I have to do multiple posts only three attachments can be added at one time
Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff
by seemslikeadream » Tue Oct 22, 2019 9:05 pm
by seemslikeadream » Tue Oct 22, 2019 9:06 pm
by seemslikeadream » Tue Oct 22, 2019 9:12 pm
by seemslikeadream » Tue Oct 22, 2019 9:19 pm
by Belligerent Savant » Wed Oct 23, 2019 3:50 am
by RocketMan » Wed Oct 23, 2019 4:15 am
I have to do multiple posts only three attachments can be added at one time
by stickdog99 » Wed Oct 23, 2019 6:01 am
by seemslikeadream » Wed Oct 23, 2019 6:48 am
Halkbank is now fugitive from charges & is in contempt
Ohai, Turkey.
You own Halkbank? And they're charged with being party to transnational organized crime and sanctions evasion?
I don't think adding ethnic cleansing to that list is gonna help any.
Turkey's govt-owned bank Halkbank paid $2M+ to Trump-tied foreign agents & lobbyists since its deputy chief was arrested over a money laundering scheme with Rudy Giuliani's client allegedly funneling Iran millions of dollars to secretly evade sanctions
Why it matters: Bloomberg reported last week that in 2017, President Trump pressed former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to help convince the Justice Department to drop a sanctions evasion case against an Iranian-Turkish gold trader named Reza Zarrab — a client of Rudy Giuliani's whose case was a high priority for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Zarrab later pleaded guilty and testified against the CEO of Halkbank, alleging that "Erdogan knew of and supported the laundering effort on behalf of Iran."
viewtopic.php?f=52&t=41890
An Envoy’s Damning Account of Trump’s Ukraine Pressure and Its Consequences - The New York Times
Oct. 22, 2019, 8:47 p.m. ET
The chain of events that Mr. Taylor laid out in his testimony suggested a clear quid pro quo between $391 million in suspended assistance and Mr. Trump’s demands that Ukraine investigate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. as well as a debunked conspiracy theory involving Ukrainian help for Democrats in the 2016 election.
Yet in the publicly released portion of his testimony, Mr. Taylor neither described any direct conversation with Mr. Trump himself nor made any reference to documents or recordings that would explicitly implicate the president. Instead, he provided a road map for investigators by quoting others around Mr. Trump describing his actions and statements.
“President Trump has done nothing wrong — this is a coordinated smear campaign from far-left lawmakers and radical unelected bureaucrats waging war on the Constitution,” Stephanie Grisham, the White House press secretary, said in a statement. “There was no quid pro quo. Today was just more triple hearsay and selective leaks from the Democrats’ politically motivated, closed-door, secretive hearings.”
Mr. Taylor’s testimony once again focused attention on Mr. Trump’s unusual relationship with President Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia. Unlike most leaders in both parties, Mr. Trump has rarely expressed much criticism of Mr. Putin or his aggression against his neighbors, at one point even suggesting that he could accept Russia’s annexation of Crimea, which it seized from Ukraine through force in 2014.
Mr. Trump went further than Mr. Obama by providing lethal military assistance to Ukraine to defend itself against Russia, but privately echoed Mr. Putin’s line about the Ukrainians being untrustworthy and corrupt. By holding up the $391 million in aid allocated by Congress, Mr. Trump essentially reversed his own policy and angered lawmakers of both parties, who pressured him into releasing the money last month.
In his 14-page opening statement, bristling with indignation yet chock-full of dates, facts and quotes, Mr. Taylor described “two channels of U.S. policymaking and implementation, one regular and one highly irregular,” run largely by the president’s personal attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani, as well as others like Gordon D. Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union.
Mr. Taylor made clear that what he found particularly egregious about the president’s actions was what he regarded as the betrayal of a friend to the not-so-tender mercies of a ruthless invader for corrupt reasons.
“Ukraine is special to me,” he said, and what has happened in the five months since he was asked to return to Kiev was “crazy,” “improper” and “folly” with far-reaching implications.
“We must support Ukraine in its fight against its bullying neighbor,” he told House investigators. “Russian aggression cannot stand.”
He recalled being stunned to learn during a secure video conference call on July 18 that the aid to Ukraine had been put on hold with no explanation other than that “the directive had come from the president to the chief of staff to” the Office of Management and Budget.
“I and others sat in astonishment,” he testified. “The Ukrainians were fighting the Russians and counted on not only the training and weapons, but also the assurance of U.S. support.”
No one told the Ukrainians at first, and Mr. Taylor recalled meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kiev on July 26, the day after Mr. Trump pressured the newly elected Ukrainian leader on the telephone to investigate Mr. Biden and the 2016 election conspiracy theory.
After the meeting, he joined Mr. Zelensky and Kurt D. Volker, the State Department special envoy for Ukraine, on a trip to northern Donbas, the front line of the conflict with Russian-backed separatists, where they were briefed by the commander of Ukrainian forces.
“The commander thanked us for security assistance, but I was aware that this assistance was on hold, which made me uncomfortable,” Mr. Taylor said. “Ambassador Volker and I could see the armed and hostile Russian-led forces on the other side of the damaged bridge across the line of contact. Over 13,000 Ukrainians had been killed in the war, one or two a week. More Ukrainians would undoubtedly die without the U.S. military assistance.”
http://archive.is/Rq3DS
Top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine offers damning testimony
Alexander Nazaryan
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WASHINGTON — The top U.S. emissary to Ukraine painted a devastating portrait in testimony Tuesday on Capitol Hill of what appeared to be White House-directed efforts to pressure the government in Kiev to investigate a Democratic political rival.
American diplomacy was conducted along two “channels,” according to William B. Taylor Jr., the senior U.S. diplomat to Ukraine. As Taylor explained to congressional investigators on Tuesday, one was the “regular, formal” channel, which included “the bulk of the U.S. effort to support Ukraine against the Russian invasion” that has been a persistent threat for a half-decade.
It is the other, “irregular, informal” channel that is of interest to members of Congress.
Guided by Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor who is now a personal lawyer for President Trump, the irregular efforts described by Taylor were intended to force the new Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to investigate Hunter Biden, son of Joe Biden.
Hunter Biden sat on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company that has been accused of corrupt practices. He no longer has any ties to Burisma, but his father is running for president, and some of President Trump’s allies see Hunter Biden’s business dealings as potentially damaging to the former vice president — and therefore helpful to Trump’s chances of winning reelection next year.
Democrats, for their part, have opened an impeachment inquiry into efforts by Trump and Giuliani to exert pressure on Ukraine to launch an investigation into Biden.
William Taylor Jr., the top U.S. diplomat to Ukraine, arrives Tuesday to testify on Capitol Hill as part of the Democrats' impeachment investigation of President Trump. (Photo: J. Scott Applewhite/AP)
William Taylor Jr., the top U.S. diplomat to Ukraine, arrives Tuesday to testify on Capitol Hill as part of the Democrats' impeachment investigation of President Trump. (Photo: J. Scott Applewhite/AP)
Right around the time that Taylor prepared to testify in a closed-door hearing room on Capitol Hill, Trump attempted to cast himself as the victim of a “lynching.” But using the language of racist violence appeared to quickly backfire, with even some Republicans denouncing him. In one poignant rebuke, Michael Steele, the first and only African-American head of the Republican National Committee, tweeted the photo of a lynched black man hanging from a tree.
“It’s pathetic that you act like you’re such a victim,” Steele wrote. “You should know better.”
As details of Taylor’s testimony became public, it was clear that Trump’s day was only going to get worse. In his opening statement, which was provided to the Washington Post, Taylor described ongoing efforts throughout the spring and summer of 2019 to withhold some $400 million in assistance from Ukraine — including $250 million in military aid — unless Ukraine launched an investigation into Burisma and the Bidens. Giuliani and others were also adherents of a conspiracy theory that elements within Ukraine interfered on Hillary Clinton’s behalf in the 2016 presidential election.
In his opening statement, Taylor described the “confusing and unusual arrangement” he encountered when arriving in Kiev in the late spring of 2019, in which Giuliani and others “operated mostly outside of official State Department channels.” Taylor appeared to implicate the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, in the Giuliani-led push for a political investigation by the new Ukrainian government.
For example, on June 27, Sondland allegedly told Taylor that if Zelensky expected an Oval Office meeting, he “needed to make clear” that he “was not standing in the way of ‘investigations,’” according to Taylor’s opening statement.
“By mid-July,” Taylor told congressional investigators, “it was becoming clear to me that the meeting President Zelensky wanted was conditioned on the investigations of Burisma and alleged Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections.” (The national security establishment believes that interference in the 2016 election was conducted by Russia, not Ukraine, and that it was on behalf of Trump, not Clinton.)
Taylor added that it was “clear that this condition was driven by the irregular policy channel I had come to understand was guided by Mr. Giuliani.”
Additional pressure came from the Office of Management and Budget, which halted the military aid that had been appropriated by Congress the year before. Like many Pentagon officials, Taylor was confused by the hold. “I realized that one of the key pillars of our strong support for Ukraine was threatened,” he said in his congressional testimony.
Ukrainian territory has been occupied by Russian-backed forces since 2014. The aggressive administration of Vladimir Putin wants to reassert its control over much of eastern Ukraine, which it sees as a kind of Russian birthright. American assistance has been critical in holding back those efforts.
But according to Taylor, the Giuliani team saw things differently, subordinating national interests to Trump’s political prospects. “Ambassador Sondland tried to explain to me that President Trump is a businessman,” Taylor said in his testimony. “When a businessman is about to sign a check to someone who owes him something, he said, the businessman asks that person to pay up before signing the check.”
Taylor plainly disagreed. “I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign,” he said at the time.
The president’s critics are bound to see, in Taylor’s detailed testimony, the very kind of quid pro quo arrangement that they believe to be firm grounds for impeachment. Indeed, Democrats who were privy to Taylor’s hours-long testimony described it in dramatic terms.
“This testimony is a sea change. I think it could accelerate matters,” said Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass. Meanwhile, Rep. Andy Levin, D-Mich., called it his “most disturbing day” since he entered the House of Representatives 10 months ago.
Several more national security and diplomatic officials will testify later this week. They are expected to confirm much of what Taylor said on Tuesday.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/10 ... lev-parnas
“Michael Cohen Is Now Even More Valuable Than Before”: The President’s Former Attorney Offers Dirt on Giuliani Associate Lev Parnas
By Emily Jane FoxOctober 22, 2019
Cohen’s SDNY cooperation could continue with new details about the Ukraine case. Could it lighten his sentence?
Michael Cohen arrives in black suit for interview with the House Intelligence Committee
Michael Cohen, left, arrives for a closed-door interview with the House Intelligence Committee in Washington on Thursday morning, Feb. 28, 2019.By Erin Schaff/The New York Times/Redux.
History certainly felt like it was repeating itself. Hours after two associates who helped Rudy Giuliani dig up dirt on Joe Biden were arrested and charged with campaign-finance violations on behalf of at least one unnamed Ukrainian politician, President Donald Trump tepidly defended his personal attorney while distancing himself from what looked like an increasingly sticky legal situation. When asked by a reporter on the White House South Lawn if he thought Giuliani would face an indictment, Trump said he hoped not. On Twitter, he referred to Giuliani as a “great guy and wonderful lawyer,” and called the ongoing investigation into their interactions with Ukrainians a “witch hunt.” Later that day, the two broke bread at Trump’s golf club in Virginia in what was a public display of support at a private club that Trump owned and controlled. Giuliani contends that he has not committed any crimes, but the SDNY is now investigating whether his efforts in Ukraine may have run afoul of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Over the last few weeks, Giuliani has said that he and the president are as close as ever and that there is no rift between them. But people around the president have grown increasingly wary of their relationship, as it becomes clearer that Giuliani was running what looks like a shadow State Department to deal with Ukraine, and use the power of the presidency to pressure Ukraine into pursuing investigations for political purposes that would benefit Trump.
If all of this sounds familiar, it is because it is nearly identical to the way Trump treated his former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, after investigators from the SDNY opened a criminal investigation into what they determined were campaign-finance violations stemming from hush money payments made to women alleging affairs with Trump in the last days leading up to the 2016 election.
For a time, the invitations Cohen received to visit Mar-a-Lago, plus Trump’s public support—referring to him as a “good man” and the raid on his office as an “attack on our country”— kept Cohen on his side. It was a side Cohen had wanted to be on, having once told me he would take a bullet for the president. But he saw how Trump slowly started inching away from him and publicly disparaging him once the legal temperature crept higher. It wasn’t long before Cohen broke ranks. He spent more than 70 hours cooperating with the special counsel’s office in its investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election; he spent tens of hours talking to the SDNY and ultimately pleaded guilty, though he did not become a formal cooperating witness. Later, he sat with several congressional committees over multiple days to answer their questions.
Cohen’s cooperation has continued since he surrendered to prison in May. A couple of times over the last few months, the New York attorney general’s office has made trips up to the federal penitentiary in Otisville, New York, where Cohen is serving his sentence, in order to gather information as part of its investigation into whether the Trump Organization violated any state laws in reimbursing Cohen for the hush money payments. Attorneys for Cohen have repeatedly contended that Cohen has not only fulsomely cooperated, but that he also has far more to give. “In my judgment, Michael Cohen is now even more valuable than before,” Lanny Davis, one of Cohen’s attorneys, told me over the weekend. “First, in assisting the ongoing congressional impeachment investigation to interpret the Trump code words to lie, as in ‘no quid pro quo, no quid pro quo’ to the E.U. ambassador, when he knows the truth is exactly the opposite. And second, to assist ongoing investigations by state and federal prosecutors.”
Lev Parnas, Rudy Giuliani amongst a group attending the state funeral service for former President George H.W. Bush in Washington, D.C., U.S., in December, 2018.
By Al Drago/Bloomberg/Getty Images.
And Cohen, according to people familiar with the situation, has information that could be pertinent to the SDNY’s investigation into Lev Parnas, one of the men who worked with Giuliani to dig up dirt on Trump’s political opponents. Parnas was taken into federal custody earlier this month, as he and Igor Fruman were about to board a plane outside of Washington, after having lunch with Giuliani at the Trump International Hotel a few blocks away from the White House, and charged with conspiracy, falsification of records, and lying to the Federal Election Commission about their political donations, which included a $325,000 donation through an LLC to support a super PAC created to support Trump’s candidacy. (Both men have pleaded not guilty.)
Parnas, according to these sources, contacted Cohen in the first few weeks after Trump took office. He introduced himself through text message and asked if he would be willing to set up a meeting with Trump, the purpose being that he wanted to propose a method to save the federal government money on fraud, waste, and abuse. Those who know Cohen also said that there was another occasion during which Parnas came in contact with Cohen that they said may be of interest to investigators looking into whether Parnas violated federal election laws. Cohen would be willing to communicate what he knows to investigators, it is said, and has added a new criminal-defense attorney, Robert D. Adler, to his legal team in recent months.
Cohen still hopes for a reduction in sentence. But so far, as much as Cohen has talked, prosecutors have declined to shorten his sentence using what is known as Rule 35—a sentence-reduction motion used if an individual has provided a substantial amount of useful information to prosecutors. In September, Cohen’s attorneys sent a letter to three Democratic committee chairs, urging them to ask U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley III to cut the length of Cohen’s three-year prison term and allow him to finish his sentence at home in New York. In a copy of the letter, which I reviewed, his attorneys spelled out the extent of his cooperation thus far. The letter reads that Cohen provided the SDNY with detailed information about possible “insurance fraud committed by Donald Trump and the Trump Foundation, illegal campaign contributions by donors, and possible obstruction of justice by certain attorneys,” along with information about “the Trump Joint Defense Agreement and about the financing of the Trump golf courses” and a “nuclear power plant project.”
The letter describes how, in March, Cohen’s lawyer wrote the SDNY with “fresh information, of additional possible crimes by Mr. Trump or his associates,” and asked SDNY prosecutors then to support a Rule 35 sentence-reduction motion based on this new information. According to the letter, prosecutors declined, as they did when the attorney asked them over the phone to interview Cohen, with no preconditions, to explain the new information in greater detail before he left for prison. (Earlier this year, Elijah Cummings, the former head of the House Oversight Committee who passed away last week, sent a letter to a deputy U.S. attorney in Manhattan saying that his committee was investigating whether the SDNY’s decision to only charge Cohen in the hush money scheme was politically motivated.)
The letter details Cohen’s cooperation with Congress, which included a public hearing and a number of private hearings, along with a meeting with staff of the House Judiciary Committee several days before he left for prison to “go through a thumb drive obtained from the SDNY that contained tens of thousands of documents and electronic records obtained from the April 2019 search of [his] home and law office.” His attorneys wrote that “he ran out of time to get very far,” but “remains willing to continue to do so.”
Thus far, his attorneys’ attempts to reduce his sentence or have him moved to home confinement have fallen on deaf ears. But the new information about Cohen’s contact with Parnas, who is potentially a big fish in another splashy Trump-adjacent pool, could change the equation—and possibly influence the fortunes of another one of Trump’s personal attorneys.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/10 ... lev-parnas
by seemslikeadream » Wed Oct 23, 2019 8:20 am
This is the door to Trump ties to Russian Mafia.
More
As per #HouseofTrump, William Taylor's cables often made pretty damn good reading(certainly for State Dept cables). In one, he vividly exposes the ties between Russian mobster #Mogilevich and #Firtash, now Giuliani's benefactor. This is the door to Trump ties to Russian Mafia. https://twitter.com/RepAdamSchiff/statu ... 8586210304 …
https://twitter.com/LincolnsBible?ref_s ... r%5Eauthor
by seemslikeadream » Wed Oct 23, 2019 12:54 pm
Ukraine blows up key Trump defense: Top officials knew of military aid freeze before it became public
By Travis GettysOctober 23, 2019
Top Ukrainian officials were alerted in early August that $391 million in U.S. military aid had been frozen as President Donald Trump sought to pressure the country to investigate Joe Biden.
That undercuts the president’s latest defense arguing that the foreign ally couldn’t have felt pressured because Ukraine was not yet aware that the aid had been frozen, reported the New York Times.
Former Ukraine ambassador Bill Taylor told Congress on Tuesday that the freeze was directly related to Trump’s demand for an announcement that Biden was under investigation.
