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The Trump Impeachment Inquiry: What Happened Today
(about 4 hours later)
John R. Bolton, President Trump’s former national security adviser, did not show up on Thursday for a voluntary interview as part of the House impeachment inquiry, but Democratic investigators said they would not subpoena him and would instead use his refusal to appear as evidence of Mr. Trump’s attempt to obstruct Congress.
John Bolton, President Trump’s former national security adviser, did not show up for scheduled testimony. Mr. Bolton’s lawyer told the House Intelligence Committee that he would file a lawsuit in federal court if he were subpoenaed, a challenge that could take months to resolve. Democrats have instead decided to use his refusal as evidence that Mr. Trump is obstructing Congress.
Mr. Bolton, who regularly interacted with Mr. Trump directly as his top national security aide in the White House, would have been among the highest-profile advisers to testify in the impeachment inquiry. Several other witnesses have described Mr. Bolton as being angry about the idea of holding up military aid to Ukraine in exchange for the country opening an investigation into the president’s political rivals.
Democrats leading the inquiry released another transcript, this one of testimony from George Kent, a State Department official in charge of Ukraine policy. Mr. Kent told investigators that he and other experienced diplomats were all but cut out of making the foreign policy they were supposed to be involved with.
But an official with the House Intelligence Committee said Mr. Bolton’s lawyer had told them that the former national security adviser would file a lawsuit in federal court if he was subpoenaed, a legal challenge that would most likely take months to resolve. The official said that the committee did not want to allow the Trump administration to “play rope-a-dope with us” in the courts and slow down their inquiry.
One witness did appear on Capitol Hill today: Jennifer Williams, a national security aide to Vice President Mike Pence. Ms. Williams, who listened in on the July 25 conversation between President Trump and the Ukrainian president, was expected to answer questions about that phone call, as well as Mr. Pence’s involvement in efforts to pressure Ukraine.
In the first month of the impeachment investigation, Democrats made headway through the testimony of National Security Council officials and State Department diplomats who were involved in Ukraine policy. But unlike Mr. Bolton, those officials infrequently interacted with Mr. Trump.
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Much of that testimony painted a damning picture of a president outsourcing America’s foreign policy to his personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, but gave little insight into what Mr. Trump said behind closed doors.
Mr. Kent’s testimony made explosive claims about four top Trump administration officials involved in the impeachment inquiry. Here’s some of what he said.
Had the investigators decided to compel Mr. Bolton’s testimony with a subpoena, it probably would have set off a lengthy court battle similar to one initiated by Charles M. Kupperman, Mr. Bolton’s deputy, who filed a lawsuit last month when faced with a subpoena from the committee and an order from Mr. Trump to not cooperate with investigators. On Wednesday, House Democrats pulled their subpoena of Mr. Kupperman out of concern that the litigation would slow down the impeachment investigation.
1. Mr. Kent said that Rudy Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, had ginned up a “campaign of lies” against Marie Yovanovitch, the former ambassador to Ukraine, who Mr. Trump’s allies claimed was disloyal to the president. “Assertions and allegations against former Ambassador Yovanovitch were without basis, untrue, period,” Mr. Kent said.
Mr. Kupperman’s lawyer, Charles J. Cooper, also represents Mr. Bolton.— Michael D. Shear and Michael S. Schmidt
2. Mr. Kent said that Gordon Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union, may have lied about Ukraine-related discussions he had in the White House. Mr. Kent said that Fiona Hill, the top Russia expert on the National Security Council, had concerns that Mr. Sondland “made assertions about conversations that did not match with what had actually been said.”
Jennifer Williams, a national security aide to Vice President Mike Pence, appeared on Capitol Hill as planned on Thursday for a closed-door deposition in the House impeachment inquiry. Ms. Williams, a longtime State Department employee with expertise in Europe and Russia who is detailed to Mr. Pence’s national security staff, was among the officials listening to the July 25 call between President Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.
3. Mr. Kent described how Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, wielded power over Ukraine policy — it was Mr. Mulvaney, he said, who controlled the nearly $400 million in military aid designated for the country. “The head of the Office of Management and Budget who was the acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, at the direction of the president, had put a hold on all security assistance to the Ukraine,” Mr. Kent testified.
Impeachment investigators were expected to press Ms. Williams about what she thought about the July 25 call, as well as details about how much Mr. Pence knew about it and the extent of his understanding about the president’s attempts to pressure Ukraine to commit to investigations of his political rivals. Her testimony could draw Mr. Pence, who has defended the July 25 call, further into the inquiry. House Democrats subpoenaed Ms. Williams this morning after the White House attempted to keep her from testifying, according to an official working on the inquiry.
