A version of this was published in the Winter Park Times 11/21/19
https://winterparktimes.com/opinion/columnists/critical-military-aid-including-javelin-anti-tank-missiles/
update: 11/21/19: One of the favors Donald Trump asked of Ukraine President Zelensky as a condition of receiving military aid and an Oval Office visit was to look into Ukraine's role in the 2016 elections and the rumor that Ukraine had the hacked DNC server. Fiona Hill, the NSC Russian expert, testified November 21, which was a Russian disinformation action and the GOP was spreading it. “[S]ome of you on this committee appear to believe that Russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country — and that perhaps, somehow, for some reason, Ukraine did. This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves.”
Revised: 11/15/19 and updated 11/17/19 and 11/20/19
https://winterparktimes.com/opinion/columnists/critical-military-aid-including-javelin-anti-tank-missiles/
update: 11/21/19: One of the favors Donald Trump asked of Ukraine President Zelensky as a condition of receiving military aid and an Oval Office visit was to look into Ukraine's role in the 2016 elections and the rumor that Ukraine had the hacked DNC server. Fiona Hill, the NSC Russian expert, testified November 21, which was a Russian disinformation action and the GOP was spreading it. “[S]ome of you on this committee appear to believe that Russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country — and that perhaps, somehow, for some reason, Ukraine did. This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves.”
Revised: 11/15/19 and updated 11/17/19 and 11/20/19
If all of Trump's roads lead to Russia because of his foreign policy that supports Putin's goals, many also go through Ukraine. Why does Ukraine matter? Ukraine is considered extremely important to US national security, too. Trump's actions and words throw doubt into Trump's commitment to Ukraine and emboldens Putin's attempt to control eastern European former Soviet satellites.. Ambassador Bill Taylor, currently the chief envoy to Ukraine, worried aloud in his deposition that he was afraid "Trump might be willing to trade away Ukraine's interests as part of a grand bargain with Russia. "
On November 21, Fiona Hill, Russia expert on the NSC, says the Cloudstrike conspiracy theory, that Ukraine interfered in US elections in 2016, not Russia was and invention advanced by Russia. It is fiction.
https://www.axios.com/impeachment-hearing-fiona-hill-trump-ukraine-testimony-49fbce41-bf1c-4b02-964c-701196d30d5c.html
There is a bipartisan consensus in the Senate of those who believe keeping Ukraine's independence from Russia's domination is the first line of defense against the spread of Russia's control of Europe that would result in an eventual conflict involving the US. Support of Ukraine is America's way of sending a message to Russia to stop its aggression into eastern Europe because the US would react to further incursions as they had reacted in Ukraine, giving that victim country full US support. Trump's attempt to force Ukraine to do him some favors to help his re-election campaign in 2020 in return for the restoration of critical military aid he himself froze benefits Russia by signaling to them he does not care that much about Ukraine's independence.
The only one coming out ahead in this scheme of arms for political dirt is Putin. Putin has wanted sanctions lifted on his oligarch friends and Russia itself imposed for interference in US elections and the grabbing of Crimea from Ukraine. It is a critical time for Russia and Ukraine. There is a hot war between Russian forces and Ukraine. 13,000 Ukrainians have died. They are involved in negotiations to end the war in Ukraine's Donbas area with Russia hoping to solidify their control and Ukraine wanting to kick Russia out altogether. Ukraine is now in a weakened bargaining position with evidence of Trump's shaky support of them.
Ukraine is no small country. It is the largest country with boundaries entirely in Europe with a population of 46 million. with natural resources and access to warm water ports. It is strategically located bordering Russia and some NATO countries and others who are not protected by NATO'a mutual defense treaty. Mutual defense means if one member country is attacked, all members will respond as they did in 9/11. Membership is a major deterrent to Russian's control spreading throughout Europe. Nonetheless, one of the first newly elected Donald Trump's expressed policy desires was to declare the mutual defense treaty of NATO obsolete and attempted to defund it, using complaints about Europe's weak financial contribution as an excuse. Fortunately, he failed because members of his own party and Democrats in Congress were in agreement and have supported both a strong NATO and lethal military aid to Ukraine.
