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Führer Trump’s Impeachment Inquiry Thread. Update: The Senate completes the coverup

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Johnson Met With Ukrainian Diplomat Behind Debunked DNC Conspiracy Theory

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) met with Andrii Telizhenko, an ex-Ukrainian diplomat who's been fueling a false claim about the DNC and Ukrainian election interference, earlier this year.
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Johnson Met With Ukrainian Diplomat Behind Debunked DNC Conspiracy Theory

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) met with Andrii Telizhenko, an ex-Ukrainian diplomat who’s been fueling a false claim about the DNC and Ukrainian election interference, earlier this year.

Telizhenko told the Washington Post that he had met with Johnson in Washington for at least a half hour, partially to discuss what he called “the DNC issue.” The Post found a Facebook photo of the two men dated July 11.

“I was in Washington, and Sen. Johnson found out I was in D.C., and staff called me and wanted to do a meeting with me,” the former diplomat told the Post. “So I reached out back and said, ‘Sure, I’ll come down the Hill and talk to you,'”

“The DNC issue” in this context refers to the debunked conspiracy theory alleging that the DNC and Ukrainian had conspired to uncover details of former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort’s crimes. A separate “Crowdstrike” conspiracy theory alleges that the DNC and a digital security firm kept a server hidden from the FBI that detailed the DNC’s efforts to frame Russia for Ukraine’s election interference in 2016.

President Donald Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani have obsessively peddled conspiracy theories about the DNC and the Ukrainian government in the 2016 elections to the point where Trump attempted to force the Ukrainian president into investigating it by withholding military aid–an effort that has led to an ongoing House impeachment inquiry.

Johnson’s meeting with Telizhenko reveals a new link between the Republican senator and Trump allies’ efforts to legitimize the conspiracy theory amid the impeachment proceedings against Trump over his Ukraine scheme.

Johnson and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) pushed Attorney General Bill Barr to investigate the conspiracy theory near the end of September, saying that “such allegations of corruption deserve due scrutiny.”
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WH’s Impeachment Strategist Search

According to a Politico report Monday, the White House is considering hiring former top Treasury aide Tony Sayegh this week as a communications specialist.
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Report: WH Considers Hiring Ex-Treasury Aide As Impeachment Strategist

Despite President Trump’s lack of an impeachment war room, it seems that the White House may not be totally opposed to coming up with a communications strategy after all.

According to a Politico report Monday, the White House is considering hiring former top Treasury aide Tony Sayegh this week as a communications specialist focusing on impeachment strategy and messaging.

Citing a person familiar with the search, Politico reported that Sayegh would also tackle communications-related issues outside of impeachment, such as how to structure the White House press and communications department and the best strategy for working with outside allies.

The White House has so far sought to cast the impeachment inquiry as illegitimate altogether. In a letter to House Democrats earlier this month, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone said the impeachment inquiry was at attempt to “overturn the democratic process.”

President Trump himself consistently calls the impeachment probe a “hoax” and “witch hunt.”

Two sources familiar with the search told Politico that Sayegh paid several visits to the White House within the last week to discuss the potential job opportunity.

Politico noted, however, that it’s unclear whether Trump has given Sayegh’s hire the green light.

The White House declined to comment when asked about the report.
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Collins Won’t Co-Sponsor Senate Resolution Condemning Impeachment Probe

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) said on Monday that she won't co-sponsor the Senate's resolution condemning the House impeachment investigation into President Donald Trump. "I have been critical of the…
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Collins Won’t Co-Sponsor Senate Resolution Condemning Impeachment Probe


Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) said on Monday that she won’t co-sponsor the Senate’s resolution condemning the House impeachment investigation into President Donald Trump.

“I have been critical of the House not holding a vote to authorize the inquiry but the House determines its own procedures,” Collins told Politico. “Just as I don’t like it when House members try to tell us to abolish the filibuster, I’m not sure it’s productive for the Senate to try to dictate to the House how to conduct the inquiry.”

The Maine Republican said she hasn’t decided what her vote will be on the resolution.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), one of Trump’s strongest allies in the Senate, introduced the resolution on Thursday to send a “strong signal to our House colleagues that you’re off script here.”
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READ: Prepared Testimony Of NSC Official Who Listened To Trump’s Ukraine Call

A White House official who listened to President Trump's July 25 call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky will tell House investigators on Tuesday that he was so alarmed by the Ukraine pressure…
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READ: Prepared Testimony Of NSC Official Who Listened To Trump’s Ukraine Call

A White House official who listened to President Trump’s July 25 call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky will tell House investigators on Tuesday that he was so alarmed by the Ukraine pressure campaign that he twice alerted a top White House lawyer.



Lt Col. Alexander Vindman, who has served on the National Security Council since 2018, will recount overhearing U.S. Ambassador to the E.U. Gordon Sondland — a key player in the pressure campaign — discuss with Ukrainian officials the need for the country to launch investigations into the 2016 election and the Bidens in order to secure a Zelensky meeting with Trump.

Vindman’s account, laid out in prepared remarks obtained by TPM, confirms the July 10 conversation that another witness in the inquiry relayed to investigators.

The conversation, according to the testimony, happened after a White House meeting with the Ukrainians had already been cut short by then-National Security Advisor John Bolton when Sondland brought up the request for the investigations.

“Following this meeting, there was a scheduled debriefing during which Amb.
Sondland emphasized the importance that Ukraine deliver the investigations into
the 2016 election, the Bidens, and Burisma,” Vindman’s prepared remarks said. “I stated to Amb. Sondland that his statements were inappropriate, that the request to investigate Biden and his son had nothing to do with national security, and that such investigations were not something the NSC was going to get involved in or push.”

Vindman reported the incident to the top lawyer on NSC. He also reported Trump’s July 25 call, in which he requested the investigations, to the lawyer, John Eisenberg.