4. Mr. Kent said that his own boss, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, failed to back up Ms. Yovanovitch when she came under assault by conservatives. “It’s always most helpful if the top leader issues a statement,” Mr. Kent said. He also said Mr. Pompeo’s assertion that investigators were trying to “bully” diplomats into testifying was untrue. “I was one of two career foreign service officers which had received letters from the committees, and I had not felt bullied, threatened and intimidated,” Mr. Kent said.
According to her LinkedIn profile, Ms. Williams has spent most of her adult life in government service, including 13 years at the State Department.
Read the full transcript of Mr. Kent’s testimony to impeachment investigators, and more takeaways from our reporters.
Two of the witnesses who previously testified, Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman, the top Ukraine expert on the National Security Council, and Christopher J. Anderson, a Ukraine specialist who worked at the White House, were also at the Capitol for a routine review of the testimony transcripts. Impeachment investigators have been releasing transcripts of witness testimony in recent days, and are expected to continue on Thursday.
Mr. Pompeo, who was once the C.I.A. director, has been seen as one of Mr. Trump’s most durable allies in the administration, refusing to criticize his boss through years of investigations. I talked to my colleague Ed Wong, who wrote this week about Mr. Pompeo, to get a sense of where he stands in the impeachment inquiry.
Democrats leading the impeachment inquiry on Thursday released a transcript of the testimony from George P. Kent, a senior State Department official in charge of Ukraine policy, who told investigators that he and other diplomats were all but cut out of decisions regarding the country.
Ed, how would you describe Mr. Pompeo’s role in what lawmakers are investigating?
Mr. Kent is one of several Trump administration diplomats whose testimony has helped Democrats as they seek to build their case that Mr. Trump and people around him held up military aid in exchange for an investigation by Ukraine into the president’s political rivals.
What emerges from witness testimony and from what various other people, including Mr. Giuliani, have said is that Mr. Pompeo was an enabler — at the very least — of the shadow Ukraine policy.
— Michael D. Shear
Why are some officials who have testified upset with Mr. Pompeo?
Democrats leading the impeachment inquiry officially invited Republicans on Thursday to request witnesses to appear in public hearings that will begin next week, but warned that witnesses must be directly relevant to the focus of the inquiry.
There’s no State Department leadership defending their right to testify. In fact, Mr. Pompeo has tried to block them from testifying. When you talk to career officials at the State Department and talk to people who have left State, they say that Mr. Pompeo has failed to carry out the most important thing a leader there should do, which is to stand up for the ambassadors, the diplomats and everyone else in the foreign service corps.
Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said witnesses could be called to address whether the president used the power of his office to pressure a foreign government for his own political gain, or to address whether there were attempts to conceal or obstruct evidence of the president’s actions.
Who do you think Mr. Pompeo feels most loyal to at this moment?
Mr. Schiff gave Republicans three days to provide a list of witnesses they would like to appear. Under a resolution passed by the House in October, Republicans have the right to request witnesses to appear in the public phase of the impeachment inquiry, but the decision is subject to a vote of the committee, which is controlled by Democrats.
Right after the scandal blew up, he went on television and defended Mr. Giuliani. He’s been promoting these conspiracy theories that Mr. Trump and Mr. Giuliani have pushed, about 2016 election interference. At the same time, he wants to try and maintain a reputation as someone who’s been looking out for the national security interests of the United States and not only be a Trump loyalist. What these episodes have shown is that you can’t do both.
The resolution was accompanied by a report by the House Rule Committee, which set out guidelines for the relevance of witnesses.
One of Mr. Pompeo’s former top aides, Michael McKinley, testified to his concern over how the State Department had been politicized under Mr. Pompeo.
Republicans have repeatedly complained that Mr. Schiff and the Democrats leading the inquiry have not been conducting a fair process as they interviewed current and former government officials behind closed doors. Democrats have countered that many Republican members of the committees conducting the inquiry have been part of the questioning. Some Republicans have suggested that they would request public testimony from the anonymous whistle-blower whose internal report first raised concerns about Mr. Trump’s July 25 call with the president of Ukraine and incited the Democratic impeachment inquiry.
The fact that someone so senior and someone so close to the secretary would resign — he was a de facto chief of staff to Mr. Pompeo and had served 37 years in the foreign service — over what he saw as the failings of Mr. Pompeo’s leadership says a lot about how far Mr. Pompeo had fallen in the eyes of some top career officials.