In Italics also copied and in its own separate posting 11/21/19 "bombshells" and the posting of the Rebuttal of the Rebuttal .
Testimony by State Department and the US ambassador Bill Taylor to Ukraine November 13 confirmed Trump used withholding military aid as a threat to force the Ukraine president to go before microphones and announce he would re-open investigations into the Bidens and find evidence that Ukraine, not Russia, was to blame for the 2016 US presidential election interference. That latter issue is a conspiracy theory that contradicts the findings of Mueller,'s investigation, all of the US intelligence services, and a bi-partisan Senate committee findings. Taylor was the successor to Ambassador Maria Yovanovitch who Trump had removed in May..Ambassador Yovanovitch testified November 15 she had known Rudy Guiliani had been active in Ukraine seeking her removal. Yovanovitch's testimony revealed she was recalled and smeared for her efforts to rein in corruption in Ukraine that targeted a corrupt prosecutor who was a pal of Rudy Guiliani's circle of Ukraine contacts.
Zelensky had been reluctant to interfere in US domestic politics, fearing he would jeopardize bi-partisan support in the US Congress. Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland in Wednesday, November 20 open hearing confirmed the quid pro quo, using exactly those words: Trump would give the Oval Office meeting Zelensky wanted to have for Trump to confirm continued America’s support of Ukraine, but only if Zelensky would commit to the investigations. Sondland's significance: first had knowledge as a participant in the scheme. This was no hearsay or circumstantial evidence. This was from the participant's horse's mouth. However, Sondland was slow to realize the military aid/Javelin release also was dependent on Zelensky’s agreement to investigate the two conspiracy theories and announce it publicly. He did understand that at the end of August. He was also slow to grasp that every time Burisma investigations re-opening meant Hunter and Joe Biden's activities. Under questioning, Sondland agreed opening the Biden investigation would benefit Trump in 2020. The issue that it was Ukraine, not Russia, that interfered in the 2016 elections, contradicts the findings of Mueller,'s investigation, all of the US intelligence services, and bi-partisan Senate committee findings. Sondland also said all of the president's men, Pence, Pompeo, Mulvaney, etc. were in on the scheme. It was not just Rudy Guiliani going rogue; it was the mainstream of Trump and his closest advisors who were part of it. Laura Cooper, the point person in the Department of Defense, also testified that her staff had received inquiries from the Ukraine embassy on July 25 asking about the money for the javelins, indicating that Ukraine knew about the July 18 freeze on javelin money far earlier than the GOP charged. The
significance is that it shuts holes in the GOP argument that there was no quo there, i.e.how could
Ukraine knows that the release of the military aid was being used as the extortion hammer. They did know.
_______________________________________________________________________________
There was also evidence Guiliani had been trying to get evidence against the Bidens since late 2018, before the election of Zelensky in April 2019.
Trump released the aid within 48 hours of the Whistleblower's complaint reaching Congress with public exposure of Trump's July 25 call. In that call in he asked Zelensky for "favors though "in response to Zelensky saying he was ready to buy Javelins, anti-tank missiles, critical to Ukraine's defense against Russian tanks. Trump referred Zelensky to Guiliani for followup.
https://www.yahoo.com/gma/70-americans-trump-actions-tied-ukraine-were-wrong-110154820--abc-news-topstories.html
GOP defense seems to be no harm no foul since Ukraine got the aid, but an attempted crime is subject to prosecution, as well, respond Democrats. The harm done was to throw doubt into Trump's commitment to Ukraine and emboldening Putin's power and attempt to control eastern Europe's former USSR's satellites. The GOP is claiming all evidence has been supplied by second-hand knowledge and hearsay, while Trump has attempted to keep anyone with direct knowledge from testifying. He has failed. First-hand witnesses have emerged and his own words are the best evidence against him.
