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Nancy Pelosi on Trump-Ukraine scandal: 'This is a cover-up' – live news Trump says whistleblower's source is 'close to a spy', reports say – live news
(about 2 hours later)
Maguire argued the whistleblower complaint did not touch on election security – an assertion that overlooks the whistleblower’s stated concern about how Trump’s communications with Ukraine could jeopardize the integrity of US elections. Rudy Giuliani, livid over the whistleblower complaint alleging that he improperly tried to convince Ukraine to launch an investigation of Joe Biden, vented his frustration to an Atlantic reporter.
Acting DNI Maguire: "The complaint isn't about election interference."On page one, the complaint says the whistleblower is concerned Pres. Trump is "using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election." “It is impossible that the whistleblower is a hero and I’m not. And I will be the hero! These morons – when this is over, I will be the hero,” Giuliani told the Atlantic.
Maguire told the House intelligence committee that he has fulfilled his responsibility as acting director of national intelligence by conveying the whistleblower complaint to the panel. He added: “I’m not acting as a lawyer. I’m acting as someone who has devoted most of his life to straightening out government. ... Anything I did should be praised.”
“The horse has left the barn,” Magurie said, noting that the committee now has the complaint and the White House memo in its possession. Giuliani’s role as the president’s personal lawyer has raised concerns about a private citizen getting involved in foreign policy.
The intelligence chief said he would leave the determination of whether to pursue an investigation up to the committee. Some other important developments are happening on Capitol Hill today. The Senate has just confirmed Eugene Scalia as the next secretary of labor on a vote of 53-44.
Trump has concluded his fundraiser in New York and is traveling back to Washington. While boarding Air Force One, he did not take questions from reporters. Scalia, the son of the late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, is succeeding Alexander Acosta – who resigned in July amid uproar over his handling of a 2008 plea deal for alleged sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
The president is expected to arrive in Washington at around 1:30 p.m., when he will be more likely to take questions from the media at the White House. The fact that the confirmation of a cabinet secretary is not even one of the top three headlines of the day speaks to what a unique news era we are in.
.@realDonaldTrump is heading back to Washington after fundraising in New York City amid the whistleblower controversy and impeachment threat. pic.twitter.com/sCkkVMqzBP Trump’s reelection campaign is using the release of the whistleblower complaint as an opportunity to fundraise and repeat unfounded corruption allegations against Joe Biden.
Maguire reiterated his belief, under questioning from Democrat Adam Schiff, that the president is subject to same laws as any other public servant. The campaign wrote in an email signed by the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr: “What Democrats are doing to President Trump is simply UN-AMERICAN.
Maguire said: “No person in this country is beyond the reach of the law.” “My father has done NOTHING wrong, but we all know that won’t stop Democrats and their good friends in the FAKE NEWS from spreading LIES for political purposes. Don’t let the unhinged left-wing MOB win.”
Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House intelligence committee, concluded his comments in the hearing by congratulating Maguire on surviving the “legal word challenge charade.” It goes on to ask supporters to join “the Official Impeachment Task Force” by donating money to the campaign.
The California Republican said: “I would just encourage my colleagues that if they want to impeach the president, they need to go to the floor of the House to call for a vote.” Trump is still railing against Adam Schiff, the Democratic chairman of the House intelligence committee, and alleging without evidence that the whistleblower had a “known bias.”
Meanwhile, the White House is strategizing about how to push back against Democrats’ impeachment inquiry. Liddle’ Adam Schiff, who has worked unsuccessfully for 3 years to hurt the Republican Party and President, has just said that the Whistleblower, even though he or she only had second hand information, “is credible.” How can that be with zero info and a known bias. Democrat Scam!
Trump’s former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, is in talks to spearhead a team meant to counter-program Democratic investigations into the Ukraine call and other controversies. The acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, said during today’s hearing before the House intelligence committee that he thought the whistleblower had done the “right thing” by coming forward.
CNN reports: The executive editor of the New York Times, Dean Baquet, defended the newspaper’s decision to publish information on the identity of the whistleblower.
