During a bilateral meeting with Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky, President Trump joked to reporters that he’s made Zelensky “more famous” with the controversy over their call. Watch his remarks.

Source Article from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLAdt7K9LpQ

Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan and North Carolina Republican Rep. Mark Meadows weigh in on Trump’s decision to release the Ukraine call transcript and Democrats’ push for impeachment. #FoxNews

FOX News operates the FOX News Channel (FNC), FOX Business Network (FBN), FOX News Radio, FOX News Headlines 24/7, FOXNews.com and the direct-to-consumer streaming service, FOX Nation. FOX News also produces FOX News Sunday on FOX Broadcasting Company and FOX News Edge. A top five-cable network, FNC has been the most-watched news channel in the country for 17 consecutive years. According to a 2018 Research Intelligencer study by Brand Keys, FOX News ranks as the second most trusted television brand in the country. Additionally, a Suffolk University/USA Today survey states Fox News is the most trusted source for television news or commentary in the country, while a 2017 Gallup/Knight Foundation survey found that among Americans who could name an objective news source, FOX News is the top-cited outlet. FNC is available in nearly 90 million homes and dominates the cable news landscape while routinely notching the top ten programs in the genre.

Subscribe to Fox News! https://bit.ly/2vBUvAS
Watch more Fox News Video: http://video.foxnews.com
Watch Fox News Channel Live: http://www.foxnewsgo.com/

Watch full episodes of your favorite shows
The Five: http://video.foxnews.com/playlist/lon…
Special Report with Bret Baier: http://video.foxnews.com/playlist/lon…
The Story with Martha MacCallum: http://video.foxnews.com/playlist/lon…
Tucker Carlson Tonight: http://video.foxnews.com/playlist/lon…
Hannity: http://video.foxnews.com/playlist/lon…
The Ingraham Angle: http://video.foxnews.com/playlist/lon…
Fox News @ Night: http://video.foxnews.com/playlist/lon…

Follow Fox News on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FoxNews/
Follow Fox News on Twitter: https://twitter.com/FoxNews/
Follow Fox News on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/foxnews/

Source Article from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-67v4BaJhWc

The next phase of the impeachment inquiry into President Trump will take place Thursday when the embattled acting director of National Intelligence testifies on Capitol Hill.

Lawmakers will grill spymaster Joseph Maguire over his weeks-long delay in turning over a whistleblower complaint to Congress, leading once-cautious House Democrats to launch an impeachment inquiry and igniting a political firestorm.

Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) predicted the open hearing “will probably be waste of time,” since the sensitive substance of the complaint can’t be discussed in public.

But the House Intelligence Committee member added the hearing would likely be “embarrassing” to Maguire because he’ll “have to justify unjustifiable actions.”

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) specifically cited Maguire’s delays in her speech announcing the inquiry on Tuesday, calling it “a violation of law.”

The White House finally provided the classified complaint to top lawmakers late Wednesday.

Little is publicly known about the still-classified complaint, except that it referenced a phone call between Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.

A detailed summary of the call released by the White House on Wednesday showed Trump requesting Zelensky to probe a son of former Vice President Joe Biden, Hunter Biden.

Trump has said the call was “perfect,” while House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-California) called it a “classic Mafia-like shakedown of a foreign leader.”

The unknown whistleblower who filed the complaint wants to speak to Congress, Schiff said.

Source Article from https://nypost.com/2019/09/25/joseph-maguire-to-be-grilled-on-capitol-hill-in-next-step-of-impeachment-inquiry/

Watch live coverage as President Trump holds a news conference after the White House released notes on his call with the president of Ukraine.
» Subscribe to NBC News: http://nbcnews.to/SubscribeToNBC
» Watch more NBC video: http://bit.ly/MoreNBCNews

NBC News Digital is a collection of innovative and powerful news brands that deliver compelling, diverse and engaging news stories. NBC News Digital features NBCNews.com, MSNBC.com, TODAY.com, Nightly News, Meet the Press, Dateline, and the existing apps and digital extensions of these respective properties. We deliver the best in breaking news, live video coverage, original journalism and segments from your favorite NBC News Shows.