Another GOP defense is that Trump may have done wrong, but not wrong enough to warrant impeachment or removal from office. Prior impeachment attempts involved coverup and lying of a break-in to Democratic National Committee (Watergate/Nixon) and Clinton's lying about a sex affair with an intern. This impeachment process and inquiry hearings concern national security and defense in the face of Russian aggression that could result in future hotter conflicts. If this is not enough to justify impeachment/trial what is or ever will be?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdIIMXibXoc: Laura Cooper of the Pentagon restifies that Ukraine suspected military aid had been frozen as early as July 25
__________________________________________________________________________________
Nov 17, 2019 Those watching Fareed Zakria's TV broadcast on CNN Sunday, November 17 might have heard how Pres. Zelensky came to plan he would publicly announce he would re-open the Burisma/Biden investigation and look into Ukraine's alleged interference in the 2016 US elections preferring Hillary's candidacy. The Whistleblower and subsequent release of military aid caused Zelensky's interview with Zakaria to be canceled. In an interview on his program, the State Department chief in charge of Ukraine affairs to 2013, also related that 1.) Joe Biden had been forceful in demanding from a Ukraine prosecutor that he crackdown on corruption which would have hurt Hunter Biden, not have helped him. 2) Joe Biden had been an advocate for those in the Obama White House to supply lethal weapons (Javelin anti-tank missiles) to Ukraine, but that others thought it was not a good idea at the time.
Zakaria's interview also explored the Crowdstrike investigations that it was Ukraine that did it in 2016.The expert he interviewed debunks that. The Ukrainians were somehow the ones who hacked the DNC, not the Russians,. https://twitter.com/CNNnewsroom/status/1196087017790230530
The theory has been embraced by Trump and suits his attempt to get Russia off the hook for what every US intelligence agencies, 125 pages of details in the Mueller Report, and the bipartisan findings of the Senate committee. Zakaria's interviewed expert indicated without evidence yet that this was a disinformation campaign by Russia and by Paul Manafort's associate Konstantin Kilimnik, believed to be a Russian asset, having been trained to do so in Russia. Manafort's client was the pro-Russian ousted former president of Ukraine.
It took Trump's administration to do that and Trump to undermine his own policy of support of Ukraine by supplying Javelins and withholding them to get political dirt from Ukrainian reopening investigations to help his 2020 re-election.
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2019/sep/26/rudy-giulianis-role-ukraines-investigation-joe-bid/
In the Nov 15 hearings, Rep. Jim Jordan tried to make a point and support a conspiracy theory being floated in right-wing media that Ukraine interfered in US politics and the claim that Amb. Yovanovitch did not stop him and in fact, had given him some do not prosecute list (ie the Bidens). In the hearings, she denied it. Some background: Jordan kept mentioning Lutsenko, the then prosecutor who was removed when the new and current President Zelensky assumed office. Lutsenko had been accused of corruption himself and had not done as he promised to do to crack down on corruption, running afoul of Yovanovitch's anti-corruption initiatives. Rudy Guiliani and his Ukraine associates drew heavily on Lutsenko in their campaign to oust Amb. Yovanovitch and in the testimony, she said Lutsenko was part of Guiliani's circle of associates.. Nonetheless, Jordan persisted to try to support the conspiracy theory that it was Ukraine that was supporting Hillary Clinton, etc. which is connected to Trump's attempt to get Ukraine to shift the blame on interference in the 2016 election away from Russia to Ukraine. (Trump's reference to Cloudstrike in the July 15 telephone call, one of Trump's "favors" he asked of Zelensky, later conditioned on release of military aid and a White House visit._}Jordan's the questioning was mostly a statement of his conspiracy theory, so much so , Yovanovitch had to ask what was his question.
https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/434875-top-ukrainian-justice-official-says-us-ambassador-gave-him-a-do-not-prosecute The origin of this theory was in this March 2019 Hill article. Both the Ambassador and the State Department vigorously denied it. The pushback on these Hill allegations in the hearings can be found at https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/470656-yovanovitch-says-solomon-stories-were-used-to-push-false-allegations These allegations found in the Hill article appear to describe how Lutsenko and Guiliani tried to smear Yovanovitch's reputation and get her removed. It is also suspected that Guiliani wanted Yovanovitch recalled to make it easier for him to conduct the scheme to find dirt on the Bidens and to help Trump make the case that Russia did not interfere in 2016; Ukraine did. ...as part of his desire to lift punishing sanctions against Russia for the interference. After she was recalled, there was a lag time before her vacancy was filled by Taylor. In her testimony, Yovanovitch said she is still puzzled why she was recalled, though it was very hurtful to her.