Trump’s 2016 campaign manager would be in a crisis management type role, and the idea as it currently stands would be for Lewandowski to assemble a team that mirrors the one that existed in Bill Clinton’s White House when he was facing his own impeachment. Baquet said: “The role of the whistle-blower, including his credibility and his place in the government, is essential to understanding one of the most important issues facing the country — whether the president of the United States abused power and whether the White House covered it up.”
The list of potential players on the team includes David Bossie, his former deputy campaign manager who angered the President earlier this year by soliciting funds using Trump’s name. Bossie served as the chief investigator of the House Oversight Committee in 1997, helping scrutinize Clinton. ... The New York Times has new information on the identity of the whistleblower, who is reportedly a CIA officer previously detailed to the White House.
The team would be to help spearhead strategy and messaging as the House of Representative’s impeachment probe heats up. The role could also exist outside the White House, and many of the details of the arrangement are still unclear. The Times reports:
Yuri Lutsenko, the former Ukrainian president who first raised the allegations against Hunter Biden that Rudy Giuliani urged the country to investigate again, said he did not believe the son of the former vice president had broken the law. The man has since returned to the C.I.A., the people said. Little else is known about him. His complaint made public Thursday suggested he was an analyst by training and made clear he was steeped in details of American foreign policy toward Europe, demonstrating a sophisticated understanding of Ukrainian politics and at least some knowledge of the law.
The Washington Post reports: The whistle-blower’s expertise will likely add to lawmakers’ confidence about the merits of his complaint, and tamp down allegations that he might have misunderstood what he learned about Mr. Trump.
‘From the perspective of Ukrainian legislation, he did not violate anything,’ former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuri Lutsenko told The Washington Post in his first interview since the disclosure of a whistleblower complaint alleging pressure by Trump on Ukraine’s president, Volodymr Zelensky. Something to keep in mind as the fallout over the release of the whistleblower complaint continues: there are other urgent governmental matters that also need to be addressed in the days ahead.
Lutsenko’s comments about Hunter Biden – which echo what he told Bloomberg News in May – were significant because President Trump and his personal attorney Giuliani have sought to stir up suspicions about both Hunter and former vice-president Joe Biden’s conduct in Ukraine in recent weeks. ... Namely, the government will shut down on Monday night if Trump does not sign the funding bill passed by Congress.
As vice president, Joe Biden pressured Ukraine to fire the Lutsenko’s predecessor, Viktor Shokin, who Biden and other Western officials said was not sufficiently pursuing corruption cases. At the time, the investigation into Burisma was dormant, according to former Ukrainian and U.S. officials. The entire government needs to be funded — including leg branch, which funds Congress. Absent the president’s signature, the government will shut down Monday, which is also Rosh Hashana https://t.co/Eu1Zuj9lR9
‘Hunter Biden cannot be responsible for violations of the management of Burisma that took place two years before his arrival,’ Lutsenko said. While speaking to reporters upon arrival in Washington, Trump reiterated his unfounded corruption allegations against Joe Biden.
Here is a guide to some of the major players in Ukraine connected to the whistleblower complaint: CNN carried the president’s comments live, but the network included an instant fact-check on Trump’s claims.
Petro Poroshenko – the chocolate king: A Ukrainian businessman who made his fortune with the Roshen chocolate empire (the name comes from the middle letters of his surname), Poroshenko is a canny politician, who positioned himself as a unity candidate after the 2014 Maidan revolution toppled corrupt president Viktor Yanukovych. He easily won elections that year, but – faced with the difficult task of enacting reforms as well as fighting a war with Russia - Poroshenko’s popularity tanked. Although some reforms were interacted, he was widely regarded as continuing the old type of politics to benefit his own circle of cronies. CNN puts up live fact check as Trump rambles during a pool spray. pic.twitter.com/h3YSb4trYy
Serhiy Leschenko – the anti-corruption campaigner: One of the new brand of politicians who entered the scene after Maidan, Leschenko was a leading political journalist who wrote widely on corruption, and became an MP after the revolution. He, and other so-called “Euro-optimists” in parliament became more disillusioned with the Poroshenko government as time went on. In May 2016, he published information from a so-called “black ledger” which showed under-the-table payments from Yankukovych’s regime to various figures including Paul Manafort. This led to Manafort’s resignation from the Trump campaign. Phil Scott, the Republican governor of Vermont and a frequent Trump critic, has become the first chief executive of his party to announce support for House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry against the president.