Connect with NBC News Online!
NBC News App: https://smart.link/5d0cd9df61b80
Breaking News Alerts: https://link.nbcnews.com/join/5cj/bre…
Visit NBCNews.Com: http://nbcnews.to/ReadNBC
Find NBC News on Facebook: http://nbcnews.to/LikeNBC
Follow NBC News on Twitter: http://nbcnews.to/FollowNBC
Follow NBC News on Instagram: http://nbcnews.to/InstaNBC

Trump Holds News Conference After Release Of Notes On Ukraine Call | NBC News

Source Article from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0YyKg-29Zw

Tesla jumps on report Musk aims to deliver record 100,000 cars…

Shares of Tesla jumped nearly 5% after Electrek, an electric vehicle news website, reported the internal email from Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

read more

Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/26/nunes-to-maguire-be-careful-what-you-say-in-whistleblower-hearing.html

The House Intelligence Committee on Thursday released the declassified whistleblower complaint at the center of a standoff between the White House and Congress that led to a formal impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump.

The complaint, which the administration initially withheld from Congress, was declassified with minimal redactions, and relates to Trump’s July phone call with the president of Ukraine in which he asked his foreign counterpart to look into why that country’s top prosecutor apparently had ended an investigation of the business dealings of Joe Biden’s son.

Read the complaint below and download the NBC News app for full coverage of Democrats’ impeachment efforts.

Source Article from https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-impeachment-inquiry/read-full-text-whistleblower-complaint-n1058971

It was a sign that partisan theatrics and histrionic outbursts — which the Trump campaign is counting on as part of its 2020 strategy — could be squashed by the top Democrat as she and her colleagues build their case against Trump.

“History will be the ultimate judge of how everyone behaves in the coming weeks and months,” said Roger Fisk, a Democratic strategist and longtime aide to former President Barack Obama. “The president and his team have the reverse chore of their Mueller response: in that situation, they had to take the complex and simplify it, and now they have to take a simple narrative and complicate it.”

“The Speaker is right to keep her caucus’s emotions from getting in the way,” Fisk added.

But allies of the president claim Pelosi has already “lost control” and is leading Democrats into an election year that is unlikely to yield any major legislative achievements, while pursuing an impeachment investigation the Republican-controlled Senate has already scoffed at. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told POLITICO in a statement Wednesday it is “laughable” to consider Trump’s overtures to his Ukrainian counterpart “an impeachable offense.”

Pelosi “has aligned herself with the radical left to appease them. She knows this is a bad move, she’s only been saying that for the past year,” said Kelly Sadler, a spokeswoman for the pro-Trump super PAC America First.

Impeaching Trump has been met with apprehension among voters, including those who detest the president. A Quinnipiac University poll conducted in late July — after Mueller concluded his investigation into Russian election interference, but before it became public that Trump implored his Ukrainian counterpart to investigate 2020 Democratic hopeful Joe Biden — found that 60 percent of voters opposed congressional action on impeachment, even as a majority of respondents in the same poll said they believed Trump is racist.

“This will turn off a lot of voters who … maybe they don’t love the president, but also don’t love Washington and politics in general. It makes what was already going to be a tough election for Democrats even tougher,” said a former senior Trump administration official.

Trump and his allies say they will continue to use public polling on the issue of impeachment as a cudgel against Democrats as long as it fits their narrative that voters care more about pocketbook issues than they do about whether Trump violated the norms of presidential behavior, or abused the powers of his office.

“The logical thing for the average voter to say is, this has nothing to do with my life,” said Larry Sabato, a political analyst and director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. Sabato suggested that Democrats proceed expeditiously by making Feb. 3, the day of the Iowa caucuses, their “informal deadline” for an impeachment vote in the lower chamber.

