https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/11/politics/marie-yovanovitch-testimony-ukraine/index.html Former US ambassador to Ukraine says Trump wanted her removed and blames 'unfounded and false claims' Yovanovitch told lawmakers at a closed-door deposition that she was informed by Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan there had been "a concerted campaign against me" and that Trump had lost confidence in her, adding that the State Department had "been under pressure from the President to remove me since the Summer of 2018." Yovanovitch said she believed she had been removed because of "unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives," a reference to the effort led by Trump's personal attorney and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and his associates to remove her as ambassador. Yovanovitch appeared Friday after the White House and State Department had directed her not to attend, according to a statement from the three Democratic committee chairmen leading the impeachment inquiry. In response, the chairmen issued a subpoena to compel her testimony. Her deposition is a key part of the Democrats' impeachment inquiry into the President and Ukraine, which has been fueled by a whistleblower complaint alleging the President sought help from Ukraine to investigate his political rival and the White House tried to cover it up. Yovanovitch suggested some of those associates had financial motivations for pushing her out. "With respect to Mayor Giuliani, I have had only minimal contacts with him -- a total of three that I recall. None related to the events at issue," she said, according to her prepared statement. "I do not know Mr. Giuliani's motives for attacking me. But individuals who have been named in the press as contacts of Mr. Giuliani may well have believed that their personal financial ambitions were stymied by our anti-corruption policy in Ukraine." She was unexpectedly pulled from her position in the spring, and her ousting was cited in the whistleblower's complaint as having raised red flags about whether the President was abusing his office by soliciting foreign interference in the election to help find dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter. get fucked Donnie
Good post. The thing is, in an impeachment attempt the administration will respond to the political nature of the beast. In a scenario where the House conducts a bipartisan impeachment hearing the administration feels pressure to allow people to testify, supply requested documents and generally try to comply. In a scenario where the House is going to implement hyper-partisan rules denying the presence of the President's counsel, denying the right to call witnesses to testify, denying the right to even question those testifying.... well the administration is going to respond in a way that is equally political. They are simply not going to cooperate and the public will perceive the political nature of the Democrat's effort.
they're desperate https://www.foxnews.com/politics/klobuchar-booker-trump-impeachment-trial-recusal Klobuchar, Booker rule out recusing themselves from Trump impeachment trial
asking for recusal is nutty, but the republicans should not fail to get maximum mileage out of exposing the true motivations of the dems. most of them are on record as demanding impeachment and removal without even seeing the trial or the evidence presented. that is yet another area where the comparison with a judicial system trial falls short. not one of those clowns would be qualfied to sit on a jury, having already stated in advance that the defendant is guilty as charged, or even worse, they are saying "we dont even know what the charges are yet but we know we are going to find him guilty." a lot of bloviating going on by the dems. Actual voting out of an impeachment inquiry and voting on actual charges? ahhhhh, not so much. they have found him guilty but are still trying to find a crime. as i said, requiring recusal would be nutty, but there is nothing "desperate" - the word the poster used above- about aggressively pointing out the extreme bias of senators sitting in judgement if it gets that far. that is an absolute requirement of the defense in any proceedings. those clowns are running a kangaroo court and no opportunity to show that to the public should be left unused.
Surely there will be records of this phone call and they won't just lie to congress again? Surely having this statement from the getgo and not blocked then suddenly unblocked will lend more credence to his testimony? https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...be0902-bc19-44e8-8c38-9aa35c544859_story.html Trump’s envoy to testify that ‘no quid pro quo’ came from Trump The U.S. ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, intends to tell Congress this week that the content of a text message he wrote denying a quid pro quo with Ukraine was relayed to him directly by President Trump in a phone call, according to a person familiar with his testimony. Sondland plans to tell lawmakers he has no knowledge of whether the president was telling him the truth at that moment. “It’s only true that the president said it, not that it was the truth,” said the person familiar with Sondland’s planned testimony, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic matters. The Sept. 9 exchange between Sondland and the top U.S. diplomat to Ukraine has become central to the House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry into whether the president abused his office in pressuring Ukraine to open an investigation into his political rival Joe Biden and his son, who sat on the board of a Ukrainian energy company. The White House and its defenders have held up Sondland’s text, which included “no quid pro quo’s of any kind,” as proof that none was ever considered.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/13/us/politics/trey-gowdy-trump-impeachment.html Inside Trump’s Botched Attempt to Hire Trey Gowdy For 24 hours last week, Trey Gowdy, the former South Carolina congressman best known for leading congressional investigations of Hillary Clinton, was the new face of President Trump’s outside legal defense and a symbol of a streamlined effort to respond to a fast-moving impeachment inquiry. A day later, the arrangement fell apart, with lobbying rules prohibiting Mr. Gowdy from starting until January, possibly after the inquiry is over. Now, according to two people familiar with events, Mr. Gowdy is never expected to join the team. And Trump advisers are back to square one, searching for a different lawyer. How a celebrated announcement quickly ended in disarray offers a rare public glimpse into the internal posturing — and undercutting of colleagues — that has been playing out in the West Wing on a daily basis since Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a formal impeachment inquiry last month. Even as the White House confronts a deepening threat to Mr. Trump’s presidency, it has struggled to decide how to respond, and who should lead that response.