But Trump approvingly quoted Republican Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX), who told Fox News on Wednesday morning that Taylor and other witnesses had been unable to provide evidence that Ukraine was aware of the delay.
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
Neither he (Taylor) or any other witness has provided testimony that the Ukrainians were aware that military aid was being withheld. You can’t have a quid pro quo with no quo.” Congressman John Ratcliffe @foxandfriends Where is the Whistleblower? The Do Nothing Dems case is DEAD!
45.6K
6:32 AM - Oct 23, 2019
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31.6K people are talking about this
However, the Times reported that high-level Ukrainian officials were aware of the aid freeze, based on interviews and documents obtained by the newspaper.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky became aware of the pause days after Trump asked him in a July 25 phone call that he wanted an investigation of Biden and his son Hunter Biden, as the newly elected foreign leader sought military aid and a possible White House visit.
Taylor testified that Ukrainian officials were told on the sidelines of a Sept. 1 meeting between Zelensky and Vice President Mike Pence that the aid was dependent on announcing an investigation into Burisma, the natural gas company that had employed Hunter Biden.
https://www.rawstory.com/2019/10/ukrain ... me-public/
U.S. Senators question Trump's interests in Turkey amid renewed spotlight on U.S president - Erdoğan relations
Ilhan Tanir
2019-10-23
Four U.S. senators from the Democratic Party have rolled up their sleeves to find information on the Trump family’s business dealings in Turkey citing a potential conflict of interest during a sensitive time in Ankara- Washington relations.
Senate Democrats Tom Udall, Tammy Duckworth, Elizabeth Warren and Richard Blumenthal, in a letter sent on Tuesday, requested Trump Organization Executive Vice President Jill A. Martin to disclose of information on the Trump family’s real estate deal in Istanbul, NBC news reported on Tuesday.
The lawmakers are looking to understand whether Trump’s foreign policy decisions "are being influenced by potential conflicts of interest," it said.
The Democratic lawmakers cited Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. forces in northern Syria at the request of Ankara and delayed action in a money laundering case involving a Turkey’s Halkbank among the reasons for the move.
Trump, in abrupt policy change earlier this month, announced the withdrawal of U.S. forces from northern Syria, which signalled a green light for Ankara’s long-called military offensive in the region targeting Kurdish forces.
A U.S. federal court on Tuesday indicted Turkey’s majority state-owned Halkbank with fraud, money laundering and complicity in a scheme to evade U.S. sanctions on Iran. The indictment followed months of inaction over the case, prompting reports of negotiation between the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his U.S. counterpart.
Trump and Erdoğan's relationship has come under renewed scrutiny since Trump's decision that paved to way for a Turkish incursion in northern Syria following a phone call on Oct. 6th. Rumours have it in Washington, DC, that one or more of Trump-Erdogan phone conversations are being investigated in search of scandalous "quid pro quo" deals, similar to Trump's call with Ukraine's president Zelensky, which opened the way for the impeachment process.
Trump's first national security adviser Mike Flynn was later unveiled as a paid lobbyist for the Turkish government, and had to fill out Foreign Agents Registration Act to register for the Turkish government retrospectively.
It was Washington's Politico which claimed in a lengthy article in April of 2017 that Flynn's employer Ekim Alptekin had business dealings in Russia and worked with an executive in Russian oil companies on Turkish lobbying projects.
The man, Ekim Alptekin, has in recent years helped to coordinate Turkish lobbying in Washington with Dmitri “David” Zaikin, a Soviet-born former executive in Russian energy and mining companies who also has had dealings with Putin’s government, according to three people with direct knowledge of the activities.
A Washington-based international political consultant named John Moreira, talking to Politico, confirmed that he helped Zaikin to set up the Turkish Heritage Organisation (THO), a new Turkish NGO managed by Ali Cinar, who is long time Turkish-American leader. THO has been the most influential AKP body since then, hosting visiting Turkish delegations, arranging meetings and working on the Hill. Both THO and Alptekin denied any involvement of Zaikin or Russian connection with the Turkish lobbying efforts.
Turkish businessman Mehmet Ali Yalçındağ is another point of interest for many. Yalçındag worked as the director general of Turkey’s Doğan Media Group until he had to step down in 2016 when leaked emails showed he had been reporting daily developments at the private media conglomerate to a staunchly rival pro-Erdoğan media group.
Yalçındağ is the son-in-law of Aydın Doğan, the former owner of the media group, which was purchased in April 2018 by a conglomerate close to Erdoğan. Yalçındağ was selected as the new head of Turkish-American Business Council in March of 2018. Since then, spent most of his time in the U.S. and many see him as an important channel between Trump and Erdoğan. There are several reasons why people see him that way.
As Ahval previously reported:
Yalçındağ is also known in Turkey as a partner of Trump since the Doğan Group is the owner Trump Towers in Istanbul. Yalçındağ posted victory messages on social media from New York on Trump’s election night and media reports suggest he has been trying to warm relations between Turkey and the new administration. In fact, Yalcindag decided to stay in New York City during the transition period of the elected president Trump and continued to spend much of his time in the U.S.
Yalçındağ also was the Chairman if the board of the Russia’s leading search engine Yandex’s subsidiary in Turkey. Yalçındağ was appointed to the position in 2012, effectively spearheading Google Russia's rapid expansion in Turkey.
U.S. President Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr., after his father's election victory in Nov. 2016, visited Turkey's southern resort of Antalya for a hunting trip, upon the invitation of a Turkish businessman.
That Turkish businessman's identity is still unknown, though Trump's son confirmed the hunting trip during the recent Congressional testimony, in which he botched the last name of that Turkish businessman. As such, the subsequent transcript does not disclose of said name.
https://ahvalnews.com/turkey-usa/us-sen ... rdogan?amp
State Dept. ordered to turn over Ukraine documents
Alexander Nazaryan
WASHINGTON — In what could prove a highly consequential ruling, a federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to start turning over documents regarding potentially improper White House influence on diplomacy in Ukraine.
The decision, part of a lawsuit filed under the Freedom of Information Act, represents the first judicial order mandating that the Trump administration comply with a request for communications between diplomats, White House officials and outside power brokers like Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was included in the original request, as were a number of his top deputies, indicating a widespread belief among Trump’s detractors that American foreign policy has been hijacked by political operatives — and political considerations.
The documents were being requested by American Oversight, a progressive watchdog group in Washington, D.C. The group filed a Freedom of Information Act request when it noticed news reports that the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, had been recalled. American Oversight filed a lawsuit in October, after the State Department failed to turn over the documents.
Speaking to Yahoo News after Wednesday’s decision, American Oversight executive director Austin Evers called the ruling “a crack in the administration’s stone wall.”
The Trump administration will now have 30 days to start turning over records and documents relating to the Ukraine affair, and though it could find legal pretext for refusing to do so, Wednesday’s ruling did appear to be a vindication of months-long efforts for American Oversight.
In a separate statement, Evers called the ruling a “major setback” for Trump. On background, staffers for American Oversight agreed with the assessment that the order left little room for the Trump administration to maneuver.
Neither the State Department nor the Department of Justice replied to a request for comment.
Joshua Geltzer, a constitutional law scholar at Georgetown University, told Yahoo News that the directive was “a big deal in its significance but also appears to reflect a clear application of settled law,” since Freedom of Information requests “aren’t supposed to be handled so slowly as to make them irrelevant.” Geltzer, who served on the National Security Council during the Obama administration, added that “whatever weird role President Trump assigned to Rudy Giuliani, he’s not a government employee — so it’s really hard for the government to claim that the communications with him are subject to various privileges.”
At the time that Yovanovitch was suddenly recalled, Giuliani and others — including Gordon Sondland, U.S. ambassador to the European Union — were attempting to pressure Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to launch an investigation into the business affairs of Hunter Biden, son of Trump’s potential 2020 rival Joe Biden. The younger Biden sat on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company accused of corrupt practices. He no longer has ties to Burisma, but Trump and his allies have resurrected questions about his involvement.
Trump’s attempts to exert pressure on Zelensky became public when an anonymous whistleblower complaint became public in late September. That complaint, which strongly indicates that Trump attempted to enter into an improper quid pro quo arrangement with Zelensky, has served as the basis of an impeachment inquiry launched by congressional Democrats.
Impeachment investigators have made document demands of their own. Those are separate from the earlier request made by American Oversight under the Freedom of Information Act.
In a hearing before Christopher Cooper of the D.C. District Court, an attorney for American Oversight argued that “public interest weighs heavily in favor of disclosure.” He noted that since Giuliani — who was central to running what the top U.S. envoy in Ukraine has called an “informal” diplomatic outfit in Kiev — is Trump’s personal lawyer and has “no official government position,” there is no reason to shield his correspondences from public view.
A main target of the request appears to be Pompeo, whose involvement in the Ukraine pressure campaign remains unclear. Many career staffers at State are reportedly furious that he allowed Yovanovitch to be stripped of her position without defending her. More broadly, the diplomatic corps regards his unflagging loyalty to Trump with great skepticism.
Judge Cooper said that while he was “generally skeptical” of speeding up Freedom of Information Act requests by applying judicial pressure, the American Oversight request involved “documents and records of critical importance.” He then said the State Department had 30 days to comply with the document request. A written version of that order is forthcoming.
At one point, Cooper alluded to the thousands of documents the State Department was forced to produce when Republicans launched an investigation into the 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, in which four Americans were killed. That investigation was widely seen as an attempt to damage Hillary Clinton, then the secretary of state.
Among the legislators leading that inquiry was a conservative congressman from Kansas, Mike Pompeo. Like many Republicans at the time, he seized on the revelation — made in the course of the Benghazi inquest — that Clinton used a private email server, in circumvention of government procedure.
Speaking in 2016, Pompeo said the arrangement had been “intentionally designed to circumvent the normal process.” Three years later, Pompeo and the president he serves stand similarly accused.
https://news.yahoo.com/state-department ... 28912.html
Rudy Giuliani's Actions in Ukraine for Trump 'the Highest of High Crimes,' Says Law Professor
By Shane Croucher On 10/24/19 at 6:39 AM EDT
A Georgetown University law professor said the actions of Rudy Giuliani in Ukraine show that President Donald Trump has committed the "highest of high crimes" by abusing the power of his office to advance his own interests.
On Wednesday evening, Giuliani, who is Trump's personal lawyer, tweeted that "everything I did was to discover evidence to defend my client against false charges."
Responding to the tweet, Georgetown's Professor Marty Lederman wrote that it "confirms what was so outrageous," namely that Giuliani did not represent the United States but was operating solely in the interests of his client.
Trump is facing an impeachment inquiry over his conduct towards Ukraine. House Democrats accuse Trump of attempting to solicit the interference of a foreign government in the 2020 election for his own political advantage.
Giuliani has spent months chasing down spurious corruption allegations against former Vice President Joe Biden—a leading candidate for the 2020 Democratic nomination—and his son Hunter Biden, who sat on the board of a Ukrainian gas company.
The former New York City mayor was also pursuing a widely-debunked conspiracy theory that the DNC conspired with the cybersecurity company CrowdStrike to frame Russia for election meddling, and that the evidence is held on a server in Ukraine.
It was part of his effort to defend his client against special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, which concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to benefit Trump, though the probe did not establish a conspiracy between the Kremlin and the campaign.
Now, it has emerged that Trump asked Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to open investigations into both the Bidens and the CrowdStrike conspiracy theory in a July 25 phone call of which the White House released a summary.
During that call, Trump urged Zelenskiy to speak with Giuliani—who had no official capacity with the U.S. government—to discuss the potential investigations. Zelenskiy said his assistants had met with Giuliani and that he hoped to meet him when he comes to Ukraine.
Moreover, Bill Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat to Ukraine, testified to Congress that he thought Trump was dangling a potential White House meeting for Zelensky and withholding military aid from the country as leverage to ensure the investigations were opened and publicly announced.
It is evidence of a quid pro quo between the Trump and Zelensky regarding the investigations. Trump denies any wrongdoing and insists there was no quid pro quo.
This month, two of Giuliani's associates working with him in his Ukraine inquiries, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, were indicted on campaign finance charges.
They are accused of covertly funneling Russian money to U.S. political campaigns and using it to try to influence U.S.-Ukraine relations by pushing for the recall of the ambassador in Kyiv.
"With all the Fake News let me make it clear that everything I did was to discover evidence to defend my client against false charges," Giuliani wrote on Twitter last night. "Dems would be horrified by the attacks on me, if my client was a terrorist. But they don't believe @realDonaldTrump has rights. Justice will prevail."
Georgetown's Lederman wrote: "This merely confirms what was so outrageous: Giuliani wasn't a representative or employee of the United States; his duty of loyalty was 100% to his (personal capacity) client. And yet Trump told Ukraine it had to dance to Rudy's tune.
"A tune *designed to advance Trump's personal interests*--in order to remain in the U.S.'s good graces (e.g., to secure access, aid, etc.).
"This is the highest of high crimes—using the leverage of his position as chief diplomat to advance his own interests—and it's hard to imagine anything more inconsistent w/Trump's constitutional oath & duty and more revealing of his utter unfitness for office.
"And that'd be true *even if there were no quid pro quo* (but of course there was, which makes it all the worse)."
According to Article II, Section 4, of the U.S. Constitution: "The President, Vice President and all Civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."
Rudy Giuliani Ukraine Donald Trump CrowdStrike Biden
Former New York City Mayor and attorney to President Donald Trump Rudy Giuliani visits "Mornings With Maria" with anchor Maria Bartiromo at Fox Business Network Studios on September 23, 2019 in New York City. Roy Rochlin/Getty Images
https://www.newsweek.com/rudy-giuliani- ... or-1467451
The Trump-Ukraine Scandal: More than a Quid Pro Quo, It’s Extortion
And the president is again trying to gaslight the public.
Jacquelyn Martin/AP
Donald Trump is at it again. In the face of new and damning evidence in the Trump-Ukraine scandal, he is making false claims and trying to mount diversions. On Wednesday morning, Trump responded to William Taylor, the acting US ambassador to Ukraine, who the day before presented testimony to Congress confirming the White House withheld security assistance from Ukraine in an effort to pressure its president to launch investigations to produce political dirt useful for Trump and his reelection campaign. Quoting a GOP member of Congress, Trump tweeted that no such thing happened. “Neither he (Taylor) or any other witness has provided testimony that the Ukrainians were aware that military aid was being withheld. You can’t have a quid pro quo with no quo.’ Congressman John Ratcliffe @foxandfriends.” And referring to the still-unidentified CIA official who had filed the complaint about Trump’s actions regarding Ukraine that triggered this scandal, he added, “Where is the Whistleblower? The Do Nothing Dems case is DEAD!”
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
Neither he (Taylor) or any other witness has provided testimony that the Ukrainians were aware that military aid was being withheld. You can’t have a quid pro quo with no quo.” Congressman John Ratcliffe @foxandfriends Where is the Whistleblower? The Do Nothing Dems case is DEAD!
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Once more, Trump was trying to gaslight the nation.
Taylor had indeed testified during his closed-door session with congressional investigators that Ukrainian officials were aware Trump was withholding nearly $400 million in military assistance at the same time he and his minions were pressing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate a debunked conspiracy theory about the 2016 election (which held that Russia did not hack the election) and former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Trump was also insisting that Zelensky announce publicly that these investigations were underway. Taylor was quite explicit about all this in his lengthy and detailed opening statement, which was leaked. In fact, the news that Trump was holding up the funds for Ukraine was reported publicly on August 29. Days later, Taylor testified, the top White House aide on Ukrainian matters, Tim Morrison, told him that Gordon Sondland, the US ambassador to the European Union and a key figure in this caper, had told Andriy Yermak, a senior Zelensky aide, that the security assistance money would not be sent to Ukraine until Zelensky committed to pursing the Biden investigation.
So there it is: a much-respected veteran diplomat who served in both Republican and Democratic administrations testifying that Sondland, doing Trump’s bidding, had threatened the Ukraine government: No investigation, no money. That’s extortion.
But Taylor had so much more to say. And his testimony shows there was more than one quid pro quo.
Throughout this spring and summer, Trump was using whatever leverage he had on Zelensky to force him to mount these political investigations. During this stretch, Zelensky and his aides desperately wanted a White House meeting with Trump—which would signal that despite Trump’s fondness for Vladimir Putin, the United States remained a strong partner of Ukraine, as it battled the Russian and Moscow-backed forces that had invaded eastern swaths of Ukraine. Yet Trump issued a condition: No investigation, no meeting. Taylor testified that he was informed that during a July 10 meeting between Ukrainian officials and top White House officials, Sondland told the Ukrainians that an Oval Office face to face between Zelensky and Trump was contingent on the “investigations.” (At that point in the meeting, John Bolton, then the national security adviser, abruptly ended the conversation, and top NSC official Fiona Hill told Taylor, according to his testimony, that Bolton later referred to this proposed arrangement as a “drug deal.”)
And Taylor had more to reveal about this. In September, Taylor testified, Sondland informed him that he, Sondland, had committed a mistake when he earlier had told the Ukrainians that a White House meeting between Trump and Zelensky was dependent on Zelensky publicly announcing these show investigations; instead, “everything,” including the withheld security assistance, was conditioned on such an announcement. Here was Sondland acknowledging there had been not one but two quid pro quos: the military money and a White House meeting, if Zelensky submitted to Trump’s demand.
Then there was the July 25 phone call between Trump and Zelensky. According to a reconstructed transcript released by the White House, when the Ukrainian president raised the subject of obtaining from the Trump administration more Javelin anti-tank missiles—which the Ukrainians could use against the Russian invaders in the east—Trump immediately responded with the now-infamous line: “I would like you to do us a favor though.” He then pushed Zelensky to investigate both that nutty theory about the 2016 election and “the other thing”—the Bidens. Trump and his GOP defenders have repeatedly said there was no quid pro quo in this call. That’s bunk. You want missiles? Then give me information I can use to clear the Russians and harm a political foe.
Add it up, and you have three quid pro quos. Or one huge quid pro quo with three distinct parts. The Ukrainians were looking for the security assistance that Congress had already authorized and the Pentagon had cleared for release. They desired a get-together in the Oval Office between Trump and Zelensky. And they wanted more Javelin missiles. In response to each of these requests, Trump said, first give me political dirt. And a crucial part of the deal would be Zelensky publicly proclaiming that the Bidens were under investigation, which in and of itself would taint Biden and create a controversy for him.