Yovanovitch had approved of Trump's official policy of supplying lethal weapon aid. and ending corruption. It was Trump's own policy both Guiliani and Trump undermined in making it a tool in their priority goal to get help from Ukraine for 2020. The only corruption Trump ever referenced in pronouncements, tweets, or the July 25 call, was his belief the Bidens had been involved with Burisma, a Ukraine gas company. Priorrior Ukraine investigations found no criminal wrongdoing with Hunter Biden and his father was advocating stronger action against corruption, not weaker action. There is no evidence that Joe Biden either interfered or had anything to do with Hunter's Ukraine business.
________________________________________________________________________________
Footnotes and much more:
We now know that Zelensky caved and had planned to announce Ukraine would re-open the investigation into the conspiracy theories on CNN/ Fareed Zakaria, but cancelled that appearance when the aid was unfrozen. If the Whistleblower's complaint had never come to light, Trump/Guiliani's scheme would have succeeded and we would never have been the wiser for it.
Why Donald Trump is constantly licking Putin's boots is a question, the answer which may someday come into the public light. Until then, we should just accept the fact that Trump loves autocratic Putin's style and nationalist goals and still hopes someday the Moscow tower will be built.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Donald Trump's affinity/bromance/foreign policy to help Russia be great again is best seen in what he does and says. For years he has advocated policies that weaken American national security. His campaign manager, Paul Manafort, now in prison for financial crimes he committed before he joined Trump's campaign in the spring of 2016, had been an advisor to a former President of Ukraine who advocated closer ties with Russia. Manafort's pro-Russian client was unseated in the largely peaceful street uprising and fled to Russia as a refugee. Those who unhorsed the Russian leaning president wanted to turn westward, to the EU, and not to Russia.
In the Spring of 2016, as Manfort assumed a larger role in the Trump campaign for president, Trump's pronouncement on foreign policy became more focused and was in lockstep with Russia.
It was passed off my many apologists as that his attempts to get approval to build Trump Towers in Moscow were causing his bromance with a strong man he truly admired, President Putin. As we later learned, Russia conducted active measures, hacked DNC emails, sent spies to the US to gather information, and launched an intensive social media campaign, to help Trump's election. That was the finding of the Mueller Speical Counsel Investigation and the findings of a bipartisan Senate committee, who released their report in early fall this year. No one should have been shocked that he has continued his attempts to undermine European defenses against Russian advancement to reassemble the old Soviet empire. Trump failed at many of those attempts, from trying to weaken US commitment to NATO, to declare NATO's mutual defense treaty obsolete (if one member is attacked, all will respond), to denigrate his own intelligence services, preferring to listen to Putin's instead, and to try to end economic sanctions against Russia which had been punishment for their aggressions.
In the meantime, Congress had overwhelming bi-partisan support for Ukraine, appropriating military aid critical to Ukraine's ability to stop Russia from turning Ukraine into their satellite. It was this aid package, including the anti-defense missiles, Javelins, that became the object of the Whistleblower complaint. The Pentagon was told that the administration would irritate Russia if such missiles were given to Ukraine, but no one from any federal department or Congress agreed. In May, Rudy Guiliani began what later was called "the drug deal", an undercover, sneaking around the official diplomatic delegations to Ukraine supporting official policy, to force the newly elected Ukraine president to help Donald Trump get dirt on his domestic political challenger, Joe Biden, via his' son's business activities in Ukraine. First was dangled a meeting in the White House as an inducement, but the Ukraine president did not want to take any side in US politics since his independence from Russia depended on bipartisan support of Congress. The ante was upped. Per testimony of Department of Defense coordinator, Laura Cooper, earlier in the summer Ukraine had gotten wind that the javelin delivery was being delayed and it was frozen per Trump's orders one week before a telephone call between the Ukraine president and Trump himself. In mid-September, the July 25 (quid pro quo) call was exposed by the Whistleblower and two days later, the military aid was unfrozen. Diplomats and Defense Department officials from May to September slowly realized that there was a side game going on to add the release of the aid to the condition of the Ukrainian president meeting his demands.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-inquired-about-aid-on-same-day-as-trump-zelensky-call-official-testifies-11574295133
https://www.axios.com/kurt-volker-closed-door-interview-giuliani-fc9b670b-0b05-4e5c-932c-a39f03fad356.html
On November 21, Fiona Hill, Russia expert on the NSC, says the Cloudstrike conspiracy theory, that Ukraine interfered in US elections in 2016, not Russia was and invention advanced by Russia. It is fiction.