“If Democrats don’t handle this well, they will end up doing the near impossible: creating sympathy for Donald Trump,” he said.

A person close to the Trump campaign went further, saying Democrats would be “better off” focusing on kitchen table issues like healthcare and income inequality between now and the general election, rather than barreling toward impeachment.

“How can any Democrat run for office saying ‘Hey, I want compromise. Hey, I’ve been trying to get stuff done?’ They can’t say that now. Now their party is literally trying to impeach this guy, and so it takes that talking point away from them.”

Trump aides have already been hard at work trying to cast the president as a victim of partisan zeal. On Wednesday, the White House distributed talking points describing impeachment as “just another example of the ‘Deep State,’ the media, and Democrats damaging our national security for political gain.” The document was accidentally sent to some House Democrats.

“Democrats launching impeachment over a fake scandal nobody cares about has to be one of the dumbest political moves of all time — so bad it should be reported as an in-kind contribution to the president’s 2020 reelect,” said former White House press secretary Sarah Sanders.

They’ve also claimed the impeachment effort — which was prompted by a whistleblower complaint about Trump’s overtures to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, among other actions Democrats have long considered egregious — has benefited the president in another way: by subjecting Biden to an onslaught of news coverage about his son’s overseas business dealings when he was serving as vice president. Biden told reporters over the weekend he’s “never” spoken to his son, Hunter, about the matter.

Some members of the president’s inner circle believe the attention paid to the whistleblower complaint has made it look as though Democrats sacrificed Biden to boost Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s chances of becoming their party’s nominee. Party officials and other primary candidates have publicly and privately expressed concern in recent months about the 76-year-old former vice president’s age and propensity to misspeak in debates and on the campaign trail.

“Elizabeth Warren has already killed Joe Biden in the presidential race,” said a person close to Trump, referring to recent polls that have shown the progressive senator eclipsing Biden in the earliest two voting states, New Hampshire and Iowa. “This just makes it more difficult for him to come out of the grave.”

Some Republicans close to the president consider Biden to be the most fearsome Democratic candidate in a general election match-up, citing polls that have shown him trouncing Trump in both swing states and reliably red parts of the country.

But others close to Trump think it’s far too early to predict winners and losers from the latest development surrounding impeachment, and they warn the optics of Trump’s phone call with Zelensky can harm his campaign.

“The problem with the call is it’s muddy,” said a former senior White House official, adding that Trump can do further damage by going “nuts” in the face of a looming House impeachment vote.

Another Republican strategist said “playing the victim is off-brand for Trump, who exudes strength as a leader.”

“The first time Trump sees himself portrayed as weak, he will go in another direction,” this person said.

Source Article from https://www.politico.com/news/2019/09/26/trump-impeachment-victim-defense-001853

Former French President Jacques Chirac, in a 2011 photo. Chirac was a fierce opponent of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Francois Mori/AP


hide caption

toggle caption

Francois Mori/AP

Former French President Jacques Chirac, in a 2011 photo. Chirac was a fierce opponent of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Francois Mori/AP

Jacques René Chirac, a champion of Europe and fierce opponent of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, has died. The former two-term president was 86.

Chirac spent half a century in the public eye. Before he was president of France, he was the mayor of Paris. He also served two terms as prime minister and represented his rural district in the French Parliament for nearly 30 years.

“My countrymen, I love France passionately and have put my whole heart, energy and force into serving her and you,” Chirac said when he left office in 2007. “It has been the engagement of a lifetime.”

Chirac leaves a mixed legacy in France, where his charm and good looks were paired with a killer’s instinct for winning elections. And he raised France’s — and his own — profile by speaking eloquently about the need to “humanize” globalization and close the gap between rich and poor.

Chirac also took the historic step of formally recognizing his country’s responsibility for playing a role in the Holocaust. In 1995, 50 years after World War II, Chirac became the first president to acknowledge France’s collaboration with its German occupiers in deporting Jews — French and non-French — to death camps.