Taylor’s testimony is a strong indictment of Trump and the henchmen, including Rudy Giuliani, he used to muscle Zelensky. It details not an impetuous act but a monthslong campaign on Trump’s part to squeeze Zelensky, and Trump exploited US government policy and funds for this moblike extortion racket.
As for Trump’s reference to the whistleblower, that’s just Trump trying to change the subject. Though this anonymous CIA official who was detailed to the National Security Council kicked things off by submitting a complaint to the inspector general of the intelligence community, Taylor’s testimony, and the accounts of others who have appeared before the House Intelligence Committee, practically renders him irrelevant. Taylor’s opening statement matches the complaint and provides investigators an easy-to-read roadmap of where to go next: who to interview, what documents to seek. The whistleblower, in a way, is not needed at this point.
Trump and his gang will continue to ask questions about the whistleblower—with some pushing the notion that he is a part of the deep state plot to sabotage Trump—and raise other questions about how the investigation is being handled. (On Wednesday morning, a band of Republican House members stormed into a committee room used for classified and sensitive hearings in order to disrupt the deposition of a Pentagon official involved in Ukraine policy. They claim they were protesting the Democrats holding private interviews with witnesses, but there is nothing unusual about investigators conducting depositions in private—which was routinely done by the House Intelligence Committee when it was controlled by Republicans during its Russia investigation—and GOP members and staffers of the relevant committees are allowed to attend these sessions.) When the evidence is damning—and shows you’re a liar—assail the process. Or, in Trump’s case, declare black is white. In the Ukraine scandal, he is drowning in a sea of improper—and perhaps illegal—quid pro quos. Obviously, he and his cultists will stick with the playbook he used during the Trump-Russia scandal: Attack witnesses and investigators, distract with real or imagined side-issues, and deny reality. For the moment, though, reality may be catching up to Trump—and the investigation is not yet finished.
$500,000 MATCHING GIFT
In 2014, before Donald Trump announced his run for president, we knew we had to do something different to address the fundamental challenge facing journalism: how hard-hitting reporting that can hold the powerful accountable can survive as the bottom falls out of the news business.
Being a nonprofit, we started planning The Moment for Mother Jones, a special campaign to raise $25 million for key investments to make Mother Jones the strongest watchdog it can be. Five years later, readers have stepped up and contributed an astonishing $23 million in gifts and future pledges. This is an incredible statement from the Mother Jones community in the face of huge threats—both economic and political—against the free press.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/20 ... extortion/
by seemslikeadream » Thu Oct 24, 2019 5:06 pm
Ron Wyden
NEWS: I’m launching an investigation into the Halkbank scandal including whether Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani and President Erdogan worked to help the state-owned Turkish bank avoid criminal prosecution for exploiting U.S. financial institutions and engaging in money-laundering.
https://twitter.com/RonWyden/status/1187416712817336323
Mnuchin Asked by Top Senate Democrat to Detail Turkey Dealings
A top Democratic senator has asked Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to share information about his relations with Turkish officials as part of an inquiry into whether he or other members of President Donald Trump’s administration interfered with a U.S. criminal investigation into a Turkish state-owned bank.
Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the ranking Democrat on the finance committee, sent Mnuchin a letter on Wednesday raising concerns over “troubling reports” about the Treasury secretary’s alleged involvement with the treatment of Halkbank, one of Turkey’s largest banks.
Wyden referred to a Bloomberg News report published earlier this month that Trump assigned Mnuchin and Attorney General William Barr to deal with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s repeated pleas to avoid charges against Halkbank.
Earlier: Trump-Erdogan Call Led to Lengthy Quest to Avoid Halkbank Trial
In an April phone call, Trump told Erdogan that Mnuchin and Barr would handle the issue, according to people familiar with the matter. In the months that followed, no action was taken against Halkbank for its alleged involvement in a plan to evade sanctions on Iran. That changed when an undated indictment was unveiled last week -- a day after Trump imposed sanctions over Turkey’s military operation in northern Syria.
“The administration’s interference in favor of Turkey’s Halkbank requests could have undermined years of effort by U.S. law enforcement,” which dates back to 2012, Wyden wrote in a letter obtained by Bloomberg News.
Related: Trump Urged Tillerson to Help Giuliani Client Facing DOJ Charges
In 2017, Trump pressed then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to help persuade the Justice Department to drop a criminal case against Reza Zarrab, an Iranian-Turkish gold trader who was a client of Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, according to people familiar with the matter. Tillerson refused, saying it would be illegal.
“These reports are part of a larger story highlighting Trump’s efforts to accommodate the intense pressure campaign by the Turkish government to get investigations into Halkbank dropped,” Wyden said in the letter to Mnuchin.
He requested that Mnuchin share details of all interactions with Turkish officials since taking office. Wyden asked if Trump or anyone at the president’s direction asked Mnuchin to intervene with Turkish concerns regarding Halkbank, and whether the Treasury secretary ever appealed to the Justice Department on behalf of the bank.
Wyden set a Nov. 20 deadline for Mnuchin to respond.
Earlier this month, U.S. prosecutors filed criminal charges against Halkbank, accusing it of fraud, money laundering and violating U.S. sanctions against Iran. It’s unclear exactly when the Halkbank indictment was filed, raising questions about whether it was set aside until it became politically expedient for the Trump administration to unseal it.
The charges against Halkbank also come after years of public and private lobbying by Erdogan and other top Turkish officials -- starting in the Obama administration -- to get the investigations into violations of Iran sanctions dropped.
Earlier: Putin, Erdogan Strike Deal on Joint Patrols of the Syria Border
Wyden also sent separate letters to the chief executives of eight banks including JPMorgan Chase & Co., HSBC Holding Plc and Deutsche Bank AG that were identified in the indictment as “victim banks” tricked into processing barred transactions on behalf of Halkbank.
Wyden asked each bank to describe its relationship with Halkbank, due diligence policies and details about dollar transactions for foreign banks.
Published on Thursday, October 24, 2019 15:00:00
http://archive.is/B6utU#selection-3929.0-4391.42
Lawyers for Ukrainian oligarch have another client: The columnist who pushed Biden corruption claims
The privilege issue came up most recently in a New York court on Wednesday, when a lawyer for the recently indicted operative Lev Parnas said the White House might invoke executive privilege over evidence collected in the campaign finance investigation. That is because Giuliani was representing Parnas and Trump at the same time, said the lawyer, Edward MacMahon Jr.
“He was working for Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Giuliani was working for the president of the United States,” McMahon told the judge, U.S. District Court Judge Paul Oetken.
Solomon, a former op-ed columnist and executive vice president for The Hill who recently left to launch his own outlet, has written extensively about Hunter Biden’s activities in Ukraine and about Marie Yovanovitch, the veteran ambassador who was abruptly recalled in May amid a campaign by Trump’s allies—including Giuliani—to remove her. DiGenova and Toensing have appeared frequently as guests on Hill TV.
A series of articles Solomon published about Ukraine were mentioned in an anonymous complaint by an intelligence community whistleblower, which characterized Solomon’s work as part of the “circumstances leading up to” Trump’s July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. In that call, Trump asked Zelensky to investigate the Bidens and “get to the bottom of” Ukraine’s alleged interference in the 2016 election.
Solomon, who is now a Fox News contributor, also featured in documents the State Department’s Inspector General gave Congress earlier this month that revealed a campaign to smear Yovanovitch and the Bidens.
Included in the roughly 50-page packet was an email from Solomon to Toensing, diGenova, and Parnas previewing an article he’d written that was not yet published. The story claimed that the Obama administration had directed Ukrainian prosecutors to drop an investigation into a group “co-funded by both the Obama administration and the liberal megadonor George Soros.”
After that email became public, Solomon claimed he was simply fact-checking the piece before it was published. But Toensing, diGenova, and Parnas are not mentioned in the article, raising the possibility that the trio, who had been working to find evidence of wrongdoing by the Bidens in Ukraine, had been working directly with Solomon on the story.
Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election and corrupt pressure by the Obama administration on Ukrainian prosecutors are not the first unsubstantiated theories pushed by Toensing and diGenova that Solomon has advanced in his columns.
Solomon also wrote extensively about the Uranium One controversy, which alleged a link between a 2010 sale of U.S. uranium supplies and donations to the Clinton Foundation.
In October 2017, Solomon was the first to report on an informant who accused former secretary of state Hillary Clinton of helping a Russian company improperly obtain uranium mining rights—an informant being represented at the time by Toensing.
https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/2 ... ing-056643
Rudy Giuliani's Actions in Ukraine for Trump 'the Highest of High Crimes,' Says Law Professor
By Shane Croucher On 10/24/19 at 6:39 AM EDT
A Georgetown University law professor said the actions of Rudy Giuliani in Ukraine show that President Donald Trump has committed the "highest of high crimes" by abusing the power of his office to advance his own interests.
On Wednesday evening, Giuliani, who is Trump's personal lawyer, tweeted that "everything I did was to discover evidence to defend my client against false charges."
Responding to the tweet, Georgetown's Professor Marty Lederman wrote that it "confirms what was so outrageous," namely that Giuliani did not represent the United States but was operating solely in the interests of his client.
Trump is facing an impeachment inquiry over his conduct towards Ukraine. House Democrats accuse Trump of attempting to solicit the interference of a foreign government in the 2020 election for his own political advantage.
Giuliani has spent months chasing down spurious corruption allegations against former Vice President Joe Biden—a leading candidate for the 2020 Democratic nomination—and his son Hunter Biden, who sat on the board of a Ukrainian gas company.
The former New York City mayor was also pursuing a widely-debunked conspiracy theory that the DNC conspired with the cybersecurity company CrowdStrike to frame Russia for election meddling, and that the evidence is held on a server in Ukraine.
It was part of his effort to defend his client against special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, which concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to benefit Trump, though the probe did not establish a conspiracy between the Kremlin and the campaign.
Now, it has emerged that Trump asked Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to open investigations into both the Bidens and the CrowdStrike conspiracy theory in a July 25 phone call of which the White House released a summary.
During that call, Trump urged Zelenskiy to speak with Giuliani—who had no official capacity with the U.S. government—to discuss the potential investigations. Zelenskiy said his assistants had met with Giuliani and that he hoped to meet him when he comes to Ukraine.
Moreover, Bill Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat to Ukraine, testified to Congress that he thought Trump was dangling a potential White House meeting for Zelensky and withholding military aid from the country as leverage to ensure the investigations were opened and publicly announced.
It is evidence of a quid pro quo between the Trump and Zelensky regarding the investigations. Trump denies any wrongdoing and insists there was no quid pro quo.
This month, two of Giuliani's associates working with him in his Ukraine inquiries, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, were indicted on campaign finance charges.
They are accused of covertly funneling Russian money to U.S. political campaigns and using it to try to influence U.S.-Ukraine relations by pushing for the recall of the ambassador in Kyiv.
"With all the Fake News let me make it clear that everything I did was to discover evidence to defend my client against false charges," Giuliani wrote on Twitter last night. "Dems would be horrified by the attacks on me, if my client was a terrorist. But they don't believe @realDonaldTrump has rights. Justice will prevail."
Georgetown's Lederman wrote: "This merely confirms what was so outrageous: Giuliani wasn't a representative or employee of the United States; his duty of loyalty was 100% to his (personal capacity) client. And yet Trump told Ukraine it had to dance to Rudy's tune.
"A tune *designed to advance Trump's personal interests*--in order to remain in the U.S.'s good graces (e.g., to secure access, aid, etc.).
"This is the highest of high crimes—using the leverage of his position as chief diplomat to advance his own interests—and it's hard to imagine anything more inconsistent w/Trump's constitutional oath & duty and more revealing of his utter unfitness for office.
"And that'd be true *even if there were no quid pro quo* (but of course there was, which makes it all the worse)."
According to Article II, Section 4, of the U.S. Constitution: "The President, Vice President and all Civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."
Rudy Giuliani Ukraine Donald Trump CrowdStrike Biden
Former New York City Mayor and attorney to President Donald Trump Rudy Giuliani visits "Mornings With Maria" with anchor Maria Bartiromo at Fox Business Network Studios on September 23, 2019 in New York City. Roy Rochlin/Getty Images
https://www.newsweek.com/rudy-giuliani- ... or-1467451
Lawyers for Ukrainian oligarch have another client: The columnist who pushed Biden corruption claims
The privilege issue came up most recently in a New York court on Wednesday, when a lawyer for the recently indicted operative Lev Parnas said the White House might invoke executive privilege over evidence collected in the campaign finance investigation. That is because Giuliani was representing Parnas and Trump at the same time, said the lawyer, Edward MacMahon Jr.
“He was working for Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Giuliani was working for the president of the United States,” McMahon told the judge, U.S. District Court Judge Paul Oetken.
Solomon, a former op-ed columnist and executive vice president for The Hill who recently left to launch his own outlet, has written extensively about Hunter Biden’s activities in Ukraine and about Marie Yovanovitch, the veteran ambassador who was abruptly recalled in May amid a campaign by Trump’s allies—including Giuliani—to remove her. DiGenova and Toensing have appeared frequently as guests on Hill TV.
A series of articles Solomon published about Ukraine were mentioned in an anonymous complaint by an intelligence community whistleblower, which characterized Solomon’s work as part of the “circumstances leading up to” Trump’s July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. In that call, Trump asked Zelensky to investigate the Bidens and “get to the bottom of” Ukraine’s alleged interference in the 2016 election.
Solomon, who is now a Fox News contributor, also featured in documents the State Department’s Inspector General gave Congress earlier this month that revealed a campaign to smear Yovanovitch and the Bidens.
Included in the roughly 50-page packet was an email from Solomon to Toensing, diGenova, and Parnas previewing an article he’d written that was not yet published. The story claimed that the Obama administration had directed Ukrainian prosecutors to drop an investigation into a group “co-funded by both the Obama administration and the liberal megadonor George Soros.”
After that email became public, Solomon claimed he was simply fact-checking the piece before it was published. But Toensing, diGenova, and Parnas are not mentioned in the article, raising the possibility that the trio, who had been working to find evidence of wrongdoing by the Bidens in Ukraine, had been working directly with Solomon on the story.
Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election and corrupt pressure by the Obama administration on Ukrainian prosecutors are not the first unsubstantiated theories pushed by Toensing and diGenova that Solomon has advanced in his columns.
Solomon also wrote extensively about the Uranium One controversy, which alleged a link between a 2010 sale of U.S. uranium supplies and donations to the Clinton Foundation.
In October 2017, Solomon was the first to report on an informant who accused former secretary of state Hillary Clinton of helping a Russian company improperly obtain uranium mining rights—an informant being represented at the time by Toensing.
https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/2 ... ing-056643
Thomass4217
Bill Taylor says there existed an "irregular, informal channel of US policy-making" led by Sondland, Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, and Ambassador Kurt Volker, dubbed the "three amigos“
Taylor goes on to say that on June 27, Sondland told Taylor during a phone conversation that Zelenskyy needed to make clear to President Trump that he, President Zelenskyy, was not standing in the way of "investigations".
Bill Taylor opening statement..(page4)
Bill Taylor opening statement (page5)
"Ambassador Sondland told me on June 28 that he did not wish to include most of the regular interagency participants in a call planned with Zelenskyy later that day" and "he wanted to make sure no one was transcribing or monitoring
Bill Taylor opening statement (page6)
Bill Taylor opening statement (page7)
Bill Taylor opening statement (page8)
Bill Taylor opening statement (page9)
Bill Taylor opening statement (page 10)
Bill Taylor opening statement (page 11)
Bill Taylor opening statement (page 12)
Bill Taylor opening statement (page 13)
Bill Taylor opening statement (page 14)
Sondland said “everything “was dependent on such an announcement, including security assistance.
On a scale of 1 to 10, it’s an 11. https://twitter.com/neal_katyal/status/ ... 9720848384 …
Laura Cooper up today...
https://twitter.com/ThomasS4217/status/ ... 8505610242
Italy really doesn’t want to be part of Trump and Barr’s latest distraction scheme
Mark Sumner / Daily KosOctober 24, 2019
Italy is adamantly denying any involvement in events around the 2016 election and throwing cold water on ludicrous conspiracy theories that link a Maltese professor, a college in Rome, and the Democratic Party. And the reason that the actual prime minister of Italy feels compelled to step in and disown this fact-free story is that Attorney General William Barr has already been to Rome twice, trying to build a case that can save Donald Trump.
If it seems like Barr has been particularly quiet through the whole impeachment inquiry, that’s because he’s been busy. Barr has been busy refusing to do things—such as turn over clear campaign finance violations to the FEC—but he’s also been active on a more important front. Because Barr’s role now has shifted from simply misstating the findings of the Russia investigation and suppressing the Mueller report. Barr is the point man in generating the Great Distraction.
From well before he took office, Donald Trump has operated using an extreme form of the Gish gallop. He counts on making it difficult for the media and the public to come to terms with any scandal he produces by simply starting two new scandals in the morning. That constant breaking of barriers of propriety, decency, and law makes it difficult for anyone to focus long on any single crime—and thrills the Trump supporters who have filed away the whole idea of having morals under the sneering label “politically correct.”
But in the current impeachment inquiry, Trump has been wrong-footed. Democrats have responded quickly to the whistleblower complaint, lined up witnesses, and run an efficient process that doesn’t give him lots of holes to fill with random nonsense. Of equal importance, Trump’s hold over executive branch employees has decidedly weakened, with State Department and Defense Department officials actually responding to congressional subpoenas over the objections of the White House. The result is that the press really is able to stay on topic, and the hole under Trump just keeps getting deeper.
Sure, Trump can send in the clowns to turn the House hearing room into a one-day circus, but that’s far from a long-term solution. What he needs is a distraction to end all distractions, a table-turning, foot-stomping, lock-‘er-up chanting story that allows him to prove every conspiracy theory from Q to Z. And that’s where Barr comes in.
As The New York Times reports, Barr has made two trips to Italy to meet with leaders of intelligence agencies in his pursuit of the great political snark. And he’s brought his hand-chosen “investigator” into the origins of the Russian investigator, John Durham, along for the ride.