Mr. Schiff is highly unlikely to agree to that request. He has accused Republicans of trying to reveal the name of the whistle-blower in violation of laws that are supposed to protect an individual’s identity if they come forward. In his letter to Republicans, Mr. Schiff said that Democrats did not intend to call all of the witnesses whom they interviewed behind closed doors.
After Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman gave damaging testimony about Mr. Trump’s Ukraine call, an attack on the colonel’s character made its way from the dark corners of Mr. Trump’s Twitter following to the front lines of the impeachment battle.
Mr. Trump made his own witness request Thursday morning, declaring in a tweet that both former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son Hunter Biden “must testify.”— Michael D. Shear
Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, was ready to announce on CNN the investigations that Mr. Trump had demanded. Then word of frozen military aid leaked out — a stroke of luck that meant he never had to follow through.
The Government Accountability Office has begun a review to determine if the Office of Management and Budget broke the law this year when it withheld almost $400 million in aid to Ukraine without notifying Congress.
ABC News reported that House Democrats are looking at several articles of impeachment that go beyond Ukraine, including the obstruction of Congress and the Mueller investigation.
Money that is appropriated by Congress has to be spent by the Office of Management and Budget with very few exceptions. Even in those cases, Congress must be notified of and approve any changes.
Politico wrote about the witnesses Republicans would like to call in the public phase of the inquiry, including the whistle-blower whose complaint led to the investigation and whose anonymity is protected. And Yahoo News obtained threatening voicemails, emails and social media notes left for lawyers of the whistle-blower.
The decision to freeze the military aid is at the center of the impeachment inquiry. Several State Department officials have testified that the hold was part of a quid pro quo linking the aid to investigating President Trump’s political rivals.
Donald Trump Jr. made an appearance on “The View” today. The show was, predictably, chaotic.
Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, asked Gene L. Dodaro, the comptroller general, to review how aid to Ukraine was delayed at a Senate Budget Committee hearing last week.
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“We are conducting the review requested by Senator Van Hollen,” said Chuck Young, a spokesman for the Government Accountability Office. “There is no time frame for completion yet.”— Chris Cameron
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s responses on Thursday to questions about the impeachment inquiry were more notable for what he took pains to avoid saying than for what he ultimately did say.
At a news conference in Leipzig, Germany, Mr. Pompeo was asked why he did not issue a statement of support for Marie L. Yovanovitch, the former ambassador to Ukraine, as the reasons for her being recalled as the American ambassador to Ukraine became public in September.
Testimony released this week showed that Michael McKinley, a career diplomat who has resigned as an adviser to Mr. Pompeo, had three times suggested such a statement to help bolster flagging morale at the State Department. Mr. McKinley told congressional investigators that his requests were ignored and played a role in his decision to quit.
On Thursday, Mr. Pompeo said only that Mr. McKinley did not raise concerns about Ms. Yovanovitch’s recall “in May” — immediately after the Trump administration ordered her to leave Ukraine.
Mr. McKinley “wasn’t particularly involved with the Ukraine file,” Mr. Pompeo said. “So it’s not surprising that when Ambassador Yovanovitch returned to the United States that he didn’t raise that issue with me. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that in May, when that took place, he didn’t say anything to me.”
Mr. Pompeo sought to focus on the $391 million in security aid that the United States provided to the government in Ukraine in September. However, that aid was initially withheld — a decision that is now at the heart of the impeachment inquiry.
Later, Mr. Pompeo ignored a question about whether he had recalled Ms. Yovanovitch to protect her from critics — and who those critics may have been.
“You can see the media in Washington is fixated on a lot of things that you and I didn’t spend any time talking about today — things that actually make a difference about American people’s security and keeping the American people safe,” Mr. Pompeo told Foreign Minister Heiko Maas of Germany.
Mr. Pompeo did say that the State Department would soon announce a measure to help career diplomats facing huge legal fees that are “connected to all of this noise.” He did not provide details except to say that it “will make good sense and be consistent with what we’ve done previously.”
— Lara Jakes
Mr. Trump repeatedly pressured President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine to investigate people and issues of political concern to Mr. Trump, including former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Here’s a timeline of events since January.
A C.I.A. officer who was once detailed to the White House filed a whistle-blower complaint on Mr. Trump’s interactions with Mr. Zelensky. Read the complaint.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced in September that the House would open a formal impeachment inquiry in response to the whistle-blower’s complaint. Here’s how the impeachment process works and here’s why political influence in foreign policy matters.
House committees have issued subpoenas to the White House, the Defense Department, the budget office and other agencies for documents related to the impeachment investigation. Here’s the evidence that has been collected so far.
Read about the Democrats’ rules to govern impeachment proceedings.