Marie Yovanovitch – the former US ambassador: A career diplomat who had served as ambassador to Armenia and Kyrgyzstan before her appointment to Ukraine in 2016, Yovanovitch replaced Geoffrey Pyatt (currently US ambassador to Greece), who was in charge in the aftermath of the Maidan revolution and played an outsize role in Ukrainian politics, regarded as one of the most powerful political players in the country for a period of time. Yovanovitch was a lower-key figure but was widely respected in the diplomatic community in Ukraine. She was withdrawn by the Trump administration in May 2019. The AP reports:
Volodymyr Zelenskiy – the comedian president: Ukraine’s new president was a wild-card candidate who had no experience of politics save for playing the president in a television comedy. The actor and comedian swept to victory in elections earlier this year promising a more honest and transparent kind of politics, often blurring lines between his television persona and real life. In what would have been a remarkable plot twist in the series, he’s now been thrust into the centre of an American political scandal. [Scott] said at a news conference Thursday that he wasn’t surprised by the allegations that Trump repeatedly urged Ukraine’s president to ‘look into’ Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden because he’s ‘watched him over the years.’
Victor Shokhin – the prosecutor general: Ukrainian prosecutor general, who was widely seen as blocking the prosecutions of corrupt oligarchs, and who reform-minded Ukrainian politicians and international partners were pressuring the Ukrainian government to remove for some time, and was finally dismissed in 2016. He was later re-invented as a kind of heroic victim by Rudy Giuliani, who claimed Shokhin was fired on Biden’s orders to halt an investigation into the gas company that had put Biden’s son Hunter on its board. Other moderate Republican governors have yet to weigh in on an impeachment inquiry.
Yuriy Lutsenko – the other prosecutor general: A veteran figure on the Ukrainian political scene, Lutsenko is a controversial character who at times has been a victim of political persecution and was jailed under the government of Yanukovych. He replaced Shokhin as prosecutor but was also viewed with suspicion by reformers. Lutsenko met with Giuliani and appears to have been amenable to opening a probe into claims of Ukrainian interference in 2016 on behalf of the democrats. He also told Giuliani that US ambassador Yovanovitch had given him a list of people he should not prosecute, a claim the state department has denied. Lutsenko was fired by Zelenskiy in August. When pressed by reporters, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said Wednesday he was withholding judgment. Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker and Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan have yet to comment.
Maguire voiced concerns about Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer and thus a private citizen, involving himself in efforts to convince Ukraine to launch an investigation of Joe Biden. The LA Times has obtained a recording of the event this morning where Trump compared the whistleblower’s sources to a “spy” and appeared to allude to retaliation against the officials.
QUIGLEY: And why would you have those concerns? MAGUIRE: Well, in order to be able to handle sensitive information, whether it be diplomatic or certainly, intelligence information, one must be vetted. The LA Times reports:
Jim Mattis, Trump’s former defence secretary, has swerved past questions about the US president’s conversation with the leader of Ukraine and attempts to cover it up. Speaking at a private event in New York, Trump described reporters as ‘scum’ and raged at the Democrats’ new impeachment proceedings, which were spurred by the whistleblower’s complaint alleging that Trump tried to strong-arm Ukraine’s leader to interfere in the 2020 election. ...
“I know no more than any of you know, perhaps a little bit less,” he told an audience at the Atlantic magazine festival in Washington. ‘Basically, that person never saw the report, never saw the call, he never saw the call — heard something and decided that he or she, or whoever the hell they saw — they’re almost a spy,’ Trump said.
“We’re watching this play out in a rather historic moment in our country’s life and we’ll see how it plays out.” ‘I want to know who’s the person, who’s the person who gave the whistleblower the information? Because that’s close to a spy,’ he continued. ‘You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart? Right? The spies and treason, we used to handle it a little differently than we do now.’