Why Italy? Because the Maltese professor Joseph Mifsud and George Papadopoulos, a former member of Trump’s foreign policy advisory panel, first met at a small university outside Rome. A university that has since become the focus of an elaborate, but utterly unsubstantiated, set of right-wing fantasies. Those fantasies, which bubbled up from the Pizzagate/Q layers of the alt-right, insists that Mifsud isn’t a professor at all. He’s an intelligence operative put in place by an incredibly elaborate Obama administration plot to provide an excuse to spy on the Trump campaign. Trump isn’t just asking someone to check into this silly thing; he’s regularly bringing it up. Like Hunter Biden taking a billion out of China, this has no connection to reality, but Mifsud-the-CIA-plant has become a regular part of Trump’s talking points.
Why is the attorney general is relegated to playing Hardy Boys rather than turning this over to actual intelligence officials? Because Trump knows what Barr can do. Barr has demonstrated his ability to capture real information, shove it into a bottle labeled “Executive Privilege,” and churn out a not-a-summary that distorts that information to Trump’s advantage. Trump doesn’t need an investigator. He needs someone who can breathe some life into his conspiracy theories, even if they’re obviously dead.
Just as with the events in Ukraine, Trump doesn’t want an actual investigation. He just wants an announcement. A very big announcement. Because, as demonstrated in just the last two weeks, even turning over allies to be driven from their homes and murdered on the roadside by ISIS-connected militia is an insufficient distraction for Trump at this point. That Trump is going to be impeached before the end of the year is now more certain than that the Nationals are going to win Game 2 of the World Series. And yes, they already won.
What Trump needs, what he is absolutely counting on, is for Barr and Durham to hold a press conference and declare the shocking, shocking truth—that Mifsud was put in place even before Trump announced his candidacy on the off chance that he would have a conversation with a Trump adviser, who would then express his eagerness for Russian kompromat, and would finally brag about his Moscow access to an Australian diplomat, who would then inform the CIA. Because Democrats are super, super good at these schemes.
But if Barr keeps on traveling, Trump might need to get worried. Because his attorney general might not be looking for a Great Distraction. He could be searching for a Great Escape.
https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/italy- ... on-scheme/
by seemslikeadream » Fri Oct 25, 2019 10:10 am
United States of America v. Rudolph W. Giuliani
Former U.S. Attorneys draft a "Mock Indictment" based on publicly available evidence of Giuliani's misconduct.
[Editor’s note: What follows is a sort of thought experiment. What would an indictment of Rudy Giuliani look like based on the current, publicly available evidence of his misconduct on matters involving Ukraine? The authors, both former United States Attorneys, drafted such a “mock indictment” of Giuliani in which the President (Individual-1) appears as an alleged co-conspirator). McQuade and Vance’s preface follows.]
While the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel has issued legal opinions that a sitting president cannot be indicted, there is no similar prohibition on indicting a president’s personal lawyer or other potential co-conspirators involved in committing a federal crime. Based on facts already in the public record, we believe that Rudolph Giuliani could be indicted now for conspiracy to interfere with the fair administration of elections, conspiracy to commit bribery, and contempt of Congress. Below is what an indictment of Giuliani might look like if it were drafted today.
It’s important to note that we are, to some degree, speculating here. We are considering charges that could be brought against Giuliani, using publicly available information. Prosecutors obviously don’t do this. They use only evidence that they are confident is correct and that they believe will be admissible in court. And their sense of the evidence will be more nuanced that what is publicly available. Nonetheless, with so much information now available, it is helpful to understand the seriousness of Giuliani’s conduct by seeing how it lines up to the crimes proscribed by the federal criminal code and whether there is evidence of criminality in what Ambassador Bill Taylor called the “irregular channel” for conducting foreign policy in Ukraine that involved Giuliani and others. (Taylor, a former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, currently heads the U.S. embassy in Ukraine as Chief of Mission.)
The three counts we outline represent just the crimes that could be proven by the public record alone. No doubt, if Giuliani is under investigation, prosecutors would want to probe additional potential crimes relating to his role, if any, in the recent campaign finance scheme charged against his associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman. It is entirely possible, but not yet clear, that some or all of those counts could be superseded to add Giuliani as a defendant. Prosecutors would also want to consider whether Giuliani was acting as an unregistered foreign agent in violation of the law when, as reported, he asked then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to intervene in the criminal prosecution of Reza Zarrab, a Turkey-based businessman, for money laundering and violation of U.S. sanctions on Iran.
Of course, a grand jury investigation related to the allegations we focus on here could uncover additional aggravating or mitigating facts that would inform potential charges against Giuliani. Prosecutors would likely use grand jury subpoenas and court orders to obtain Giuliani’s bank records and income tax returns to identify his sources of income and movement of money. Prosecutors would also interview individuals with knowledge of Giuliani’s activity, perhaps including some of the same former and current State Department officials who have been testifying before Congress.
In addition, prosecutors could offer cooperation deals to Parnas and Fruman, as well as to their less visible co-defendants David Correia and Andrey Kukushkin. If they were to promise to plead guilty to their crimes and provide truthful and comprehensive information, prosecutors could offer to make that information known to the sentencing judge and recommend a reduction in their sentences. Prosecutors would then work to corroborate the testimony of the cooperators, whose testimony is subject to skepticism because of the benefit they receive in exchange. If their testimony can be supported by the testimony of other witnesses or documents, such as phone or bank records, then they could be used as important narrators to the case that is presented at trial against Giuliani.
Only after the entire investigation of Giuliani is complete would prosecutors decide whether to charge, and if so, which violations to include in an indictment. We do so here without the benefit of facts known only to investigators and protected by grand jury secrecy rules. There could be mitigating facts or defenses that are not publicly known that would cause us to decline to file charges. And, as with any indictment, a defendant is presumed innocent until he is proven guilty at trial beyond a reasonable doubt.
When making charging decisions, prosecutors ask not only whether a crime has been committed, but whether a substantial federal interest would be advanced by filing charges. We believe that the charges contained here represent a substantial federal interest. An individual who conspires to inject foreign interference into a U.S. election attacks the very heart of democracy. Our laws prohibit foreign influence in our elections because our founding fathers believed that only American citizens should decide who holds public office in the United States, and we recognize that foreign governments and their citizens act in their own interests, not ours. Criminal cases are prosecuted for several reasons, including deterring illegal conduct, promoting respect for the rule of law, and protecting public safety. A prosecution here would advance all of these important goals.
A few observations on the charge for contempt of Congress deserve mention. Giuliani’s refusal to comply with a subpoena for documents, which was issued by the three House Committees conducting the impeachment inquiry, is a criminal offense. In a letter to the Committees, Giuliani stated that he would not comply with the subpoena because it is part of an “unconstitutional, baseless and illegitimate ‘impeachment inquiry.'” Witnesses may challenge the scope of a subpoena as harassing, oppressive or overly broad by filing a motion to quash in court. They may not simply ignore the subpoena and defy Congress’s authority as one of three co-equal branches of government. The Constitution gives the power of impeachment to the House, and allows it to fashion its own rules for handling impeachment. There is no requirement that the full House take a vote before it may begin an impeachment inquiry, and the House has the authority to investigate any matter on which it may act, including impeachment. Giuliani’s conduct violates the federal criminal statute prohibiting witnesses from defying subpoenas issued by Congress or its committees. A subpoenaed witness before Congress can no more ignore a subpoena than can a witness in a federal trial. To permit individuals to selectively ignore such legal processes because they don’t want to comply, no matter who they are and who they represent, is a slippery slope to a lawless society.
However, before a U.S. Attorney may charge a witness with contempt of Congress, the contempt statute requires the completion of certain technical steps. The Committees must report the failure of the witness to comply with the subpoena to the House and the Speaker of the House, who must then certify the statement of facts regarding the failure to comply to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.
Two final thoughts about the form of the mock indictment that follows.
If this were an actual indictment, many of the names would be replaced with generic identifiers, such as Candidate-1 or Company-A. The Justice Department requires this practice to protect the reputations of individuals and entities that are not charged with any crimes. A jury is told the identities of these individuals and entities at trial. We have left the names in the indictment, however, for clarity for readers. We refer to President Donald Trump as Individual-1, an unindicted co-conspirator.
At paragraph 2, we describe Giuliani as an agent as well as an attorney for Individual-1 to make it clear that not all of their communications will be protected by the attorney-client privilege. This privilege is limited to communications between a lawyer and client for the purposes of obtaining legal advice, and does not protect communications regarding an ongoing scheme to commit a crime or fraud. Nor does it protect communications that have been divulged to others.
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
*
*
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
v.
RUDOLPH W. GIULIANI,
Defendant
*
*
*
CRIMINAL NO.
(18 U.S.C. §§ 371, 201; 2 U.S.C. § 192)
*
*
*
MOCK INDICTMENT
(A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT)
The Grand Jury for the District of Columbia charges:
COMMON ALLEGATIONS
Introduction
1. The United States of America, through its departments and agencies, regulates the activities of foreign individuals and entities in and affecting the United States in order to prevent, disclose, and counteract improper foreign influence on U.S. elections and on the U.S. political system. The Federal Election Commission is a federal agency that administers the Federal Election Campaign Act (“FECA”). Among other things, the FECA prohibits foreign nationals from making certain expenditures or financial disbursements for the purpose of influencing federal elections, and prohibits any person from soliciting, accepting or receiving a thing of value from a foreign national in connection with a federal, state or local election. 52 U.S.C. § 30121(a)(2).
2. At all times relevant to this Indictment, defendant RUDOLPH W. GIULIANI was a private U.S. citizen licensed to practice law in the State of New York. At all times relevant to this indictment, Defendant GIULIANI was acting as an agent of Individual-1. In or about April 2018, defendant GIULIANI became a personal attorney for Individual-1.
3. At all times relevant to this Indictment, Individual-1 was a public official, and a declared candidate for the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
Events in Ukraine
4. Ukraine is an independent foreign nation state that borders Russia and is a former Soviet Republic.
5. In or around March 2014, Russia invaded Ukraine and purported to annex the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia continued to occupy at all times relevant to this Indictment. The following month, Russian forces invaded the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk and, with support of certain local forces, took control, starting a war that has continued at all times relevant to this Indictment and has killed more than 13,000 people. As a result of the Russian invasions, the United States imposed economic sanctions on Russia, the United Nations refused to recognize the new government in Crimea, and the inter-governmental political forum of industrialized nations known as the Group of 8 (“G-8”) expelled Russia and became known as the “G-7.”
6. In or around April 2014, Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice President Joe Biden, joined the board of Burisma Holdings, an oil and gas company in Ukraine. Joe Biden is a candidate for president in 2020. Burisma was founded in 2002 by Mykola Zlochevsky, who had served as a cabinet member in the administrations of pro-Russian presidents of Ukraine.
7. In or around August 2014, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Vitaly Yarema opened an investigation of Zlochevsky on suspicion of “unlawful enrichment.”
8. On or about October 14, 2014, the Ukrainian parliament passed a law establishing the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (“NABU”) to combat public corruption. NABU was created in part because of the recognized ineffectiveness and corruption of the Prosecutor General’s Office.
9. In or around February 2015, Viktor Shokin became the Prosecutor General of Ukraine. Throughout late 2015 and early 2016, U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, and Vice President Biden were critical of Shokin for failing to pursue corruption investigations, explicitly including investigations of Zlochevsky.
10. In or around March 2016, Shokin was dismissed as Prosecutor General.
11. On or about May 12, 2016, Yuriy Lutsenko was appointed Prosecutor General.
12. In or around September 2016, a court in Kyiv, Ukraine, ordered the case against Zlochevsky closed because no evidence of wrongdoing had been presented.
13. On or about September 28, 2018, the U.S. Congress passed a spending bill for the Department of Defense that included $250 million in military aid under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative to help Ukraine contain Russian aggression in Crimea and other parts of the sovereign territory of Ukraine.
14. In or around March 2019, Lutsenko opened investigations into the 2016 presidential election and Burisma.
15. In or around April 2019, Hunter Biden resigned from the Board of Burisma.
16. On April 21, 2019, Volodomyr Zelenskyy was elected President of Ukraine.
17. On April 25, 2019, Joe Biden announced his candidacy for President.
18. On or about May 18, 2019, Ukraine Prosecutor General Lutsenko said that he had no evidence of wrongdoing by Hunter Biden or Joe Biden, and that neither of the Bidens nor Burisma were the focus of any investigations.
19. On or about May 20, 2019, U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was publicly recalled from Ukraine and removed from her post.
20. On or about June 18, 2019, the Department of Defense announced the $250 million plan “for additional training, equipment, and advisory efforts to build the capacity of Ukraine’s armed forces.”
21. On or about August 28, 2019, it was reported that another $141 million was included in the military aid package for Ukraine, for a total of $391 million.
22. On or about September 12, 2019, the military aid funds were released to Ukraine.
COUNT ONE
(Conspiracy to Defraud the United States)
23. Paragraphs 1 through 22 of this Indictment are re-alleged and incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein.
24. From in or around June 2017 to the present, in the District of Columbia and elsewhere, Defendant RUDOLPH W. GIULIANI and Individual-1, together and with others known and unknown to the Grand Jury, knowingly and intentionally conspired to defraud the United States by impairing, obstructing, and defeating the lawful functions of the Federal Election Commission in administering federal requirements that prohibit soliciting, accepting or receiving a thing of value from a foreign national in connection with a federal election.
Object of the Conspiracy
25. The conspiracy had as its object impairing, obstructing, and defeating the lawful governmental functions of the United States by dishonest means in order to interfere with the U.S. political and electoral process, including the 2020 presidential election.
Manner and Means of the Conspiracy
26. Starting in or around June 2017, defendant GIULIANI and his co-conspirators began to negotiate with representatives of the Government of Ukraine to obtain a public announcement that it was investigating (a) whether Ukrainians, US officials, and Democrats had conspired to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and (b) whether Burisma had been involved in corruption in connection to the Bidens.
27. Defendant GIULIANI participated in meetings with representatives of the Government of Ukraine to advance these negotiations.
28 Defendant GIULIANI kept Indvidual-1 informed of his negotiations with representatives of the Government of Ukraine.
Overt Acts
29. In furtherance of the Conspiracy, and to effect its illegal object, defendant GIULIANI and Individual-1, along with their co-conspirators, committed the following overt acts, as well as those set forth in paragraphs 1 through 28, which are re-alleged and incorporated by reference as though fully set forth herein.
30. On or about June 8, 2017, defendant GIULIANI met with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Lutsenko in Ukraine.
31. In or around late 2018, defendant GIULIANI spoke with Shokin via Skype, a videoconferencing application.
32. In or around late 2018, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman connected defendant GIULIANI and Lutsenko. GIULIANI spoke with Lutsenko by telephone on several occasions, urging Lutsenko to open an investigation into Biden and Burisma, and inviting him to meet at his office in New York.
33. In or around January 2019, defendant GIULIANI asked the U.S. Department of State to grant a visa to Shokin to come to the United States.
34. In or around January 2019, defendant GIULIANI met with Lutsenko in New York multiple timesover a period of two or three days. During those meetings, GIULIANI asked Lutsenko about investigations into Zlochevsky and whether the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, was loyal to President Trump.
35. In or around January 2019, during a meeting with Lutsenko, defendant GIULIANI telephoned Individual-1 to brief him on what he had learned.
36. In or around February 2019, defendant GIULIANI, with Parnas, met with Lutsenko in Warsaw, Poland.
37. On or about March 20, 2019, Individual-1 posted on Twitter a news article about a Ukrainian “plot” to help Hillary Clinton win the 2016 election. GIULIANI tweeted, “Keep your eye on Ukraine.”
38. On or about April 21, 2019, Individual-1 telephoned Zelenskyy to congratulate him, and urged him to pursue investigations of corruption.
39. In or around May 2019, GIULIANI planned a trip to Ukraine, and publicly discussed his plans of “meddling in an investigation,” stating that he planned to tell Ukrainian officials “that information will be very, very helpful to my client, and may turn out to be helpful to my government.” GIULIANI canceled the trip after Zelenskyy refused to meet with him.
40. On May 11, 2019, GIULIANI stated in a cable television news interview that Zelenskyy was “surrounded by, literally, enemies of the president.” He repeated this allegation several times in the interview.
41. On or about May 18, 2019, defendant GIULIANI posted on Twitter that President Zelenskyy “has surrounded himself with some people that are enemies of Pres. Trump.”
42. In or around May 2019, defendant GIULIANI, with Parnas and Fruman, met with Ukraine’s Special Anticorruption Prosecutor, Nazar Kholodnytskyy, and a former Ukrainian diplomat, Andriy Telizhenko, in Paris, France.
43. On May 23, 2019, Individual-1 directed three senior U.S. officials to talk with GIULIANI about Individual-1’s concerns about Ukraine in response to requests for a White House meeting with Zelenskyy.
44. On or about June 21, 2019, defendant GIULIANI posted on Twitter, “New Pres of Ukraine still silent on investigation of Ukrainian interference in 2016 election and alleged Biden bribery of Pres Poroshenko. Time for leadership and investigate both if you want to purge how Ukraine was abused by Hillary and Obama people.”
45. In or about early to mid-July 2019, Individual-1 directed a subordinate to hold back approximately $391 million in military aid to Ukraine.
46. On or about July 19, 2019, defendant GIULIANI spoke by telephone to Andriy Yermak, an aide to Zelenskyy. During the call, they discussed Individual-1’s demands for investigations and Zelenskyy’s desire for a meeting with Individual-1.
47. On or about July 25, 2019, Individual-1 spoke by telephone to Zelenskyy, telling him that “the United States have been very, very good to Ukraine” but that the relationship has not been “reciprocal.” During the call, Individual-1 asked for investigations into Ukrainian interference into the 2016 U.S. presidential election and the Bidens, and told Zelenskyy several times to coordinate with GIULIANI.
48. On or about August 2, 2019, defendant GIULIANI met with Yermak in Madrid, Spain, to persuade Ukraine to investigate the Bidens and Ukrainian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
All in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 371.
COUNT TWO
(Conspiracy to Commit Bribery)
49. Paragraphs 1 through 48 of this Indictment are re-alleged and incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein.