https://www.axios.com/impeachment-hearing-fiona-hill-trump-ukraine-testimony-49fbce41-bf1c-4b02-964c-701196d30d5c.html
There is a bipartisan consensus in the Senate of those who believe keeping Ukraine's independence from Russia's domination is the first line of defense against the spread of Russia's control of Europe that would result in an eventual conflict involving the US. Support of Ukraine is America's way of sending a message to Russia to stop its aggression into eastern Europe because the US would react to further incursions as they had reacted in Ukraine, giving that victim country full US support. Trump's attempt to force Ukraine to do him some favors to help his re-election campaign in 2020 in return for the restoration of critical military aid he himself froze benefits Russia by signaling to them he does not care that much about Ukraine's independence.
The only one coming out ahead in this scheme of arms for political dirt is Putin. Putin has wanted sanctions lifted on his oligarch friends and Russia itself imposed for interference in US elections and the grabbing of Crimea from Ukraine. It is a critical time for Russia and Ukraine. There is a hot war between Russian forces and Ukraine. 13,000 Ukrainians have died. They are involved in negotiations to end the war in Ukraine's Donbas area with Russia hoping to solidify their control and Ukraine wanting to kick Russia out altogether. Ukraine is now in a weakened bargaining position with evidence of Trump's shaky support of them.
Ukraine is no small country. It is the largest country with boundaries entirely in Europe with a population of 46 million. with natural resources and access to warm water ports. It is strategically located bordering Russia and some NATO countries and others who are not protected by NATO'a mutual defense treaty. Mutual defense means if one member country is attacked, all members will respond as they did in 9/11. Membership is a major deterrent to Russian's control spreading throughout Europe. Nonetheless, one of the first newly elected Donald Trump's expressed policy desires was to declare the mutual defense treaty of NATO obsolete and attempted to defund it, using complaints about Europe's weak financial contribution as an excuse. Fortunately, he failed because members of his own party and Democrats in Congress were in agreement and have supported both a strong NATO and lethal military aid to Ukraine.
In Italics also copied and in its own separate posting 11/21/19 "bombshells" and the posting of the Rebuttal of the Rebuttal .
Testimony by State Department and the US ambassador Bill Taylor to Ukraine November 13 confirmed Trump used withholding military aid as a threat to force the Ukraine president to go before microphones and announce he would re-open investigations into the Bidens and find evidence that Ukraine, not Russia, was to blame for the 2016 US presidential election interference. That latter issue is a conspiracy theory that contradicts the findings of Mueller,'s investigation, all of the US intelligence services, and a bi-partisan Senate committee findings. Taylor was the successor to Ambassador Maria Yovanovitch who Trump had removed in May..Ambassador Yovanovitch testified November 15 she had known Rudy Guiliani had been active in Ukraine seeking her removal. Yovanovitch's testimony revealed she was recalled and smeared for her efforts to rein in corruption in Ukraine that targeted a corrupt prosecutor who was a pal of Rudy Guiliani's circle of Ukraine contacts.