But while he proved himself to be a political survivor and global statesman, Chirac rarely showed a deft touch on the domestic front, and corruption allegations followed him for years. In 2011 he was found guilty of misusing public funds while he was the mayor of Paris, a post he held from 1977 to 1995. Under Chirac, a court ruled, the city paid some $1.8 million in salaries to political allies who held fake jobs.

In an editorial, Le Figaro says Chirac is viewed as a unifying father figure by most French people today, though the newspaper notes that part of the outpouring of affection for him may be nostalgia for a less divisive time.

Chirac won his final term as president in 2002, when French voters overwhelmingly embraced him in a runoff against Jean-Marie Le Pen, a right-wing anti-immigrant candidate. At the time, many voters said they were simply choosing “the crook” over “the fascist,” as a matter of conscience.

For Americans, Chirac may be remembered best for his fierce opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 to oust Saddam Hussein. Speaking in a CNN interview on the eve of the war, Chirac said France was simply telling America the truth, as a friend should.

“I’m telling my American friends beware, be careful,” he said on the eve of the war. “Think it over seriously before you take action that is not necessary and that can be very dangerous, especially in the fight against international terrorism.”

Chirac, fluent in English, knew the United States well. During a summer study stint at Harvard as a young man, he worked flipping burgers at a Howard Johnson’s restaurant.

Though his opposition to the war provoked widespread hostility in the United States, he did not consider himself anti-American. Rather, Chirac was a champion of France and Europe, believing in a multipolar world.

Political journalist Harold Hyman says Chirac thought he could sway George W. Bush because he had a good relationship with his father. “And it wasn’t the case,” said Hyman. “He was sort of like a jilted lover. He would have loved to have a great Franco-American relationship.”

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2019/09/26/764561501/jacques-chirac-french-president-who-opposed-u-s-iraq-war-is-dead-at-86

Just months after public scrutiny over his part in the rollout of the Mueller report had faded, Attorney General William Barr is back in the spotlight.

The release of a readout of a July call between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has once again put Barr at the center of a scandal involving the US and a foreign government.

On that call, Trump repeatedly encourages Zelensky to have his government work with Barr to launch an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden’s role in the firing of a former Ukrainian top prosecutor. And Trump concludes the conversation by telling his Ukrainian counterpart he will instruct his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani (who does not hold any government office) and Barr to give Zelensky a call to discuss the matter.

It is not clear whether Barr ever did speak with the Zelensky administration about the matter, a conversation that would have involved the president’s attorney general collaborating with a foreign government to investigate a potential political rival.

But Barr’s statements to Congress, particularly those he gave during May testimony about his handling of the release of the Mueller report, have many Democrats concerned the attorney general will attempt to shield the president from inquiries — including a recently launched impeachment inquiry — into potential wrongdoing and that he will refuse to investigate the allegations Trump faces.

Here are five questions he could answer to assuage those concerns.

1. Did President Trump discuss a Biden-Ukraine investigation with Barr?

Trump made it clear he wanted Barr to speak with the Ukrainian government about launching an investigation into Biden on his call with Zelensky, mentioning it four times.

Trump believes, despite there being no evidence for this, that Biden lobbied to have the top Ukrainian prosecutor fired in 2016 in order to protect his son, Hunter Biden, from an investigation into a Ukrainian company Hunter sat on the board of. It isn’t clear whether there was an active investigation into that company at the time of the prosecutor’s dismissal but it is clear that the prosecutor was fired for not being aggressive enough in his anti-corruption investigations.

Despite those logical inconsistencies, Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, has pushed this narrative for some time and brought it up with Trump as early as May. At that time, the president told Politico he thought it would be wise to task Barr with looking into the Bidens.

“Certainly it would be an appropriate thing to speak to him about, but I have not done that as of yet,” Trump said. “It could be a very big situation.”