50. From in or around June 2017 to the present, in the District of Columbia and elsewhere, Defendant RUDOLPH W. GIULIANI and Individual-1, a public official, conspired with each other and others known and unknown to the Grand Jury to corruptly seek a thing of value, that is, an agreement by the government of Ukraine to publicly announce that it was investigating certain matters that were favorable to Individual-1’s political campaign, in return for being influenced in the performance of an official act, that is, releasing to Ukraine military aid that had been approved by Congress.
All in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Sections 201(b)(2)(A) and 371.
COUNT THREE
(Contempt of Congress)
51. On or about October 15, 2019, in the District of Columbia, Defendant RUDOLPH W. GIULIANI, having been summoned by the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the United States House of Representatives, the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and the Committee on Oversight and Reform to produce documents pertaining to an impeachment inquiry, willfully made default, in violation of Title 2, United States Code, Section 192.
____________________________
United States Attorney
District of Columbia
A TRUE BILL:
_________________________
Foreperson
Date:
[For further details on the “Events in Ukraine,” as outlined in the mock indictment, see Just Security‘s timeline.]
White House delayed Ukraine trade decision in August, a signal that U.S. suspension of cooperation extended beyond security funds
The White House’s trade representative in late August withdrew a recommendation to restore some of Ukraine’s trade privileges after John Bolton, then-national security adviser, warned him that President Trump probably would oppose any action that benefited the government in Kyiv, according to people briefed on the matter.
The warning to Robert E. Lighthizer came as Trump was withholding $391 million in military aid and security assistance from Ukraine. House Democrats have launched an impeachment inquiry into allegations that the president did so to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the business activities of former vice president Joe Biden’s son Hunter. As part of the inquiry, lawmakers are closely scrutinizing the White House’s actions between July and September.
The August exchange between Bolton and Lighthizer over the trade matter represents the first indication that the administration’s suspension of assistance to Ukraine extended beyond the congressionally authorized military aid and security assistance to other government programs. It is not clear whether Trump directed Bolton to intervene over Ukraine’s trade privileges or was even aware of the discussion.
“It was pulled back shortly before it was going to POTUS’s desk,” one administration official said, referring to the Ukraine paperwork and using an acronym for the U.S. president. “Bolton intervened with Lighthizer to block it.”
In response to questions from The Washington Post, another administration official said the presidential proclamation about the trade status of Ukraine and two other nations had been held up for several weeks in the office of the White House staff secretary as part of a routine “country review process.”
One former U.S. government official said the president wanted “the total elimination” of the global trade program at issue. Known as the “generalized system of preferences,” or GSP, it allows 120 countries to ship roughly 1.5 percent of total U.S. imports without paying tariffs.
But in March 2018, Trump signed legislation reauthorizing the program through 2020, and Lighthizer in recent weeks has been negotiating with India over restoring its GSP status, which was suspended in March.
Bolton resigned Sept. 10, one day before the administration released the military aid under pressure from lawmakers.
In early October, nearly two months after withdrawing the initial effort to restore Ukraine’s trade privileges, Lighthizer sent the necessary paperwork to the White House for a second time. He later withdrew it again, on Oct. 17, amid an intensifying storm over the president’s policy toward Ukraine.
The administration now plans to include the restoration of some of Ukraine’s suspended privileges in a package of trade measures slated for release this month, a person briefed on the planning said.
This account is based on interviews with 10 current and former administration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. Through a spokeswoman, Bolton declined to comment. The White House declined to comment. Lighthizer’s office did not respond to requests for comment.
Bolton’s intervention came as the president was telling White House aides that any assistance for Ukraine depended upon Zelensky publicly stating that his government would investigate Hunter Biden’s role as a board member of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, according to congressional testimony this week by acting U.S. ambassador William B. Taylor Jr.
“The president doesn’t want to provide any assistance at all,” Taylor said Tim Morrison, the National Security Council’s top Russia official, told him Aug. 22.
Five days later, Bolton arrived in Kyiv for a meeting with Zelensky. And Sept. 1, Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union and coordinator of the administration’s Ukraine policy, told Taylor that “everything” depended upon Zelensky saying publicly that he would investigate Joe Biden and allegations of Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, Taylor told the House impeachment inquiry Tuesday.
Bolton did not share Trump’s view that Ukraine might be a source of damaging political information, but he was privy to weeks of back-and-forth within the administration and in Kyiv about the military aid.
Taylor testified Tuesday that Bolton was “so irritated” by a linkage between “investigations” and a proposed meeting between Trump and Zelensky that he had shut down a July 10 gathering at the White House about Ukraine policy and told National Security Council staffers there “that they should have nothing to do with domestic politics.”
Bolton also had instructed the then-head of Russia policy at the NSC to “brief the lawyers,” according to a copy of Taylor’s opening statement obtained by The Washington Post.
At issue in Bolton’s warning over the trade privileges was Lighthizer’s recommendation to the White House that the president reinstate Ukraine’s ability to export some products to the United States on a duty-free basis. Roughly a third of Ukraine’s benefits under the program was suspended in December 2017 amid long-standing concerns that the country was routinely violating U.S. intellectual property rights.
That suspension took effect in May 2018. After the Ukrainian government then took steps to address the U.S. criticism, such as by passing a law to improve the collection of copyright royalties, officials in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative considered allowing the country to regain about a third of its suspended duty-free privileges.
Over the summer, USTR officials reached out to the International Intellectual Property Alliance, or IIPA, an industry coalition that had filed the initial complaint against Ukraine, to ask if it would object if the government restored some of Ukraine’s GSP rights. IIPA represents copyright holders in the music, film, book and software industries who are being cheated out of millions of dollars in royalty payments.
Long a haven for piracy, Ukraine was one of 11 countries this year listed on USTR’s priority watch list for intellectual property violations. U.S. officials say Ukrainian government offices often use counterfeit software. Black-market operators produce pirated physical and digital products. Some claim to represent copyright holders and collect royalty payments on their behalf but then fail to distribute them to the artists.
“We were supportive of the U.S. government decision one way or the other,” said Eric Schwartz, an attorney representing IIPA.
The USTR’s decision to partially suspend Ukraine’s duty-free privileges affected products such as chocolate bars, helium, mushrooms, deodorant and telescopic gun sights, according to a 2017 Federal Register notice.
The partial suspension dramatically affected U.S. imports of those individual products. Ukrainian chocolate shipments to the United States last year fell by more than half, to $110,000 from $247,500, according to the U.S. International Trade Commission’s online database.
But Ukraine is a minor participant in the GSP program, and its partial suspension carried modest financial consequences. Of the country’s $1.4 billion in sales to American customers last year, just $51 million entered the United States via the duty-free program.
India, which also has been suspended from the program, is its largest beneficiary, with $6.3 billion in U.S. sales last year.
“We really haven’t heard much about this suspension from the Ukraine side,” said Morgan Williams, president of the U.S.-Ukraine Business Council. “We think they ought to be more interested in it.”
Over the years, various Ukrainian governments have failed to follow through on repeated promises to tighten their enforcement of intellectual property rights. At a USTR hearing in September 2017, Vitalii Tarasiuk, head of the economics and trade office at the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, said intellectual property protection was “one of the top priorities” for their government.
He also said “ongoing Russian aggression” limited the resources Kyiv could devote to improving its intellectual property environment.
Trump took office pledging to crack down on foreign countries that had taken advantage of the United States in trade. Even as he confronted major trading partners such as China and the European Union, the president dispatched Lighthizer to address shortcomings in smaller trade programs.
Three days before Christmas 2017, the president cracked down on Ukraine for a chronic failure to “provide adequate and effective protection of intellectual property rights (IPR) despite years of encouragement and assistance from the U.S. Government,” according to a USTR statement at the time.
“President Trump has sent a clear message that the United States will vigorously enforce eligibility criteria for preferential access to the U.S. market,” Lighthizer said in announcing the move. “Beneficiary countries choose to either work with USTR to meet trade preference eligibility criteria or face enforcement actions. The administration is committed to ensuring that other countries keep their end of the bargain in our trade relationships.”
The administration delayed the effective date of the partial suspension for 120 days, saying Ukraine “has a viable path to remedy the situation, including improving the current legal regime governing royalty reimbursement to right holders’ organizations.”
When Kyiv failed to act quickly enough, the administration implemented the partial cutoff April 26, 2018. Ukraine subsequently passed legislation to address some of the White House’s concerns. The measure was welcomed by U.S. industry and government officials. But it left in place existing rogue operators, many with government connections, a major shortcoming in the eyes of American critics.
Still, U.S. officials, with industry support, thought it made sense to reward Ukraine’s efforts by restoring to duty-free status some of the products that had been eliminated last year.
Per routine practice, Lighthizer’s recommendation was reviewed widely in the administration this year, including at the Office of Management and Budget and the State Department. The formal paperwork was sent to the White House staff secretary’s office but never advanced to the president’s desk for a signature, officials said.
In response to questions, a senior administration official last month said the Ukraine decision had been delayed as part of a routine review. This month, the Ukraine announcement was set to be packaged with separate trade actions involving Thailand and Mali, and was readied for action.
Then as the Ukraine-focused House impeachment inquiry gathered steam, Lighthizer yanked the Ukraine recommendation for a second time.
Dan Balz, Anne Gearan and Shane Harris in Washington and David Stern in Kyiv contributed to this report.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business ... story.html
LEGAL
Giuliani probe snowballs
The Justice Department’s criminal division in Washington is bringing more resources to an investigation that grew out of New York, indicating widening trouble for one of Trump's lawyers.
By DARREN SAMUELSOHN
10/25/2019 05:07 AM EDT
Rudy Giuliani’s problems keep piling up.
His responsibilities are shrinking as Donald Trump’s TV-friendly personal attorney. His efforts to dig up dirt on the president’s political opponents have landed his highest-profile client in a congressional impeachment investigation. And two of his foreign-born business associates are headed to trial on charges that are part of a broader effort by federal prosecutors eyeing Giuliani himself.
The scrutiny isn’t just coming from the previously known probes by FBI agents and the U.S. attorney’s office based out of Manhattan, according to two people familiar with the investigation. The criminal division of the Justice Department in Washington has taken an interest in the former New York mayor, too, meaning an expansion of resources that indicates the politically sensitive probe into the president’s personal attorney is both broader and moving at a faster pace than previously understood.
Story Continued Below
Adding DOJ’s criminal division to the Giuliani probe is sure to place additional scrutiny on William Barr, who as attorney general has final say over all department business. Already, Barr’s reputation has taken hits over his handling of the public rollout on Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, with Democrats complaining he spun the special counsel’s findings earlier this year to give them a pro-Trump flavor.
Giuliani’s troubles aren’t just his alone. He has turned members of the Trump team he’s worked with over the last 18 months into potential witnesses for federal prosecutors, who are trying to unravel the tangled relationships he brought to the mix in advising the president while still juggling an international consulting business that promised proximity to the White House.
“He appears to be a subject, if not a target of an active investigation. So to have him be a part of the legal team would be troublesome to say the least,” said Greg Brower, who served as the FBI’s top liaison to Congress until 2018. “At best, it’s a messy situation and more likely it’s just completely dysfunctional.”
Notably, Giuliani was not at the White House earlier this week when his fellow Trump lawyers met with the president for a brief impeachment strategy session. Heeding concerns long vocalized by many of the president’s aides and outside allies that his media interviews were hurting the president, Giuliani has made no primetime television network appearances over the past two weeks.
Giuliani’s only public comment in recent days was a cryptic Wednesday-evening tweet, in which he said, “everything I did was to discover evidence to defend my client against false charges.”
Rudy Giuliani
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@RudyGiuliani
With all the Fake News let me make it clear that everything I did was to discover evidence to defend my client against false charges.Dems would be horrified by the attacks on me, if my client was a terrorist.But they don’t believe @realDonaldTrump has rights. Justice will prevail
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The pullback comes as Democratic impeachment investigators circle Giuliani. They’ve collected testimony for several weeks from witnesses who put the president’s lawyer at the center of a campaign to leverage U.S. military and diplomatic might in exchange for foreign assistance from Ukraine that could help Trump win a second term.
Lawmakers’ hyperfocus on Giuliani prompted a decision by Trump’s legal team to sideline its most famous member from handling any Ukraine matters as part of the president’s defense should Democrats advance a specific article of impeachment addressing the subject, according to a person familiar with the lawyers’ strategy.
Giuliani did not respond to questions for this story. But in a series of text messages earlier this month he downplayed his Ukraine work and insisted he could continue in his role as a Trump lawyer amid all of the scrutiny.
“I was never in Ukraine at all and my investigatory work was done when it was still possible Mueller would charge Russian collusion. Almost all of it was published in the Hill, so [Trump] and everyone else was aware of it," Giuliani said in an Oct. 18 message. "Hardly anything not public.”
"Since the public record is more extensive than what I did, he and all of you probably think I did more than I really did," Giuliani added then.
A few days earlier, on Oct. 12, Giuliani argued that his role on the Trump legal team shouldn’t be disrupted just because he’s resisting a Democratic-approved subpoena for documents.
“You can't get a lawyer replaced by sending them a questionable request not for testimony but documents some or all of which are clearly covered by attorney client privilege,” Giuliani wrote. “At most it could be raised as a bar to participating in that proceeding but not general representation.”
“Finally the only reason they are doing this is to target me, as I knew they would, because I am making pay a very heavy price for this process devoid of even a fig leaf of due process. Supreme Court decision have held that due process applies even to Congressional hearings,” he added.
DOJ officials have declined comment for weeks about any specific investigation into the president’s lawyer, who during the Reagan administration served first as the nation’s No. 3 law enforcement official and then as the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.
But they’ve sent plenty of signals that Giuliani may want to lawyer up himself — a back-channel effort has been underway for more than a week to help find him an attorney — as speculation swirls that he could face charges on everything from violating federal statutes dealing with bribery, foreign lobbying registration and disclosure to making false statements to government officials.
Jay Sekulow, the longest-serving member of the Trump legal team, rejected the idea that Giuliani was in any kind of legal jeopardy. He also dismissed questions that Giuliani had put the rest of the president’s outside lawyers into any kind of bind.
“We have no concerns about any of that,” Sekulow told POLITICO. “He’s a member in good standing of the president’s legal team.”
There’s also the question of a $500,000 payment Giuliani has publicly acknowledged receiving for work he did on behalf of a company owned by his two businessmen associates who are now facing federal campaign finance charges.
That case surfaced publicly earlier this month when the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan charged the two men — Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman — with orchestrating an alleged scheme to buy political influence on behalf of a Ukrainian government official and a Russian businessman. Both men pleaded not guilty during an arraignment Wednesday in New York where one of the topics of discussion among the lawyers and presiding judge centered around the defendants’ work for Giuliani and possible assertions of attorney-client and executive privilege.
Rebekah Donaleski, an assistant U.S. attorney from SDNY prosecuting the Parnas-Fruman case, said at the court hearing that the government’s “investigation is ongoing.” Later, she raised the specter that Giuliani’s communications might have been picked up by the FBI during the probe by noting investigators had obtained information related to at least a dozen telephone numbers, as well as email and social media accounts.
Giuliani has traveled extensively in the U.S. and abroad with Parnas over the last year, according to interviews and a series of photographs Parnas posted to his Instagram account that were made public earlier this week by the Wall Street Journal. One picture from late March taken at the Trump International Hotel in Washington included a caption Parnas wrote saying he was at a “celebration dinner” with Giuliani and other members of the Trump legal team, including Sekulow, Martin Raskin and Jane Raskin. It was posted a day after Barr released a controversial four-page memo summarizing Mueller’s Russia investigation that the special counsel would go on to criticize as failing to “fully capture the context, nature and substance” of his work.
Sekulow said he didn’t speak with Parnas at the event and downplayed the significance of the photograph posted from the March dinner at the Trump hotel. “He could have been at the dinner. I have no idea,” Sekulow said. “There were a lot of people at the event.”
Lev Parnas
Lev Parnas makes a statement to the media following his arraignment. | Mark Lennihan/AP Photo
DOJ’s interest in Giuliani has only grown over the last year, and the two people familiar with the investigation say it now includes additional resources and attention in Washington. Initially, federal prosecutors from SDNY and the FBI started examining the former New York mayor as the Mueller probe was nearing its end and as the Trump lawyer started publicly calling for Ukraine’s leaders to launch an investigation into the president’s political opponents.
Barr got his first briefing on the investigation of Fruman and Parnas after his February swearing-in, and another heads up came before the two men were indicted earlier this month.
Additional attention to these issues has come from DOJ headquarters, which in August was tasked with examining Trump’s phone call asking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to dig up dirt on the American leader’s political rivals. A statement released by DOJ spokeswoman Kerri Kupec in late September said the department’s criminal division reviewed the official record of the call “and determined, based on the facts and applicable law, that there was no campaign finance violation and that no further action was warranted.”
“All relevant components of the department agreed with this legal conclusion, and the department has concluded the matter,” Kupec said at the time.
A senior Justice Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity said Kupec’s Sept. 25 statement was limited to the campaign finance issue raised by a referral from the Intelligence Community Inspector General and was not intended to rule in or out the possibility of Justice officials examining any other legal issues related to the Trump-Zelensky call, if warranted.
DOJ’s criminal division gave a public statement on Sunday through department spokesman Peter Carr that appeared to signal additional scrutiny for Giuliani, however. At issue was a meeting this summer with Giuliani that the head of the division, Brian Benczkowski, had taken alongside other DOJ lawyers about a different bribery case involving another client of the former New York mayor. Peter Carr told the New York Times that the DOJ officials who met with Giuliani “were not aware of any investigation of Mr. Giuliani’s associates in the Southern District of New York and would not have met with him had they known.”
According to a person close to the investigation, DOJ’s criminal division and SDNY have been pressed to more proactively work together in light of public confusion surrounding the department’s past statements on the campaign finance non-charging decision and the Giuliani meeting. This “happens all the time at DOJ, just usually not in such a high-profile case,” the person said. “It will lead to a natural decision to bring the resources together and to make sure they act at least in parallel and probably in coordination and not antagonistic to each other.”
A DOJ spokesperson declined to comment when asked about SDNY and the criminal division working in tandem.
A move to bring department headquarters — “Main Justice” as its widely known — deeper into the Giuliani probe is causing heartburn at SDNY, which is widely known for its autonomy and reputation as the “Sovereign District of New York.”
“You lose a certain amount of nimbleness and a certain amount of independence because now you are answering to someone above you,” explained a former senior SDNY official who said there’s “no way that Main Justice is not involved.”