Mattis, who is promoting a new memoir, said the constitution is proving itself a “hardy document” that can “hold fast” against the current turmoil. He sees no value in adding his voice the “cacophony” that passes for political discourse in Washington, he explained. In a rather unusual move for the president who generally relishes engaging in “chopper talk,” Trump entered the White House without taking questions from reporters.
Maguire emphasized that the “greatest challenge” facing the United States is safeguarding “the integrity of the election system”. Trump, at White House arrival after UNGA, mouthed “thank you” to press and pumped a fist but didn’t speak to us before entering Diplomatic Reception Room. pic.twitter.com/45suZkQzNh
It’s worth noting that the whistleblower complaint accuses Trump of jeopardizing that integrity by soliciting the aid of a foreign country in the 2020 election. Trump told a group of staffers from the US Mission to the United Nations this morning that he wanted to know who provided information to the whistleblower and alluded to possible retaliation, according to the New York Times.
Maguire says that the "greatest challenge" faced the United States is making sure "we maintain the integrity of the election system" https://t.co/yvuNtBBxW8 pic.twitter.com/IpjcOHAK4x The Times reports:
Maguire was just questioned by representative John Ratcliffe, who withdrew from consideration for the role of director of national intelligence. The remark stunned people in the audience, according to a person briefed on what took place, who had notes of what the president said. Mr. Trump made the statement about several minutes into his remarks before the group of about 50 people at the event intended to honor the United States Mission. At the outset, he condemned the former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s role in Ukraine at a time when his son Hunter Biden was on the board of a Ukrainian energy company.
Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas), Trump's initial (and failed) pick to be the Director of National Intelligence, now interrogating Joseph Maguire, acting Director of National Intelligence.Imagine if Ratcliffe were in this position today. I think things would have gone differently. Mr. Trump repeatedly referred to the whistle-blower and condemned the news media reporting on the complaint as ‘crooked.’ He then said the whistle-blower never heard the call in question. ...
‘I want to know who’s the person who gave the whistle-blower the information because that’s close to a spy,’ Mr. Trump said. ‘You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart with spies and treason, right? We used to handle it a little differently than we do now.’
Trump is speaking to reporters about the release of the whistleblower complaint, repeating his claim that his call with the Ukrainian president was “perfect.”
He noted that the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, denied that he had been pressured to open an investigation of Joe Biden during his meeting with Trump yesterday.
Trump called Democrats’ investigation of the call a “disgrace” and ominously suggested there should be a legal mechanism to quash the probe. “There should be away of stopping it, maybe legally through the courts,” Trump said.
Here’s where things stand so far on this very busy and consequential Thursday:
The whistleblower complaint that kicked off Trump’s Ukraine controversy was released. In it, the whistleblower alleges that Trump tried to solicit foreign assistance in the 2020 election and that White House officials participated in a cover-up to keep details of the Ukraine call from being made public.
The acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, testified before the House intelligence committee. Maguire would not say whether Trump had talked to him about the complaint, but the intelligence chief confirmed that he had first gone to the White House with the report to work out concerns about claims of executive privilege – sparking Democratic complaints that he had violated whistleblower law.
Nancy Pelosi said in her weekly press conference that the Ukraine call would be the “focus” of the impeachment inquiry moving forward. In reaction to the content of the whistleblower complaint, the House speaker plainly said, “This is a cover-up.”
The blog is still covering fallout over the release of the whistleblower complaint, so stay tuned.
Taking questions from reporters after his committee’s hearing, Adam Schiff said the whistleblower complaint had provided a road map for next steps in the investigation of the Ukraine call.
Schiff did not want to specify next steps in the panel’s investigation but said he hoped to get to the bottom of the roles that key players like Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, and William Barr, the attorney general, played in the whistleblower complaint.
Right on cue, Trump chimed in on Twitter, claiming that Schiff has “zero credibility” and is pursuing a “fantasy” to hurt his presidency.
Adam Schiff has zero credibility. Another fantasy to hurt the Republican Party!
Asked about the tweet, Schiff said he is “always flattered” when he is attacked by a person of the president’s character.