Zelensky had been reluctant to interfere in US domestic politics, fearing he would jeopardize bi-partisan support in the US Congress. Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland in Wednesday, November 20 open hearing confirmed the quid pro quo, using exactly those words: Trump would give the Oval Office meeting Zelensky wanted to have for Trump to confirm continued America’s support of Ukraine, but only if Zelensky would commit to the investigations. Sondland's significance: first had knowledge as a participant in the scheme. This was no hearsay or circumstantial evidence. This was from the participant's horse's mouth. However, Sondland was slow to realize the military aid/Javelin release also was dependent on Zelensky’s agreement to investigate the two conspiracy theories and announce it publicly. He did understand that at the end of August. He was also slow to grasp that every time Burisma investigations re-opening meant Hunter and Joe Biden's activities. Under questioning, Sondland agreed opening the Biden investigation would benefit Trump in 2020. The issue that it was Ukraine, not Russia, that interfered in the 2016 elections, contradicts the findings of Mueller,'s investigation, all of the US intelligence services, and bi-partisan Senate committee findings. Sondland also said all of the president's men, Pence, Pompeo, Mulvaney, etc. were in on the scheme. It was not just Rudy Guiliani going rogue; it was the mainstream of Trump and his closest advisors who were part of it. Laura Cooper, the point person in the Department of Defense, also testified that her staff had received inquiries from the Ukraine embassy on July 25 asking about the money for the javelins, indicating that Ukraine knew about the July 18 freeze on javelin money far earlier than the GOP charged. The
significance is that it shuts holes in the GOP argument that there was no quo there, i.e.how could
Ukraine knows that the release of the military aid was being used as the extortion hammer. They did know.
_______________________________________________________________________________
There was also evidence Guiliani had been trying to get evidence against the Bidens since late 2018, before the election of Zelensky in April 2019.
Trump released the aid within 48 hours of the Whistleblower's complaint reaching Congress with public exposure of Trump's July 25 call. In that call in he asked Zelensky for "favors though "in response to Zelensky saying he was ready to buy Javelins, anti-tank missiles, critical to Ukraine's defense against Russian tanks. Trump referred Zelensky to Guiliani for followup.
https://www.yahoo.com/gma/70-americans-trump-actions-tied-ukraine-were-wrong-110154820--abc-news-topstories.html
GOP defense seems to be no harm no foul since Ukraine got the aid, but an attempted crime is subject to prosecution, as well, respond Democrats. The harm done was to throw doubt into Trump's commitment to Ukraine and emboldening Putin's power and attempt to control eastern Europe's former USSR's satellites. The GOP is claiming all evidence has been supplied by second-hand knowledge and hearsay, while Trump has attempted to keep anyone with direct knowledge from testifying. He has failed. First-hand witnesses have emerged and his own words are the best evidence against him.
Another GOP defense is that Trump may have done wrong, but not wrong enough to warrant impeachment or removal from office. Prior impeachment attempts involved coverup and lying of a break-in to Democratic National Committee (Watergate/Nixon) and Clinton's lying about a sex affair with an intern. This impeachment process and inquiry hearings concern national security and defense in the face of Russian aggression that could result in future hotter conflicts. If this is not enough to justify impeachment/trial what is or ever will be?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdIIMXibXoc: Laura Cooper of the Pentagon restifies that Ukraine suspected military aid had been frozen as early as July 25
__________________________________________________________________________________
Nov 17, 2019 Those watching Fareed Zakria's TV broadcast on CNN Sunday, November 17 might have heard how Pres. Zelensky came to plan he would publicly announce he would re-open the Burisma/Biden investigation and look into Ukraine's alleged interference in the 2016 US elections preferring Hillary's candidacy. The Whistleblower and subsequent release of military aid caused Zelensky's interview with Zakaria to be canceled. In an interview on his program, the State Department chief in charge of Ukraine affairs to 2013, also related that 1.) Joe Biden had been forceful in demanding from a Ukraine prosecutor that he crackdown on corruption which would have hurt Hunter Biden, not have helped him. 2) Joe Biden had been an advocate for those in the Obama White House to supply lethal weapons (Javelin anti-tank missiles) to Ukraine, but that others thought it was not a good idea at the time.
Zakaria's interview also explored the Crowdstrike investigations that it was Ukraine that did it in 2016.The expert he interviewed debunks that. The Ukrainians were somehow the ones who hacked the DNC, not the Russians,. https://twitter.com/CNNnewsroom/status/1196087017790230530
The theory has been embraced by Trump and suits his attempt to get Russia off the hook for what every US intelligence agencies, 125 pages of details in the Mueller Report, and the bipartisan findings of the Senate committee. Zakaria's interviewed expert indicated without evidence yet that this was a disinformation campaign by Russia and by Paul Manafort's associate Konstantin Kilimnik, believed to be a Russian asset, having been trained to do so in Russia. Manafort's client was the pro-Russian ousted former president of Ukraine.