“Is it something that people want? No,” this person said. “But in this environment it also gives you cover. You want Main Justice to be involved because it is politically sensitive.”
Kyle Cheney, Josh Gerstein and Caitlin Oprysko contributed to this repor
https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/2 ... ent-057125
Feds blow door off safe, issue subpoenas as probe into Giuliani associates escalates
By Erica Orden and Evan Perez, CNN
Updated 1:25 PM ET, Fri October 25, 2019
Giuliani associates
(CNN)Federal prosecutors in New York have subpoenaed the brother of one of the recently indicted associates of Rudy Giuliani, according to two people familiar with the matter, as they escalate their investigation in the campaign-finance case.
The subpoena to Steven Fruman is the latest indication of prosecutors' actions since the rushed arrest two weeks ago of his brother, Igor Fruman, and another defendant, Lev Parnas, at a Washington-area airport. Since then, investigators have doled out multiple subpoenas and conducted several property searches, in one case blowing the door off a safe to access the contents, sources tell CNN.
Federal prosecutors told a judge this week that they are sifting through data from more than 50 bank accounts. In addition, they've put a filter team in place as they examine communications obtained via search warrant and subpoena, sensitive to material that could be subject to attorney-client privilege because Giuliani, President Donald Trump's personal attorney, counted Parnas as a client. A filter team is a separate set of prosecutors who are assigned to examine evidence and set aside material that is privileged.
Since the October 9 arrests, federal agents visited the New York home of Steven Fruman and served him with a subpoena from Manhattan federal prosecutors, the people familiar with the matter said.
Attorneys for Steven and Igor Fruman declined to comment. A spokesman for the Manhattan US Attorney's office also declined to comment.
How two businessmen hustled to profit from access to Rudy Giuliani and the Trump administration
Igor Fruman, Parnas and their two co-defendants have all pleaded not guilty in the case alleging they funneled foreign donations into US elections.
It's not clear why prosecutors are interested in Steven Fruman, or what specifically agents sought from the safe. Steven Fruman is listed in US Security and Exchange Commission filings as the vice president of FD Import & Export, the same company his brother ran.
Igor Fruman also appeared to use the address of a property in Woodmere, New York, that belongs to his brother when making certain political donations, according to Federal Election Commission and other public records.
As they pursue an ongoing investigation into Igor Fruman, Parnas and their co-defendants, prosecutors are also investigating Giuliani's Ukranian business dealings, CNN has reported. Parnas and Igor Fruman for months have aided Giuliani in what he has described as his effort to unearth damaging information about his client Trump's political rival, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, whose son was on the board of a Ukranian energy company.
In recent days, Giuliani has been seeking a criminal-defense attorney, CNN has reported. He says he has not been contacted by the FBI or by New York federal prosecutors.
CNN's Katelyn Polantz contributed to this report.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/25/politics ... index.html
New York feds reportedly subpoena Igor Fruman’s brother as criminal probe into Rudy Giuliani’s Ukraine associates escalates
Chris Sommerfeldt
New York Daily News |
Oct 25, 2019 | 12:36 PM
Igor Fruman leaving federal court in Manhattan on Wednesday. Fruman's brother, Steven, has reportedly been subpoenaed in the ongoing federal investigation. (Alec Tabak/for New York Daily News)
Federal prosecutors in New York have subpoenaed the brother of one of the Rudy Giuliani cronies charged in a sweeping pro-Trump campaign finance scheme, according to a report Friday.
The subpoena of Steven Fruman marks a significant escalation in the ongoing investigation into Igor Fruman and fellow Giuliani pal, Lev Parnas. Igor Fruman and Parnas played prominent roles in Giuliani’s Trump-endorsed effort to dig up dirt on Joe Biden and other Democrats in Ukraine before the 2020 election — a scandal that’s at the heart of the ongoing House impeachment inquiry.
Sources told CNN that federal agents visited Steven Fruman’s New York home and served him with a subpoena at some point after his brother’s arrest at a Virginia airport on Oct. 9.
It’s unclear what specifically prosecutors want from Steven Fruman. He’s listed in business filings as the vice president of Westchester County-based FD Import & Export, which Igor Fruman also helped run.
In addition to the Steven Fruman subpoena, investigators have reportedly carried out several property searches in recent weeks. In one instance, federal agents blew the door off a safe to get a hold of records, the sources said.
A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan declined to comment. An attorney for Igor Fruman did not immediately return a request for comment.
Igor Fruman and Parnas both pleaded not guilty during an appearance in Manhattan Federal Court on Wednesday.
Prosecutors said in that hearing that they’re sifting through a “voluminous” cache of evidence that includes 50 bank accounts, emails, texts, cellphones and other electronic devices.
According to sources, investigators are also looking at Giuliani’s business dealings with Parnas and Fruman as part of their criminal inquiry. Giuliani — who used to run the very U.S. attorney’s office he’s now being investigated by — has not been charged with any crimes and maintains he did nothing wrong.
Also in the Wednesday hearing, an attorney for Parnas raised the possibility that some of the evidence collected by prosecutors could be protected by executive privilege since Giuliani serves as President Trump’s personal attorney — an unexpected admission that seemed to suggest the crimes allegedly committed by Parnas and Fruman could lead all the way to the White House.
According to their indictment, Parnas and Fruman made $350,000 in illegal straw donations to a pro-Trump political committee while pledging to raise $20,000 for then-GOP congressman Pete Sessions.
The men were acting on behalf of at least one Ukrainian government official in making the illicit contributions, prosecutors say.
Prosecutors say the donation to Sessions was specifically issued with the hope that the Texas Republican would lobby the Trump administration to get rid of former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, who had clashed with Giuliani over his dirt-digging foray.
Trump abruptly yanked Yovanovitch from her post in May — one of many key incidents under review by impeachment investigators.
Chris Sommerfeldt is a reporter covering national politics and the Trump administration. He started working for the Daily News in May 2015 as a city desk reporter.
https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politi ... story.html
Trump and Bill Barr are still working to cover up Vladimir Putin’s campaign against democracy
Amanda Marcotte / SalonOctober 25, 2019
Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead
During his otherwise subdued testimony before Congress this summer, former special counsel Robert Mueller did turn to more dramatic language when discussing one issue: Russia’s efforts to undermine American democracy.
“Over the course of my career, I’ve seen a number of challenges to our democracy. The Russian government’s effort to interfere in our election is among the most serious,” Mueller said in his opening statement. “This deserves the attention of every American.”
Well, two Americans who have decided to give it their attention are Donald Trump and Attorney General William Barr. But instead of trying to stop such efforts, their plan is quite clearly to use the power of the United States government to cover up the Russian conspiracy — and intimidate any law enforcement officials who might feel the urge to fight similar criminal conspiracies going into the 2020 elections.
As the New York Times reported late Thursday, the Justice Department, which Barr took over after Trump ran out previous Attorney General Jeff Sessions for failing to fully evacuate himself of all remaining traces of integrity, has opened a criminal investigation into the origins of the Russian investigation run by Mueller.
Remember this: Mueller uncovered a vast Russian conspiracy that pulled off something the Watergate burglars never could. Russians or their allies successfully stole information from Democratic Party officials that was used to bolster conspiracy theories that eventually cost the Democratic nominee the election. Mueller also discovered that Trump knew about this conspiracy, encouraged it publicly, and attempted to get involved but apparently failed —probably because the Russians concluded he was unreliable, and involving him was more trouble than it was worth. Mueller also discovered that Trump conducted a lengthy campaign to cover up the Russian conspiracy, resulting in a list of 10 incidents that, if Trump were not protected by his office, could result in federal charges of obstruction of justice.
00:00 00:33
Just because the Mueller investigation is over doesn’t mean Trump’s efforts to cover up for Vladimir Putin’s campaign against democracy have ended. On the contrary, the obstruction of justice campaign has expanded. Now, under the guidance of Barr, it’s being run by the Department of Justice itself.
It’s quite clear what’s going on here. Barr almost certainly doesn’t really believe that DOJ officials, under Mueller’s guidance, broke any laws in investigating the Russian criminal conspiracy or Trump’s efforts to protect it. Instead, by opening this phony investigation, he intends both to shore up Trump’s conspiracy theories claiming that the Russia scandal is all a Democratic hoax, and to use the threat of criminal charges to intimidate any government officials who might have a hankering to protect the 2020 election from any future such conspiracies, involving the Russians or anyone else.
There’s good reason to fear this phony investigation could lead to human rights abuses. Both Peter Strzok and Andrew McCabe were fired from the FBI as part of Trump’s efforts to shore up his conspiracy theories denouncing the Russia investigation. Both men are no doubt aware that Trump may seek seeking to arrest them under false pretenses, as part of his scapegoating campaign.
Another interesting point here is that Barr is doing is exactly what Trump, using the threat of withheld military aid, tried to force Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to do: Open up a phony investigation in order to smear Democrats and deny that the Russian government was behind the criminal attack on the 2016 election.
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The difference is that Zelensky resisted, even under great pressure from the twin threats of soldiers dying and the possibility of further Russian invasion. Barr, on the other hand, is choosing to be a scumbag of his own accord, using lies and threats of imprisonment to intimidate those who would stand up for democracy.
(It’s worth noting here that Barr takes time out of his busy schedule of undermining democracy to give lectures implying that societal morality is being undermined by adults having consensual sex in the privacy of their own homes. I’d call him out regarding his hypocrisy around Trump, but it’s safe to say the president’s thing isn’t consensual sex. Sexual assault probably falls right into what Barr calls the “customs and traditions which reflect the wisdom and experience of the ages.”)
As Heather Digby Parton noted at Salon, Barr’s in this because he’s a true ideological opponent of democracy, and sees his role as continuing to promote a “long-term project to transform the U.S. into an undemocratic, quasi-authoritarian plutocracy” that goes back at least to the 1980s. In this, Barr’s views are complementary to Putin’s goal of undermining democracy around the world, in order to demoralize the hopes of Russians at home who are getting sick of living under his authoritarian rule.
Trump, on the other hand, is in this for the same reason he does anything: Pure self-interest. Why he has such unwavering enthusiasm for the authoritarian Russian government, and such eagerness to help realize Putin’s goals in the U.S., remains something of a black box. One day, perhaps, his tax returns will finally be released and shed some light on the situation. But there can be little doubt that finances have something to do with it, as Mueller’s investigation revealed. In addition, Trump clearly has the idea that discrediting the Mueller investigation, even if that means trying to prosecute former government officials under false pretenses, will help him in the 2020 election.
Ultimately, this is one more reason that Democrats should stop trying to contain the impeachment inquiry to the Ukraine scandal. After all, what Trump tried to do in Ukraine — use that government’s resources to open phony investigations of his opponents and discredit evidence of his own corruption — is the same thing he is trying to do here. The only difference is, here at home he’s succeeding. The attorney general should not be allowed to use the DOJ as a legal hit squad for the president, devoted to gutting democracy. It’s time to open an impeachment inquiry into Bill Barr, as well.
https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/trump- ... democracy/
Giuliani butt-dials NBC reporter, heard discussing need for cash and trashing Bidens
“The problem is we need some money,” Giuliani says to unidentified man during accidental call to NBC News writer.
Oct. 25, 2019, 1:42 PM CDT / Updated Oct. 25, 2019, 2:02 PM CDT
Late in the evening on Oct. 16, Rudy Giuliani made a phone call to this reporter.
The fact that Giuliani was reaching out wasn’t remarkable. He and the reporter had spoken earlier that night for a story about his ties to a fringe Iranian opposition group.
But this call, it would soon become clear, wasn’t a typical case of a source following up with a reporter.
The call came in at 11:07 p.m. and went to voicemail; the reporter was asleep.
The next morning, a message exactly three minutes long was sitting in his voicemail. In the recording, the words tumbling out of Giuliani’s mouth were not directed at the reporter. He was speaking to someone else, someone in the same room.
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Giuliani can be heard discussing overseas dealings and lamenting the need for cash, though it's difficult to discern the full context of the conversation.
The call appeared to be one of the most unfortunate of faux pas: what is known, in casual parlance, as a butt dial.
And it wasn’t the first time it had happened.
“You know,” Giuliani says at the start of the recording. “Charles would have a hard time with a fraud case ‘cause he didn’t do any due diligence.”
It wasn’t clear who Charles is, or who may have been implicated in a fraud. In fact, much of the message’s first minute is difficult to comprehend, in part because the voice of the other man in the conversation is muffled and barely intelligible.
But then Giuliani says something that’s crystal clear.
"Let's get back to business."
He goes on.
"I gotta get you to get on Bahrain."
Giuliani is well-connected in the Kingdom of Bahrain.
Last December, he visited the Persian Gulf nation and had a one-on-one meeting with King Hamad Bin Isa al-Khalifa in the royal palace. “King receives high-level U.S. delegation,” read the headline of the state-run Bahrain News Agency blurb about the visit.
Giuliani runs a security consulting company, but it’s not clear why he would have a meeting with Bahrain’s king. Was he acting in his capacity as a consultant? As Trump’s lawyer? Or as an international fixer running a shadow foreign policy for the president?
In May, Giuliani told the Daily Beast his firm had signed a deal with Bahrain to advise its police force on counter-terrorism measures. But the Bahrain News Agency account of the meeting suggested Giuliani was viewed more like an ambassador than a security consultant. “HM the King praised the longstanding Bahraini-U.S. relations, noting keenness of the two countries to constantly develop them,” it said.
The voicemail yielded no details about the meeting. But Giuliani can be heard telling the man that he’s “got to call Robert again tomorrow.”
“Is Robert around?” Giuliani asks.
“He’s in Turkey,” the man responds.
Giuliani replies instantly. “The problem is we need some money.”
The two men then go silent. Nine seconds pass. No word is spoken. Then Giuliani chimes in again.
“We need a few hundred thousand,” he says.
It’s unclear what the two men were talking about. But Giuliani is known to have worked closely with a Robert who has ties to Turkey.
His name is Robert Mangas, and he’s a lawyer at the firm Greenberg Traurig LLP, as well as a registered agent of the Turkish government.
Giuliani himself was employed by Greenberg Traurig until about May 2018.
Mangas’s name appears in court documents related to the case of Reza Zarrab, a Turkish gold trader charged in the U.S. with laundering Iranian money in a scheme to evade American sanctions.
Giuliani was brought on to assist Zarrab in 2017. He traveled to Turkey with his former law partner Michael Mukasey and attempted to strike a deal with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to secure the release of their jailed client, alarming the federal prosecutor leading the case.
Giuliani and Mangas were both employed by Greenberg Traurig at the time. The firm and Mangas had registered with the Justice Department to lobby the U.S. government on behalf of Turkey, according to an affidavit from Mangas.
Mangas did not return a request for comment.
Giuliani’s conversation partner can be heard responding to the "few hundred thousand" comment. But it’s possible to make out only the beginning of his answer, and even that is somewhat garbled.
“I’d say even if Bahrain could get, I’m not sure how good [unintelligible words] with his people,” the man says.
“Yeah, okay,” Giuliani says.
“You want options? I got options,” the man says.
“Yeah give me options,” Giuliani replies.
The exchange took place at the 2:20 mark in the voicemail message. The other man does most of the talking in the remaining 40 seconds, and it’s difficult to piece together what he says.
Not the first time
By the time of that call, it was already clear that Giuliani butt dials don’t only happen after 11 p.m.
The late-night Giuliani butt dial came 18 days after a mid-afternoon Giuliani butt dial.
The first one happened when the NBC News reporter was at a fifth-birthday party for an extended family member in central New Jersey.
It was 3:37 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 28, and a pink unicorn piñata had just been strung up around a tree in the backyard.
Amid his 3-year-old daughter’s excitement, the reporter decided to let Giuliani’s call go to his voicemail.
The previous day, the reporter interviewed Giuliani for an article quoting several of his former Justice Department colleagues who said they believed he committed crimes in his effort to push the Ukrainians to launch an investigation of Joe Biden.
After the pink unicorn piñata came the bouncy castle and then cake. It wasn’t until at least an hour after the call that the reporter realized it led to a three-minute voicemail, the maximum his phone allows.
In the message, Giuliani is heard talking to at least one other person. The conversation appears to pick up almost exactly where Giuliani’s phone call with the reporter left off the day before, with Giuliani insisting he was the target of attacks because he was making public accusations about a powerful Democratic politician.
“I expected it would happen,” Giuliani says at the start of the recording. “The minute you touch on one of the protected people, they go crazy. They come after you.”
“You got the truth on your side,” an unidentified man says.
“It’s very powerful,” Giuliani replies.
Giuliani spends the entire three minutes railing against the Bidens. He can be heard recycling many of the unfounded allegations he has been making on cable news and in interviews with print reporters.
Among the claims: that then-Vice President Biden intervened to stop an investigation of a Ukrainian gas company because Hunter sat on the board, and that Hunter traded on his father’s position as vice president to earn $1.5 billion from Chinese investors.
“There’s plenty more to come out,” Giuliani says. “He did the same thing in China. And he tried to do it in Kazakhstan and in Russia.”
“It’s a sad situation,” he adds. “You know how they get? Biden has been been trading in on his public office since he was a senator.”
Shortly after, Giuliani turns to Hunter Biden. “When he became vice president, the kid decided to go around the world and say, ‘Hire me because I’m Joe Biden’s son.’ And most people wouldn’t hire him because he had a drug problem.”
Giuliani’s effort to spur a Ukrainian investigation of the Bidens is at the heart of the impeachment inquiry underway in the House. And on Wednesday, two of Rudy’s associates pleaded not guilty to making illegal campaign contributions in part to advance the interests of foreign nationals, including a former Ukrainian prosecutor who was involved in the effort to oust the country’s former U.S. ambassador.
In the recording, Giuliani doesn’t mention anything about his own activities in Ukraine and elsewhere. But he does make unfounded claims about Hunter Biden’s overseas work.
“His son altogether made somewhere between 5 and 8 million,” Giuliani says. “A 3 million transaction was laundered, which is illegal."
Last week, Hunter Biden said in an ABC News interview that he will step down from the board of the Chinese investment company that he joined in October 2017.
