blow everybody up.”
Ms. Hill left the White House before the July 25 call between Mr. Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. But Democrats believe her account could be crucial in helping to establish that top White House officials like Mr. Bolton felt the pressure campaign was inappropriate, and that Mr. Mulvaney was deeply involved in it.
Mr. Sondland said in Wednesday’s hearing that Ms. Hill’s account of the July 10 meeting did not “square with my own.”
Hill has said that Sondland bragged that Trump put him in charge of Ukraine policy.
Democrats are looking to Ms. Hill to corroborate Wednesday’s testimony by Mr. Sondland that he pressured Ukraine to announce investigations at Mr. Trump’s direction.
“We followed the president’s orders,” Mr. Sondland told lawmakers, testifying that it was well understood at the White House and throughout the Trump administration that a White House meeting for Mr. Zelensky was contingent on whether he agreed to announce investigations into Mr. Trump’s political rivals.
Mr. Sondland also said he came to conclude that a package of military aid for Ukraine was linked to the investigations. But Republicans seized on Mr. Sondland’s assertion that he was never explicitly told that by Mr. Trump or anyone else.
Ms. Hill told lawmakers in her previous testimony that when she confronted Mr. Sondland, whose official portfolio did not include Ukraine, about his authority over issues related to the country, he told her that his power came directly from Mr. Trump.
She said she asked Mr. Sondland “who has said you’re in charge of Ukraine, Gordon?” according to the transcript of her testimony released by the House Intelligence Committee. “And he said, the president. Well, that shut me up, because you can’t really argue with that.”
An embassy official who overheard a Trump-Sondland phone call is expected to recount a memorable conversation.
William B. Taylor Jr., the top diplomat in Ukraine, testified last week that he had only recently become aware of a cellphone call between Mr. Trump and Mr. Sondland overheard by one of his aides. On Thursday, that aide, David Holmes, who works in the United States Embassy in Kyiv, will testify in a public session.
In closed-door testimony, Mr. Holmes told lawmakers that he overheard Mr. Trump, who was speaking loudly, asking Mr. Sondland whether Mr. Zelensky was “going to do the investigation.” Mr. Sondland, a wealthy hotelier and political donor turned ambassador, told Mr. Trump that Mr. Zelensky “loves your ass,” and would conduct the investigation and do “anything you ask him to,” according to Mr. Holmes’s statement.
In Mr. Holmes’s account, Mr. Sondland later told him that Mr. Trump cared only about “big stuff that benefits the president” like the “Biden investigation” into the son of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Mr. Sondland largely confirmed that account on Wednesday but said he did not recall specifically mentioning Mr. Biden.
Democrats believe the conversation helps establish that the president was preoccupied with persuading Ukraine to publicly commit to investigations that benefited him politically. They want Mr. Holmes to describe the scene in detail.
Before then, catch up on some important background on the impeachment inquiry.
Mr. Trump repeatedly pressured Mr. Zelensky to investigate people and issues of political concern to Mr. Trump, including the former vice president. Here’s a timeline of events since January.
A C.I.A. officer who was once detailed to the White House filed a whistle-blower complaint on Mr. Trump’s interactions with Mr. Zelensky. Read the complaint.
transcript
Who Are the Main Characters in the Whistle-Blower’s Complaint?
President Trump’s personal lawyer. The prosecutor general of Ukraine. Joe Biden’s son. These are just some of the names mentioned in the whistle-blower’s complaint. What were their roles? We break it down.
Congressman: “Sir, let me repeat my question: Did you ever speak to the president about this complaint?” Congress is investigating allegations that President Trump pushed a foreign government to dig up dirt on his Democratic rivals. “It’s just a Democrat witch hunt. Here we go again.” At the heart of an impeachment inquiry is a nine-page whistle-blower complaint that names over two dozen people. Not counting the president himself, these are the people that appear the most: First, Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani. According to documents and interviews, Giuliani has been involved in shadowy diplomacy on behalf of the president’s interests. He encouraged Ukrainian officials to investigate the Biden family’s activities in the country, plus other avenues that could benefit Trump like whether the Ukrainians intentionally helped the Democrats during the 2016 election. It was an agenda he also pushed on TV. “So you did ask Ukraine to look into Joe Biden.” “Of course I did!” A person Giuliani worked with, Yuriy Lutsenko, Ukraine’s former prosecutor general. He pushed for investigations that would also benefit Giuliani and Trump. Lutsenko also discussed conspiracy theories about the Bidens in the U.S. media. But he later walked back his allegations, saying there was no evidence of wrongdoing by the Bidens. This is where Hunter Biden comes in, the former vice president’s son. He served on the board of a Ukrainian energy company run by this guy, who’s had some issues with the law. While Biden was in office, he along with others, called for the dismissal of Lutsenko’s predecessor, a prosecutor named Viktor Shokin, whose office was overseeing investigations into the company that Hunter Biden was involved with. Shokin was later voted out by the Ukrainian government. Lutsenko replaced him, but was widely criticized for corruption himself. When a new president took office in May, Volodymyr Zelensky, Zelensky said that he’d replace Lutsenko. Giuliani and Trump? Not happy. They viewed Lutsenko as their ally. During a July 25 call between Trump and the new Ukrainian president, Trump defended him, saying, “I heard you had a prosecutor who is very good and he was shut down and that’s really unfair.” In that phone call, Trump also allegedly asked his counterpart to continue the investigation into Joe Biden, who is his main rival in the 2020 election. Zelensky has publicly denied feeling pressured by Trump. “In other words, no pressure.” And then finally, Attorney General William Barr, who also came up in the July 25 call. In the reconstructed transcript, Trump repeatedly suggested that Zelensky’s administration could work with Barr and Giuliani to investigate the Bidens and other matters of political interest to Trump. Since the whistle-blower complaint was made public, Democrats have criticized Barr for dismissing allegations that Trump had violated campaign finance laws during his call with Zelensky and not passing along the complaint to Congress. House Democrats have now subpoenaed several people mentioned in the complaint, as an impeachment inquiry into the president’s conduct continues.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced in September that the House would open a formal impeachment proceeding in response to the whistle-blower’s complaint. Here’s how the impeachment process works, and here’s why political influence in foreign policy matters.
House committees have issued subpoenas to the White House, the Defense Department, the budget office and other agencies for documents related to the impeachment investigation. Here’s the evidence that has been collected so far.
Read about the Democrats’ rules to govern impeachment proceedings.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/21/us/politics/impeachment-hearing.html
2019-11-21 13:52:30Z
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