Giuliani told CNN last Thursday that he “of course” asked Ukrainian officials to look into Joe and Hunter Biden. He did not say whether Barr joined him in any of those conversations.

Wednesday, a Justice Department spokesperson wrote in a statement:

“The President has not spoken with the Attorney General about having Ukraine investigate anything relating to former Vice President Biden or his son. The President has not asked the Attorney General to contact Ukraine — on this or any other matter. The Attorney General has not communicated with Ukraine on this or any other subject. Nor has the Attorney General discussed this matter, or anything relating to Ukraine, with Rudy Giuliani.”

The statement leads to a number of unanswered questions, chief among them why the president spoke publicly about instructing Barr to speak with Ukraine but never followed up privately.

And though the statement is emphatic, the Justice Department has been criticized for releasing explicit statements that were later found to be not exactly truthful during moments of potential presidential crisis before, namely during the release of the Mueller report.

At that time, Barr said Mueller’s work proved there was “no collusion” between the Trump campaign and Russia. That was inaccurate, as Vox’s Andrew Prokop has explained:

“If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state,” Mueller writes. “We are unable to reach such a judgment.”

The report makes several things clear: that the Russian government tried to help Trump win, that the Trump campaign was eager to benefit from hackings targeting Democrats, that Trump’s campaign advisers had a host of ties to Russia, and that President Trump tried again and again to try to impede the Russia investigation.

So although it would be too much to say the Justice Department is lying about Barr’s potential involvement with a Ukraine investigation, it is fair to say it ought to be taken with a grain of salt, particularly given outstanding questions over Barr and his handling of the Mueller report.


Attorney General Barr declares the Mueller report proves there was “no collusion” with Russia at an April 2019 press conference.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

2. Did William Barr mislead Congress?

Two exchanges Barr had during his congressional testimony about the Mueller report on May 1 are of concern to his critics.

The first was with Sen. Kamala Harris, who asked, “Attorney General Barr, has the president or anyone at the White House ever asked or suggested that you open an investigation of anyone?”

Barr eventually answered, “I’m trying to grapple with the word ‘suggest.’ I mean, there have been discussions of matters out there that they have not asked me to open an investigation but — ”

Harris interrupted him and asked if “perhaps they’ve suggested?” To which Barr said, “I wouldn’t say ‘suggest.’”

He refused to say what he would say and did not elaborate on what “discussions of matters” he may have come across.

Wednesday, Harris called on Barr to return to Congress to answer those same questions again, this time focused on Trump and Ukraine.

The Department of Justice has said Trump did not ask Barr to participate in any investigation into Biden, that Barr did not take it upon himself to contact Ukraine, and that the attorney general never discussed the issue with Giuliani. The department’s statement also says Barr was not aware of the call until several weeks after it took place. But it isn’t clear if the attorney general did have knowledge of Giuliani’s own investigative efforts or of Trump’s interest in the subject. And his answers to Harris’s questions will do little to quiet those who may believe he did in fact know of Trump’s desire to have Ukraine investigate Biden.

The other exchange of note involved Sen. Chris Coons.

“If a foreign adversary … offers a presidential candidate dirt on a competitor in 2020, do you agree with me that the campaign should immediately contact the FBI?” Coons asked.

Barr again paused and Coons clarified his question; Barr responded, “If a foreign government? If a foreign intelligence service? If a foreign intelligence service does, yes.”

The distinction between a foreign government and a foreign intelligence service was noted at the time, with Vox’s Li Zhou pointing out the answer “precluded him from condemning actions that members of the Trump campaign had previously engaged in.”

But it also serves to defend Trump from the new allegations he faces with his Ukraine call. Trump did not speak to any Ukrainian intelligence agencies on that call; he spoke with that country’s president. Trump clearly asks Zelensky to look into Biden and clearly believes an investigation will reveal Biden did something wrong; the memo on the call has Trump saying, “There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that, so whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great … It sounds so horrible to me.”