One of Hunter’s early business partners was Christopher Heinz, stepson of former Secretary of State John Kerry. But Heinz objected to Hunter Biden’s decision to work for the Ukrainian gas company and ultimately cut ties with him. Heinz had nothing to do with the Chinese investment fund.
But in the voicemail message, Giuliani is heard telling his friend that Kerry’s stepson was working for the same foreign entities that employed Hunter Biden.
“His partner was John Kerry’s stepson,” Giuliani said. “Secretary of State and the vice president for the price of one.”
The recording ends the same way it began. “They don’t want to investigate because he’s protected, so we gotta force them to do it,” Giuliani says, before apparently turning to the president’s now-infamous call with the Ukrainian president.
“And the Ukraine, they’re investigating him and they blocked it twice. So what the president was [unintelligible word], ‘You can’t keep doing this. You have to investigate this.’ And they say it will affect the 2020 election.”
“No it….” Giuliani adds, but the recording cuts off before he can finish the thought.
Over the last 10 days, Giuliani has given few media interviews.
Calls to his phone on Thursday led to a recorded message saying his mailbox was full. The call has not been returned — at least not yet.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politi ... d_nn_tw_ma
House investigators subpoena 3 more administration officials
WASHINGTON (AP) — Impeachment investigators issued subpoenas Friday to three more Trump administration officials, demanding their testimony in the probe of President Donald Trump’s efforts to force Ukraine to feed him damaging information about his Democratic political opponents.
The chairs of the House committees leading the impeachment inquiry subpoenaed two officials of the White House Office of Management and Budget: acting director Russell Vought and Michael Duffey, who oversees national security programs.
They also subpoenaed State Department counselor T. Ulrich Brechbuhl.
Investigators asked all three earlier this month to testify, but none have appeared.
As House investigators pushed forward, Trump continued his defiance with another round of combative verbal volleys.
He predicted that if the House impeaches him and the Republican-run Senate holds a trial on whether to remove him from office, he would prevail “for one reason: I did nothing wrong.”
Speaking to reporters as he left the White House for an appearance in South Carolina, he said people are “angry” because “this isn’t a takedown of the president, this is a takedown of the Republican Party.”
He also renewed his assertion that the impeachment effort is endangering the economy. He said that “if anything ever happened,” the result would be “a recession, depression the likes of which this country hasn’t seen.”
The Trump administration has refused to make its officials available for depositions in the investigation and resisted supplying documents as well. But witnesses have been appearing anyway after they are issued subpoenas, often on a daily basis for hourslong appearances behind closed doors.
“The committees therefore have no choice but to issue a subpoena compelling your mandatory appearance,” the letters read.
Investigators want to know why nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine was delayed, even though it was approved by Congress and signed into law by Trump.
Ukraine has relied on U.S. help during a five-year war with Russian-backed separatists in the country’s east, where the rebels control territory. More than 13,000 people have died in the fighting.
Brechbuhl is said to have been the source of a mysterious packet of materials that House investigators were given. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., has said the package contained information from debunked conspiracy theories about Ukraine’s role in the 2016 election. The significance of the packet is unclear.
Others have testified that Trump was demanding investigations of Democrats in exchange for the aid and for an Oval Office meeting coveted by Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
The committees want Duffey to appear on Nov. 5, and Vought and Brechbuhl the following day.
https://apnews.com/d202b111a5e54860a42a ... SocialFlow
by seemslikeadream » Fri Oct 25, 2019 9:49 pm
How a Veteran Reporter Worked with Giuliani’s Associates to Launch the Ukraine Conspiracy
Lev Parnas, recently indicted for foreign influence in U.S. elections, collaborated closely with The Hill’s John Solomon to fuel spurious allegations involving the Bidens and Ukraine.
by Jake Pearson, Mike Spies and J. David McSwane Oct. 25, 2:10 p.m. EDT
John Solomon in his office as executive editor of The Washington Times, in 2008. (Gerald Martineau/The Washington Post/Getty Images)
Last March, a veteran Washington reporter taped an interview with a Ukrainian prosecutor that sparked a disinformation campaign alleging Joe Biden pressured Ukrainians into removing a prosecutor investigating a company because of its ties to the former vice president’s son. The interview and subsequent columns, conducted and written by a writer for The Hill newspaper, John Solomon, were the starting gun that eventually set off the impeachment inquiry into the president.
Watching from the control booth of The Hill’s TV studio was Lev Parnas, who helped arrange the interview.
Parnas and his partner Igor Fruman were working with the president’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to promote a story that it was Democrats and not Republicans who colluded with a foreign power in the 2016 election. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan indicted the duo this month on allegations that they illegally funneled foreign money into U.S. political campaigns.
Interviews and company records obtained by ProPublica show Parnas worked closely with Solomon to facilitate his reporting, including helping with translation and interviews. Solomon also shared files he obtained related to the Biden allegations with Parnas, according to a person familiar with the exchange. And the two men shared yet another only recently revealed connection: Solomon’s personal lawyers connected the journalist to Parnas and later hired the Florida businessman as a translator in their representation of a Ukrainian oligarch.
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Solomon’s interview and columns were widely amplified. Giuliani praised them, and Trump said he deserved a Pulitzer Prize. Fox News hosts Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Lou Dobbs trumpeted them. They later become a key point in the CIA whistleblower complaint that set the impeachment inquiry in motion.
Parnas’ unusual and extensive involvement in the production of the stories has not been previously reported.
Solomon, 52, told ProPublica his reporting was accurate and defended his sourcing, saying, “No one knew there was anything wrong with Lev Parnas at the time.”
“Everybody who approaches me has an angle,” he said. “My mother has an angle when she calls me.” A lawyer for Parnas, who along with Fruman has pleaded not guilty, didn’t return requests for comment.
More than a year before his Ukraine columns published, The Hill had serious concerns about Solomon’s credibility and conflicts of interest. Hill staffers began raising alarms, including the paper’s publisher at the time, who warned in an internal memo that Solomon was engaged in “reputation killing stuff” by mixing business with journalism.
In response, The Hill’s management took steps to limit Solomon’s reporting — rebranding him as an opinion writer — but did not prevent him from writing his Ukraine series.
“Nothing I did would have put The Hill’s reputation at risk,” Solomon said.
Solomon came to The Hill, which specializes in inside-the-Beltway news, in July 2017 after a decades long career that included stretches at The Associated Press, The Washington Post and The Washington Times. His work has earned accolades, including a series examining what the FBI knew ahead of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He is now a contributor to Fox News.
Brought in as an executive vice president overseeing a new digital video enterprise now known as Hill.TV, Solomon continued to operate as a journalist, publishing news articles in the paper, while also playing a role on The Hill’s business side. That began to trouble colleagues within months of his hiring, according to internal memos and interviews with current and former staffers.
Lev Parnas arrives for his arraignment in the Southern District of New York on campaign finance violations, on Oct. 23, 2019. Parnas, a Ukrainian associate of the president’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, worked closely with Solomon to facilitate his reporting. (Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images)
In late October 2017, The Hill published a story on the decisive role of Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, in the upcoming vote on the Trump administration’s tax bill. The article, authored by two journalists who reported to Solomon, included a quote from the executive director of Job Creators Network, a conservative group that claimed the bill would help small-business owners in Maine.
Soon after, Johanna Derlega, then The Hill’s publisher, wrote two memos to the company’s president, Richard Beckman, worrying that Solomon was tearing down the traditional wall separating the business side and the news coverage. She noted that Solomon had negotiated a nearly $160,000 advertising deal with Job Creators Network, targeting business owners in Maine. Solomon then had a quote from that group’s director inserted in the story.
Solomon “pops by the advertising bullpen almost daily to discuss big deals he’s about to close,” Derlega wrote, adding, “If a media reporter gets ahold of this story, it could destroy us.”
“While I highlight this one example, John has been given the freedom, and possibly financial upside, to work with advertisers while clearly sitting within editorial,” Derlega wrote.
Six months later, in April 2018, Derlega was forced out of The Hill. The Hill’s owner, president and top editors haven’t responded to detailed questions about Derlega’s memos and Solomon’s tenure at the paper. A spokesman for the advertiser, Job Creators Network, didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.
In interviews with ProPublica this week, Solomon repeatedly declined to discuss his activities on The Hill’s business side, saying, “I just simply can’t talk about anything business related with The Hill.”
A month later, the paper’s editor in chief, Bob Cusack, emailed staff that “effective immediately” Solomon would no longer publish stories under the banner of news but instead would be an “opinion contributor.”
From this new perch, Solomon broke in early spring what seemed to be an explosive piece of news: claims by Yuriy Lutsenko, then Ukraine’s top prosecutor, that a U.S. diplomat, serving under President Barack Obama, presented him a list of people and groups he could not prosecute. Additionally, Lutsenko said that he was reviving a probe into the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings, seeking to determine whether Joe Biden, as vice president, interfered with the initial inquiry to protect his son Hunter, who sat on Burisma’s board.
Behind the scenes, Parnas had been central to connecting Solomon with Lutsenko. In a March 2019 email that included the businessman, the columnist wrote that he’d “just got word from Lev that the prosecutor general has agreed to do an interview tomorrow.”
Parnas watched Lutsenko’s interview live, inside the control room of The Hill’s TV studio. Solomon explained that he called in the businessman to act as a translator, but in the end his services were not needed.
Solomon recalls first encountering Parnas through Pete Sessions, the once-powerful Texas Republican member of Congress who is now in the middle of the Trump impeachment inquiry. Sessions accepted campaign donations from Parnas and Fruman, and had met with the two men as they sought to oust an American diplomat in Ukraine. Later, Sessions wrote a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, urging him to replace the envoy Marie Yovanovitch, who had been the subject of extensive criticism in the conservative media. She was later fired and is a key witness for House Democrats trying to impeach the president.
Sessions, who has denied knowledge of the campaign finance scheme laid out by prosecutors, told ProPublica that he has no connection to Solomon.
“I don’t know John,” he said.
Solomon says his personal attorneys, Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing, a husband-and-wife legal team that regularly represents conservative luminaries, set up his first formal meeting with Parnas. He asserted that his editors “were aware” that he was seeking help from diGenova and Toensing on matters concerning Ukraine.
“I was doing that as an extra layer of protection,” Solomon said. “And so everything — everything — was above board. Everybody knew about it. I was just trying to be careful.” diGenova and Toensing did not respond to a request for comment.
As he compiled material for subsequent columns, Solomon and Parnas continued to work closely. In late March, less than a week after the first piece featuring Lutsenko appeared in The Hill, Solomon sent files via Dropbox to Parnas containing financial records purporting to be connected to Biden’s son. Around the same time, Solomon also sent Toensing and diGenova what appeared to be an advance copy of a Ukraine-related story. The Daily Beast reported that the email was included in a State Department Inspector General’s Office package of material turned over to lawmakers.
Solomon acknowledged that Parnas helped set up the Lutsenko interview, but he says he had originally requested it through official channels. Solomon maintains his relationship with the businessman was a typical one a reporter would have with a source. “Lev would call me,” he said, “and offer things he was hearing on the ground and I would look into some things.”
As Solomon’s relationship with Parnas developed, he learned over time that the businessman “was working for many people or several people in Ukraine,” including Giuliani and Solomon’s lawyers. Politico first reported Solomon’s lawyers also represented the Ukrainian oligarch. Giuliani hasn’t responded to messages seeking comment.
Solomon defended his work, including his reporting on the so-called do-not-prosecute list, which he said he went through “enormous efforts” to verify. “At the end of the day,” Solomon said. “it doesn’t matter what Lev Parnas did. It matters what I did.”
But a month after Lutsenko’s Hill TV appearance, the former Ukrainian prosecutor backed off of his allegations. He told a Ukrainian-language publication that he himself was the one who asked the U.S. ambassador for the list of supposedly untouchable figures. The State Department said there was never any list, calling it an “outright fabrication.” And Lutsenko told the Los Angeles Times last month that he saw no evidence of wrongdoing that would justify an investigation into Biden’s son’s business dealings in his country.
Justin Elliott contributed to this report.
https://www.propublica.org/article/how- ... fer#169885
They Call It a Leak. I Call It a Crime
By Victoria Toensing
September 9, 2001
It was not an atomic bomb the Justice Department dropped on Associated Press reporter John Solomon, only a subpoena for six days of home telephone records. But the mushroom cloud that followed -- primarily media howls of "First Amendment violation!" -- has eclipsed the other side of the story: Solomon's "law enforcement officials" (his description) violated the law when they told him the contents of a federal wiretap. The department had a duty to pursue that leak vigorously to ensure the integrity of its investigative process.
Solomon's May 4 story revealed that a wiretap on a Chicago pizzeria five years ago happened to pick up a telephone conversation with a well-known public figure, New Jersey Democratic Sen. Robert Torricelli. Solomon, who has been covering a federal investigation of Torricelli for allegedly receiving undisclosed gifts from a lobbyist, reported that the senator could be heard discussing his need for -- gasp! -- campaign contributions. Prosecutors twice evaluated the 1996 conversation and found "no reason for further investigation," according to Solomon's report. It's ironic that the leakers' revelation was neither earth-shattering nor relevant to Torricelli's present troubles. But that doesn't alter the underlying problem: the leak was a crime, one that Congress considers important enough to classify as a felony.
In granting the federal government the awesome power of listening to private conversations, Congress established specific rules to prevent abuses. The law requires prosecutors to seek approval from a court before commencing a wiretap and, to protect non-targeted persons who might call a tapped phone number (a la Torricelli), the results of a wiretap cannot be disclosed to any unauthorized person.
Solomon waved a red flag in the department's face by describing his sources as "law enforcement officials, who have listened to the tape or seen its transcript." If the department were to ignore this story, it might as well hang out a sign that says, "We don't care about leaks." An investigation was necessary as much to stop future leakers as to catch and punish the perpetrators.
When I was at Justice during the Reagan administration, I conducted such internal investigations. So I know the procedures. The first step is to evaluate the material leaked. A disclosure that so-and-so is under investigation, while unprofessional and improper, is not a crime. To identify a leaker in high-profile cases, which routinely involve dozens of personnel, requires hours and hours of valuable time. In most cases, it is an impossible task without going to the journalist. For that reason, non-criminal leaks are rarely pursued and never would the department subpoena a journalist's records for a non-criminal leak.
Any time the disclosure is a felony -- when it involves wiretap, grand jury or otherwise protected information -- the policy is to conduct a concerted effort to find the lawbreaker. In the late 1980s, during a multi-district investigation of defense procurement fraud known as "Ill Wind," there were leaks of grand jury information. I gathered the more than 100 personnel involved, climbed on a government-issue gunmetal gray desk top and issued a warning that shouldn't have been necessary: "If any of you is caught speaking to the press, you are fired." The leaks stopped, but the damage remained. If a leaker is never caught -- and has no fear of being caught -- there is no discomfort in leaking.
Unfortunately, most leak pursuits are thwarted because there are too few clues to investigate and too many people with access to the disclosed material. At that point, the option is to drop the investigation or attempt to obtain information from the reporter. The least intrusive method is a subpoena to a third party seeking records -- in Solomon's case, the subpoena went to MCI WorldCom, not to Solomon himself. The most intrusive would be to subpoena the reporter to a grand jury and demand that he or she reveal the source, a route I have never seen contemplated by the department in a leak case.
There's no doubt that the Torricelli leaks -- there have been others in addition to the wiretap disclosure -- are considered serious. In June, before the subpoena became public, two Democrats, Sens. Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Dianne Feinstein of California, asked Attorney General John Ashcroft to instruct his subordinates to "ensure that the leaks are stopped" and to "identify those responsible for them." Another Democrat, Rep. John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, also assailed Ashcroft in June on "The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer" for "the failure of the Department of Justice to investigate the leaks."
Previously, at a House hearing, Conyers had berated Ashcroft for the leaks, focusing more on the politics of the leak than on the felony. Conyers suggested the department was using the Torricelli inquiry as a way of reclaiming control of the Senate. (Politics was also the reason for Ashcroft's decision to recuse himself from the Torricelli probe. Torricelli raised money last year for Ashcroft's U.S. Senate opponent.) But that is precisely the point of criminalizing the leaking of wiretap information: Government power can be abused for political reasons.
So, how to find the leaker when a reporter is involved? The Supreme Court has held that when there is a need to investigate a crime, the people are entitled to "every man's evidence." The court has consistently declined to exempt journalists from having to turn over evidence of a crime. Notwithstanding that opinion, the department, appropriately, adopted guidelines to limit when a reporter is subpoenaed or "affected" by a subpoena. By ensuring that journalists not be subpoenaed every time they possess evidence, the department was demonstrating its respect for the press's constitutional role.
The guidelines set down specific conditions that must be met before a subpoena can be issued for a reporter's telephone records: There must be reasonable grounds to believe a crime has been committed; the information sought must be essential to a successful investigation; the subpoena must be narrowly drawn; all reasonable alternative steps must have been pursued, and the attorney general must approve the decision. The department has 90 days to notify the reporter of a subpoena to a third party, such as a telephone company.
Were those conditions met in Solomon's case? Clearly, yes. His articles state that wiretap information was disclosed. The subpoena was limited, asking for home phone records for a period of six days, May 2 through 7. The U.S. attorney, Mary Jo White, certified that all alternative steps had been taken. Then-Acting Deputy Attorney General Robert S. Mueller III (now the FBI director) approved the subpoena -- Ashcroft having recused himself. Solomon received his timely notice.
There is one other guideline factor: whether negotiations are required with the reporter before a subpoena is issued. The AP has argued -- incorrectly -- that the guidelines were violated because there were no negotiations. But negotiations are mandated only when the subpoena goes directly "to the reporter." The guidelines do not require them if the subpoena is to a third party and the department concludes negotiations might be detrimental to the investigation.
The only other viable investigative avenue in leak cases would be to polygraph everyone with access to the confidential information. But polygraph results are as uncertain as drawing up an accurate list of whom to test. What about the person, unconnected to the investigation, who sneaks a transcript from a colleague's desk? Is it a better decision to subpoena six days of one reporter's telephone logs or subject 100 people to a polygraph with possible false results?