It took Trump's administration to do that and Trump to undermine his own policy of support of Ukraine by supplying Javelins and withholding them to get political dirt from Ukrainian reopening investigations to help his 2020 re-election.
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2019/sep/26/rudy-giulianis-role-ukraines-investigation-joe-bid/
In the Nov 15 hearings, Rep. Jim Jordan tried to make a point and support a conspiracy theory being floated in right-wing media that Ukraine interfered in US politics and the claim that Amb. Yovanovitch did not stop him and in fact, had given him some do not prosecute list (ie the Bidens). In the hearings, she denied it. Some background: Jordan kept mentioning Lutsenko, the then prosecutor who was removed when the new and current President Zelensky assumed office. Lutsenko had been accused of corruption himself and had not done as he promised to do to crack down on corruption, running afoul of Yovanovitch's anti-corruption initiatives. Rudy Guiliani and his Ukraine associates drew heavily on Lutsenko in their campaign to oust Amb. Yovanovitch and in the testimony, she said Lutsenko was part of Guiliani's circle of associates.. Nonetheless, Jordan persisted to try to support the conspiracy theory that it was Ukraine that was supporting Hillary Clinton, etc. which is connected to Trump's attempt to get Ukraine to shift the blame on interference in the 2016 election away from Russia to Ukraine. (Trump's reference to Cloudstrike in the July 15 telephone call, one of Trump's "favors" he asked of Zelensky, later conditioned on release of military aid and a White House visit._}Jordan's the questioning was mostly a statement of his conspiracy theory, so much so , Yovanovitch had to ask what was his question.
https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/434875-top-ukrainian-justice-official-says-us-ambassador-gave-him-a-do-not-prosecute The origin of this theory was in this March 2019 Hill article. Both the Ambassador and the State Department vigorously denied it. The pushback on these Hill allegations in the hearings can be found at https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/470656-yovanovitch-says-solomon-stories-were-used-to-push-false-allegations These allegations found in the Hill article appear to describe how Lutsenko and Guiliani tried to smear Yovanovitch's reputation and get her removed. It is also suspected that Guiliani wanted Yovanovitch recalled to make it easier for him to conduct the scheme to find dirt on the Bidens and to help Trump make the case that Russia did not interfere in 2016; Ukraine did. ...as part of his desire to lift punishing sanctions against Russia for the interference. After she was recalled, there was a lag time before her vacancy was filled by Taylor. In her testimony, Yovanovitch said she is still puzzled why she was recalled, though it was very hurtful to her.
Yovanovitch had approved of Trump's official policy of supplying lethal weapon aid. and ending corruption. It was Trump's own policy both Guiliani and Trump undermined in making it a tool in their priority goal to get help from Ukraine for 2020. The only corruption Trump ever referenced in pronouncements, tweets, or the July 25 call, was his belief the Bidens had been involved with Burisma, a Ukraine gas company. Priorrior Ukraine investigations found no criminal wrongdoing with Hunter Biden and his father was advocating stronger action against corruption, not weaker action. There is no evidence that Joe Biden either interfered or had anything to do with Hunter's Ukraine business.
________________________________________________________________________________
Footnotes and much more:
We now know that Zelensky caved and had planned to announce Ukraine would re-open the investigation into the conspiracy theories on CNN/ Fareed Zakaria, but cancelled that appearance when the aid was unfrozen. If the Whistleblower's complaint had never come to light, Trump/Guiliani's scheme would have succeeded and we would never have been the wiser for it.