Vindman plans on telling House investigators that in spring 2019, he “became aware of outside influencers promoting a false narrative of Ukraine” that was “harmful” to U.S. policy.

His testimony recounts two episodes of the pressure campaign on Kyiv to which he bore direct witness in his testimony.

The first focuses on the July 10 visit by Ukraine’s then-National Security Adviser Oleksandr Danylyuk to the White House for meeting attended by Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Special Envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker, Bolton and Sondland.

After Danylyuk asked about arranging a meeting between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the statement reads, Sondland started to talk “about Ukraine delivering specific investigations in order to secure the meeting with the President.”

Bolton then “cut the meeting short,” the statement says, apparently corroborating testimony from fellow national security staffer Fiona Hill.

Vindman also listened in on the now-infamous July 25 phone call between Trump and Zelensky, in which the President asked the Ukrainian leader for a “favor.”

“I did not think it was proper to demand that a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen,” Vindman plans on saying. The statement goes on to say that were Ukraine to investigate the Biden family or Burisma — the gas firm on whose board Hunter Biden sat — “it would likely be interpreted as a partisan play which would undoubtedly result in Ukraine losing the bipartisan support it has thus far maintained.”

“This would all undermine U.S. national security,” the statement reads.
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Kushner Tells WH Aides Trump Can Overcome Impeachment Because He Withstood Mueller Probe

President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner is reportedly leading the messaging efforts on impeachment inside the White House
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Kushner Tells WH Aides Trump Can Overcome Impeachment Because He Withstood Mueller Probe


President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner is reportedly leading the messaging efforts on impeachment inside the White House, urging aides to remain calm, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Kushner’s primary message to those anxious in the West Wing: Trump withstood special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, he can handle this, according to the WSJ.

During recent impeachment meetings at the White House, Kushner has attempted to quell anxiety, classifying the impeachment inquiry as just another hit in a string of partisan attacks against Trump’s presidency. He’s also told aides that the “facts are in the White House’s favor” and the administration doesn’t need to be as on the defensive, according to the WSJ.

Kushner has also led the charge to look into hiring an aide to help with communication between the White House and Congress. The shortlist for that position includes Tony Sayegh, a former Treasury Department spokesman and Pam Bondi, a former Florida attorney general.

White House acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and his team in the Office of Management and Budget have looked to Kushner for advice on how to react to impeachment-related developments in the news.
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White House Still Hesitant To Release Pence-Zelensky Call

The WH is reportedly still unsure about whether it will release its version of Pence’s phone call with the Ukrainian president because it’s unsure whether the move would help or hurt the President,
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White House Still Hesitant To Release Pence-Zelensky Call

The White House is reportedly still mulling whether it will release its version of Vice President Mike Pence’s phone call with the Ukrainian president because it’s unsure if the move would help or hurt the President, NBC News reported.

While President Trump has maintained that his phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was “perfect,” Trump aides are reportedly concerned that releasing a reconstructed transcript of Pence’s conversation with the same world leader would harm that defense, NBC reported. Many Trump allies reportedly believe that the release of the the White House’s version of Trump’s call with Zelensky was a mistake in the first place because it helped fuel the House’s impeachment inquiry.

The White House is also reportedly wary that making this conversation public might set a precedent that would prompt Democrats to push for transcripts of other relevant conversations, according to NBC.

It’s been three weeks since Pence told reporters that he had “no objection” to releasing the White House’s version of his call with Zelensky. An administration official told NBC News that White House lawyers are still reviewing whether to release the call.
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Fox News Attempts To Discredit Vindman

Fox News hosts were quick to raise suspicions about the prepared testimony of Lt Col. Alexander Vindman.
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Fox News Attempts To Discredit Vindman Over His ‘Affinity To The Ukrainian People’

Fox News hosts were quick to raise suspicions about the prepared testimony of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who has served on the National Security Council since 2018, in the hours following its Monday night release.

Vindman’s testimony is expected to recount how President Trump’s now-famous July call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky spurred him to alert a top White House lawyer twice about his concerns. Vindman plans to tell House investigators on Tuesday that he overheard U.S. Ambassador to the E.U. Gordon Sondland — a key player in the Ukraine pressure campaign — pressure Ukrainian officials to launch investigations into the 2016 election and the Bidens for the purpose of setting up a Trump-Zelensky meeting.

“Fox & Friends” hosts weighed in on Vindman’s incoming congressional testimony Tuesday morning by drawing attention to his “affinity to the Ukrainian people.”

“So [Vindman] has got a purple heart and he is from the Soviet Union,” co-host Brian Kilmeade said. “He immigrated here and has an affinity to the Ukrainian people.”

Kilmeade, reading a section of Vindman’s prepared remarks where he said “I did not think it was proper that a foreign government to investigate a U.S. citizen,” pointed out that the White House official claims that he complained twice.

“Once in early July, once after the phone call. But what the President is trying to pursue, seemingly, is what happened in 2016,” Kilmeade said. “And it just so happens the person who is a candidate for President was in charge of corruption in 2016 for the U.S. government. So the President has some questions about the Ukraine, which I assume he will soon present that argument.”

The “Fox and Friends” segment wasn’t the only one to raise questions about Vindman.

Right as Vindman’s prepared remarks were released Monday night, former Justice Department official John Yoo cried “espionage” on Laura Ingraham’s show.

After Ingraham called attention to the “buried” detail in a New York Times reportMonday night that “Ukrainian officials sought advice” from Vindman “about how to deal with Giuliani” due to his fluency in both Ukrainian and Russian, Yoo said that he found the detail “astounding” and that “some people might call that espionage.”

Watch Yoo’s remarks below:

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Straight out the Frump playbook...discredit the person accusing the administration
 
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