The attempt by some in the media to hang this on a "Republican administration" fails for lack of evidence. This is a bipartisan pursuit: White, who requested the subpoena, is an eight-year Clinton appointee and holdover as U.S. attorney for New York's southern district. Mueller, who approved the subpoena, served as U.S. attorney for San Francisco during the Clinton administration -- at the recommendation of California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, who also strongly supported him as the Bush administration's choice for FBI director. The person deciding there should be no negotiation was career department official John Keeney. Democratic lawmakers have been vociferous in demanding these leaks be stopped and the perpetrators identified. If the Bush administration wanted to gain political advantage, why not just let the leaks continue?
There were eight subpoenas for reporters' phone records during the Clinton administration. For some reason the press was not as vocal then about its distress.
The subpoena to Solomon is not a case of a new administration that does not understand the rules, as journalists also have implied. It is a case where Solomon's interest in not having six days of phone records subpoenaed is trumped by the need to find the person or persons who broke the law -- especially for a story that, except for the leak itself, exposed no abuse of power, no government wrongdoing.
I commend Solomon for his doggedness in getting a story. I condemn the law enforcement officials who disclosed the contents of the wiretap. The leak must be investigated fully if the law has any meaning. If that requires subpoenaing a reporter's phone records, so be it.
Victoria Toensing, a deputy assistant attorney general in the Reagan administration, is a Washington lawyer.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/ ... 59ac1e8f4/
by seemslikeadream » Sun Oct 27, 2019 2:27 pm
State Department’s Philip Reeker provided House committee with ‘a much richer reservoir of information than expected’: report
Written by Tom Boggioni / Raw Story October 27, 2019
According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, Philip Reeker, the acting assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, provided House investigators with a wealth of information about the Trump administration during his testimony on Saturday behind closed doors.
The report notes that Reeker stated that he witnessed top officials halting a show of solidarity for the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, after President Trump had her removed.
“Mr. Reeker was named to the job in March, around the time Mr. Trump ordered the removal of Marie Yovanovitch, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and others had accused Ms. Yovanovitch of undermining the president abroad and of obstructing efforts to persuade Kyiv to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden,” the Journal reports.
According to Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA), Reeker was nore than forthcoming about information when questioned.
“He’s being helpful in some respects, he is corroborating previous witnesses and their testimony,” Lynch told reporters without going into greater detail..“It’s a much richer reservoir of information that we originally expected.”
https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/state- ... ed-report/
Philip Reeker to Testify That Sec. Pompeo Squashed Support for Marie Yovanovitch: WSJ
Audrey McNamara
Reporter
Updated 10.26.19 2:21PM ET /
Published 10.26.19 1:49PM ET
Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters
Philip Reeker, the assistant secretary of State in the Bureau of Europe and Eurasian Affairs, is providing lawmakers with testimony that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo squashed a show of solidarity for Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine that President Trump removed after she opposed White House decisions, The Wall Street Journal reports. Reeker, who colleagues have told The Daily Beast is a straight shooter, is testifying behind closed doors on Capitol Hill on Saturday under subpoena in the impeachment inquiry—despite a White House direction for government officials not to cooperate with the inquiry.
Due to his position, Reeker has had a direct line to top state department officials, including Secretary Pompeo. “He is a career guy. He’s been at this a long time and he’s not about to give that all up to protect anyone,” one State Department official told The Daily Beast. A person familiar with his testimony tells the WSJ that Yovanovich “was a primary concern from his first week on the job.” Reeker was also reportedly present for a White House interagency meeting where a Department of Defense official raised concerns about Trump’s decision to hold military aid to Ukraine. His testimony is expected to provide critical detail to the alleged quid pro quo, adding fuel to the explosive testimony from William Taylor, acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, that came earlier this week.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/philip-re ... ovitch-wsj
by seemslikeadream » Mon Oct 28, 2019 1:48 pm
White House told in May of Ukraine President Zelenskiy's concerns about Giuliani, Sondland
The White House was alerted earlier than previously reported that Giuliani's pressure campaign was rattling the new Ukrainian president, say two sources.
Oct. 28, 2019, 12:10 PM CDT
KYIV — The White House was alerted as early as mid-May — earlier than previously known — that a budding pressure campaign by Rudy Giuliani and one of President Donald Trump's ambassadors was rattling the new Ukrainian president, two people with knowledge of the matter tell NBC News.
Alarm bells went off at the National Security Council when the White House's top Europe official was told that Giuliani was pushing the incoming Ukrainian administration to shake up the leadership of state-owned energy giant Naftogaz, said the sources. The official, Fiona Hill, learned then about the involvement of Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, two Giuliani associates who were helping with the Naftogaz pressure and also with trying to find dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden’s son.
Hill quickly briefed then-National Security Adviser John Bolton about what she'd been told, said the individuals with knowledge of the meeting.
The revelation significantly moves up the timeline of when the White House learned that Trump's allies had engaged with the incoming Ukrainian administration and were acting in ways that unnerved the Ukrainians — even before President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had been sworn in. Biden had entered the presidential race barely three weeks earlier.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskiy attends a meeting with representatives of the International Monetary Fund in Kiev, Ukraine May 28, 2019.Ukrainian Presidential Press Service / Reuters
In a White House meeting the week of May 20, Hill was also told that Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland, a major Republican donor tapped by Trump for a coveted post in Brussels, was giving Zelenskiy unsolicited advice on who should be elevated to influential posts in his new administration, the individuals said. One of them said it struck the Ukrainians as "inappropriate."
Zelenskiy was inaugurated that same week — on May 20 — snapping selfies and giving high-fives to the crowd as he made his way through the Ukrainian capital for his speech to parliament.
Hill learned of Zelenskiy's concerns from former U.S. diplomat Amos Hochstein, now a member of Naftogaz's supervisory board. Hochstein had just returned from pre-inauguration meeting with Zelenskiy and his advisers in Kyiv in which they discussed Giuliani's and Sondland's overtures and how to inoculate Ukraine from getting dragged in to domestic U.S. politics.
Zelenskiy's early concern about pressure from Trump and his allies, expressed in the May 7 meeting with his advisers and Hochstein, was earlier reported by The Associated Press. The fact that those concerns were then quickly relayed to the White House National Security Council has never previously been reported.
Bolton declined to comment. Hill, through her attorney Lee Wolosky, also had no comment. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The White House meeting also offers some of the first indications of what led Hill to conclude that Giuliani and Sondland were part of a squad running a "shadow Ukraine policy," as she later would testify to Congress.
Sondland had no official role overseeing Ukraine, a country not part of the EU. Giuliani, Trump's personal lawyer, isn't even a government employee. Hill testified that Bolton later privately called Giuliani a "hand grenade" and described Sondland's push on Ukraine as part of a "drug deal."
Hochstein declined to comment to NBC News on his White House meeting with Hill, which came up during her roughly 10-hour deposition in the House earlier this month. Hill resigned from her post over the summer.
The early involvement by Giuliani, Sondland and their associates in exerting influence over the new Ukrainian leader illustrates how political goals and potential profits have blended together in the extraordinary chain of events being detailed in the impeachment proceedings. House investigators are probing allegations Trump abused his power by pressing Ukraine to pursue investigations for his personal political gain.
Giuliani, as he sought information from Ukrainians that could help Trump's re-election, was getting help from Parnas and Fruman, two Florida businessmen, documents given to Congress by the State Department's inspector general show.
At the same time, the pair was trying to make big money by drumming up business selling natural gas to Naftogaz, and to oust the company's management — with help from Giuliani and friends in the Trump administration, NBC News has reported. Separately, Parnas and Fruman were recently charged with violating campaign finance laws for allegedly trying to funnel foreign money into U.S. elections.
Central to Giuliani's scheme were efforts to get Zelenskiy to announce an investigation into a different Ukrainian energy company: Burisma Holdings, the natural gas firm whose board Biden's son Hunter joined years earlier.
Sondland, as he tried over the summer to secure a White House visit for Zelenskiy and the release of military aid to Ukraine, worked with Giuliani and others to pressure Zelenskiy over investigations into Burisma and the 2016 election. House Democrats allege it was a quid pro quo ordered by Trump in an impeachment-worthy abuse of power. Trump denies any quid pro quo.
Sondland and Energy Secretary Rick Perry also backed an effort to change the membership of Naftogaz's supervisory board, NBC News previously reported. The board includes four international members and three Ukrainian nationals. A person close to Sondland said he and Perry merely wanted changes to the governance and structure of Naftogaz's board needed to secure Western investment in Ukraine's energy industry.
Zelenskiy's May 7 Kyiv meeting with Hochstein and top aides in which he voiced dismay about Giuliani and Sondland included Andriy Kobolev, the Naftogaz CEO. It took place the day after the State Department announced then-Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch was returning home ahead of schedule.
"The message was clear: 'You better listen to us. If we tell you to investigate Biden, you better do it. Look at what happened to (Yovanovitch),'" said one individual familiar with the outlook of Zelenskiy's office at the time. "They saw that Giuliani went after her — and he won."
Yovanovitch's ouster is of key interest to impeachment investigators. Her departure created a void at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv that Sondland felt he was helping to fill as he made personnel recommendations to the new Zelenskiy administration, the person close to Sondland said.
Her replacement as top diplomat, Bill Taylor, did not arrive in Kiev until June 17. House Democrats have described his nine-plus hours of testimony this month as among the most damning to Trump so far.
Yovanovitch's abrupt recall months ahead of schedule left no doubt for Zelenskiy and his aides that Giuliani's agenda had Trump's full backing and that his government would have to somehow address the demands for investigations and changes at Naftogaz, individuals familiar with the matter said.
Zelenskiy, thrust into a precarious position by the impeachment proceedings against a president who still controls U.S. policy toward Ukraine, has publicly insisted his administration did not feel pressured.
But Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who visited Zelenskiy last month aiming to persuade him not to get dragged into the U.S. political fracas, said the young Ukrainian president simply can't afford to acknowledge publicly what was evident during his trip to Kyiv.
"They felt pressure. No doubt they felt pressure," Murphy said Sunday on CNN. "Of course he is going to say that, you know, he didn't and doesn't feel any pressure, there was no blackmail, because he's got to make sure that Trump continues to support his country. But there is absolutely no doubt that the Ukrainians felt pressure to do what Giuliani was asking."
Dan De Luce and Carol E. Lee reported from Washington.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump- ... t-n1072776
Veteran Reporter Helped Giuliani's Associates Launch the Ukraine Conspiracy
Oct 27, 2019
A Veteran Reporter Helped Giuliani's Associates Launch the Ukraine Conspiracy
Lev Parnas arrives for his arraignment in New York on Wednesday. (Mark Lennihan/AP)
ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.
Last March, a veteran Washington reporter taped an interview with a Ukrainian prosecutor that sparked a disinformation campaign alleging Joe Biden pressured Ukrainians into removing a prosecutor investigating a company because of its ties to the former vice president’s son. The interview and subsequent columns, conducted and written by a writer for The Hill newspaper, John Solomon, were the starting gun that eventually set off the impeachment inquiry into the president.
Watching from the control booth of The Hill’s TV studio was Lev Parnas, who helped arrange the interview.
Parnas and his partner Igor Fruman were working with the president’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to promote a story that it was Democrats and not Republicans who colluded with a foreign power in the 2016 election. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan indicted the duo this month on allegations that they illegally funneled foreign money into U.S. political campaigns.
Interviews and company records obtained by ProPublica show Parnas worked closely with Solomon to facilitate his reporting, including helping with translation and interviews. Solomon also shared files he obtained related to the Biden allegations with Parnas, according to a person familiar with the exchange. And the two men shared yet another only recently revealed connection: Solomon’s personal lawyers connected the journalist to Parnas and later hired the Florida businessman as a translator in their representation of a Ukrainian oligarch.
Solomon’s interview and columns were widely amplified. Giuliani praised them, and Trump said he deserved a Pulitzer Prize. Fox News hosts Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Lou Dobbs trumpeted them. They later become a key point in the CIA whistleblower complaint that set the impeachment inquiry in motion.
Parnas’ unusual and extensive involvement in the production of the stories has not been previously reported.
Solomon, 52, told ProPublica his reporting was accurate and defended his sourcing, saying, “No one knew there was anything wrong with Lev Parnas at the time.”
“Everybody who approaches me has an angle,” he said. “My mother has an angle when she calls me.” A lawyer for Parnas, who along with Fruman has pleaded not guilty, didn’t return requests for comment.
More than a year before his Ukraine columns published, The Hill had serious concerns about Solomon’s credibility and conflicts of interest. Hill staffers began raising alarms, including the paper’s publisher at the time, who warned in an internal memo that Solomon was engaged in “reputation killing stuff” by mixing business with journalism.
In response, The Hill’s management took steps to limit Solomon’s reporting — rebranding him as an opinion writer — but did not prevent him from writing his Ukraine series.
“Nothing I did would have put The Hill’s reputation at risk,” Solomon said.
Solomon came to The Hill, which specializes in inside-the-Beltway news, in July 2017 after a decades long career that included stretches at The Associated Press, The Washington Post and The Washington Times. His work has earned accolades, including a series examining what the FBI knew ahead of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He is now a contributor to Fox News.
Brought in as an executive vice president overseeing a new digital video enterprise now known as Hill.TV, Solomon continued to operate as a journalist, publishing news articles in the paper, while also playing a role on The Hill’s business side. That began to trouble colleagues within months of his hiring, according to internal memos and interviews with current and former staffers.
In late October 2017, The Hill published a story on the decisive role of Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, in the upcoming vote on the Trump administration’s tax bill. The article, authored by two journalists who reported to Solomon, included a quote from the executive director of Job Creators Network, a conservative group that claimed the bill would help small-business owners in Maine.
Soon after, Johanna Derlega, then The Hill’s publisher, wrote two memos to the company’s president, Richard Beckman, worrying that Solomon was tearing down the traditional wall separating the business side and the news coverage. She noted that Solomon had negotiated a nearly $160,000 advertising deal with Job Creators Network, targeting business owners in Maine. Solomon then had a quote from that group’s director inserted in the story.
Solomon “pops by the advertising bullpen almost daily to discuss big deals he’s about to close,” Derlega wrote, adding, “If a media reporter gets ahold of this story, it could destroy us.”
“While I highlight this one example, John has been given the freedom, and possibly financial upside, to work with advertisers while clearly sitting within editorial,” Derlega wrote.
Six months later, in April 2018, Derlega was forced out of The Hill. The Hill’s owner, president and top editors haven’t responded to detailed questions about Derlega’s memos and Solomon’s tenure at the paper. A spokesman for the advertiser, Job Creators Network, didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.
In interviews with ProPublica this week, Solomon repeatedly declined to discuss his activities on The Hill’s business side, saying, “I just simply can’t talk about anything business related with The Hill.”
A month later, the paper’s editor in chief, Bob Cusack, emailed staff that “effective immediately” Solomon would no longer publish stories under the banner of news but instead would be an “opinion contributor.”
From this new perch, Solomon broke in early spring what seemed to be an explosive piece of news: claims by Yuriy Lutsenko, then Ukraine’s top prosecutor, that a U.S. diplomat, serving under President Barack Obama, presented him a list of people and groups he could not prosecute. Additionally, Lutsenko said that he was reviving a probe into the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings, seeking to determine whether Joe Biden, as vice president, interfered with the initial inquiry to protect his son Hunter, who sat on Burisma’s board.
Behind the scenes, Parnas had been central to connecting Solomon with Lutsenko. In a March 2019 email that included the businessman, the columnist wrote that he’d “just got word from Lev that the prosecutor general has agreed to do an interview tomorrow.”
Parnas watched Lutsenko’s interview live, inside the control room of The Hill’s TV studio. Solomon explained that he called in the businessman to act as a translator, but in the end his services were not needed.
Solomon recalls first encountering Parnas through Pete Sessions, the once-powerful Texas Republican member of Congress who is now in the middle of the Trump impeachment inquiry. Sessions accepted campaign donations from Parnas and Fruman, and had met with the two men as they sought to oust an American diplomat in Ukraine. Later, Sessions wrote a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, urging him to replace the envoy Marie Yovanovitch, who had been the subject of extensive criticism in the conservative media. She was later fired and is a key witness for House Democrats trying to impeach the president.
Sessions, who has denied knowledge of the campaign finance scheme laid out by prosecutors, told ProPublica that he has no connection to Solomon.
“I don’t know John,” he said.
Solomon says his personal attorneys, Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing, a husband-and-wife legal team that regularly represents conservative luminaries, set up his first formal meeting with Parnas. He asserted that his editors “were aware” that he was seeking help from diGenova and Toensing on matters concerning Ukraine.
“I was doing that as an extra layer of protection,” Solomon said. “And so everything — everything — was above board. Everybody knew about it. I was just trying to be careful.” diGenova and Toensing did not respond to a request for comment.
As he compiled material for subsequent columns, Solomon and Parnas continued to work closely. In late March, less than a week after the first piece featuring Lutsenko appeared in The Hill, Solomon sent files via Dropbox to Parnas containing financial records purporting to be connected to Biden’s son. Around the same time, Solomon also sent Toensing and diGenova what appeared to be an advance copy of a Ukraine-related story. The Daily Beast reported that the email was included in a State Department Inspector General’s Office package of material turned over to lawmakers.
Solomon acknowledged that Parnas helped set up the Lutsenko interview, but he says he had originally requested it through official channels. Solomon maintains his relationship with the businessman was a typical one a reporter would have with a source. “Lev would call me,” he said, “and offer things he was hearing on the ground and I would look into some things.”
As Solomon’s relationship with Parnas developed, he learned over time that the businessman “was working for many people or several people in Ukraine,” including Giuliani and Solomon’s lawyers. Politico first reported Solomon’s lawyers also represented the Ukrainian oligarch. Giuliani hasn’t responded to messages seeking comment.
Solomon defended his work, including his reporting on the so-called do-not-prosecute list, which he said he went through “enormous efforts” to verify. “At the end of the day,” Solomon said. “it doesn’t matter what Lev Parnas did. It matters what I did.”
But a month after Lutsenko’s Hill TV appearance, the former Ukrainian prosecutor backed off of his allegations. He told a Ukrainian-language publication that he himself was the one who asked the U.S. ambassador for the list of supposedly untouchable figures. The State Department said there was never any list, calling it an “outright fabrication.” And Lutsenko told the Los Angeles Times last month that he saw no evidence of wrongdoing that would justify an investigation into Biden’s son’s business dealings in his country.
Jake Pearson, Mike Spies and J. David McSwane / ProPublica
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