Why Donald Trump is constantly licking Putin's boots is a question, the answer which may someday come into the public light. Until then, we should just accept the fact that Trump loves autocratic Putin's style and nationalist goals and still hopes someday the Moscow tower will be built.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Donald Trump's affinity/bromance/foreign policy to help Russia be great again is best seen in what he does and says. For years he has advocated policies that weaken American national security. His campaign manager, Paul Manafort, now in prison for financial crimes he committed before he joined Trump's campaign in the spring of 2016, had been an advisor to a former President of Ukraine who advocated closer ties with Russia. Manafort's pro-Russian client was unseated in the largely peaceful street uprising and fled to Russia as a refugee. Those who unhorsed the Russian leaning president wanted to turn westward, to the EU, and not to Russia.
In the Spring of 2016, as Manfort assumed a larger role in the Trump campaign for president, Trump's pronouncement on foreign policy became more focused and was in lockstep with Russia.
It was passed off my many apologists as that his attempts to get approval to build Trump Towers in Moscow were causing his bromance with a strong man he truly admired, President Putin. As we later learned, Russia conducted active measures, hacked DNC emails, sent spies to the US to gather information, and launched an intensive social media campaign, to help Trump's election. That was the finding of the Mueller Speical Counsel Investigation and the findings of a bipartisan Senate committee, who released their report in early fall this year. No one should have been shocked that he has continued his attempts to undermine European defenses against Russian advancement to reassemble the old Soviet empire. Trump failed at many of those attempts, from trying to weaken US commitment to NATO, to declare NATO's mutual defense treaty obsolete (if one member is attacked, all will respond), to denigrate his own intelligence services, preferring to listen to Putin's instead, and to try to end economic sanctions against Russia which had been punishment for their aggressions.
In the meantime, Congress had overwhelming bi-partisan support for Ukraine, appropriating military aid critical to Ukraine's ability to stop Russia from turning Ukraine into their satellite. It was this aid package, including the anti-defense missiles, Javelins, that became the object of the Whistleblower complaint. The Pentagon was told that the administration would irritate Russia if such missiles were given to Ukraine, but no one from any federal department or Congress agreed. In May, Rudy Guiliani began what later was called "the drug deal", an undercover, sneaking around the official diplomatic delegations to Ukraine supporting official policy, to force the newly elected Ukraine president to help Donald Trump get dirt on his domestic political challenger, Joe Biden, via his' son's business activities in Ukraine. First was dangled a meeting in the White House as an inducement, but the Ukraine president did not want to take any side in US politics since his independence from Russia depended on bipartisan support of Congress. The ante was upped. Per testimony of Department of Defense coordinator, Laura Cooper, earlier in the summer Ukraine had gotten wind that the javelin delivery was being delayed and it was frozen per Trump's orders one week before a telephone call between the Ukraine president and Trump himself. In mid-September, the July 25 (quid pro quo) call was exposed by the Whistleblower and two days later, the military aid was unfrozen. Diplomats and Defense Department officials from May to September slowly realized that there was a side game going on to add the release of the aid to the condition of the Ukrainian president meeting his demands.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-inquired-about-aid-on-same-day-as-trump-zelensky-call-official-testifies-11574295133
https://www.axios.com/kurt-volker-closed-door-interview-giuliani-fc9b670b-0b05-4e5c-932c-a39f03fad356.html
https://www.politico.com/news/2019/11/04/trump-ukraine-corrupt-resort
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/07/world/europe/ukraine-trump-zelensky.html
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2019/sep/26/rudy-giulianis-role-ukraines-investigation-joe-bid/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/09/24/full-trump-ukraine-timeline-now
https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/10/politics/ukraine-text-messages-annotated/
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/07/world/europe/ukraine-trump-zelensky.html
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2019/sep/26/rudy-giulianis-role-ukraines-investigation-joe-bid/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/09/24/full-trump-ukraine-timeline-now
https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/10/politics/ukraine-text-messages-annotated/
Pentagon official testifies about withheld military aid to Ukraine..Laura Cooper
https://www.axios.com/kurt-volker-closed-door-interview-giuliani-fc9b670b-0b05-4e5c-932c-a39f03fad356.html
https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/30/politics/ukraine-military-aid-congress/index.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Ukrainian_revolution
https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/22/politics/bill-taylor-deposition-text-messages/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/30/politics/ukraine-military-aid-congress/index.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Ukrainian_revolution
https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/22/politics/bill-taylor-deposition-text-messages/index.html
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