This is a case of the president asking a foreign government to investigate a potential political rival. Had Ukraine investigated and returned information on Biden’s role, even if that information just contained what is already public (and that shows Biden did nothing wrong), that information would still constitute opposition research, or, in Coon’s words, “dirt on a competitor.” And accepting that information would have seen Trump doing exactly what his campaign was accused of doing in 2016.

3. Is the Department of Justice protecting Trump?

Trump has said he wanted Ukraine to investigate Biden, but also at issue is whether he attempted to leverage $391 million in military aid to do so. Congress approved that money early this year but it wasn’t disbursed until September, leaving many on Capitol Hill and in Ukraine wondering what was behind the delay. The White House reportedly instructed anyone who asked about the money to be told it had been held up by an “interagency process.”

Trump has publicly given various reasons for this delay, including that he was concerned about corruption and that he wanted the US to give Ukraine less and NATO allies to give more. And he has denied holding it for ransom in exchange for an investigation, telling reporters at the White House Sunday, “No quid pro quo, there was nothing.”

But in the memo of the call with Ukraine, Zelensky brings up his country’s national security and mentions his desire to buy more weapons from the US.

In response, Trump does not discuss military aid but says, “I would like you to do us a favor though,” before introducing into the conversation the question of Ukraine collaborating with Barr on investigations into a consulting firm that has worked with Democrats.

This, Trump’s critics argue, is quid pro quo and is Trump offering to purchase information potentially damaging to Democrats with taxpayer money. That is not something the law smiles upon. But the Justice Department does not believe concerns over the president’s intent warrant any inquiry, which leads to the question: Is the Department of Justice attempting to protect Trump?


Attorney General William Barr and President Trump enter the White House Rose Garden in July 2019.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

Democrats opposed to Attorney General Barr’s confirmation feared he would be more loyal to Donald Trump than to the Constitution, as Vox’s Andrew Prokop has explained:

Barr faces questions about his impartiality, for a few reasons. First, he had discussed joining Trump’s defense team in 2017. Then, in June 2018, he wrote a lengthy memo criticizing what he thought was Mueller’s theory behind the obstruction of justice investigation — and said Mueller shouldn’t be permitted to subpoena President Trump. He distributed that memo not only to the Justice Department but also to lawyers close to the president.

Barr overcame those concerns to become attorney general. But his handling of the Mueller report led to his critics arguing he is primarily concerned with, as Rep. Jerry Nadler put it in April, working “on behalf of President Trump.”

The release of an opinion Wednesday by the Office of Legal Counsel, which is part of the Justice Department, has done little to silence those critics.

Trump’s call with Zelensky is now a matter of public concern because of a complaint filed by a whistleblower about a month ago. It is still unclear exactly what the whistleblower’s complaint contains, but a September letter from the intelligence community’s inspector general to Rep. Adam Schiff, chair of the House Intelligence Committee, says “[it] relates to one of the most significant and important of the [director of national intelligence’s] responsibilities to the American people.”

By law, the report should have already been released to Congress members given the inspector general for the intelligence community classified it as a document of “urgent concern,” which, as Vox’s Andrew Prokop has explained, is “a legal standard that normally requires congressional oversight committees be notified.” Its release was halted by Joseph Maguire, the acting director of national intelligence, a move some legal experts have said was illegal.

Wednesday afternoon, it was finally released to Congress.

But before that happened, in a decision reminiscent of Barr’s press conference ahead of the release of the Mueller report, the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) released a summary of the whistleblower’s complaint earlier Wednesday. That opinion minimized the complaint’s contents, stating the whistleblower had “heard reports from ‘White House officials’” that the “President had made statements that the complainant viewed as seeking to pressure that leader to take an official action to help the President’s 2020 re-election campaign.”

This statement would seem to negate arguments that there was any quid pro quo and would reduce the whistleblower’s complaint to hearsay. The OLC opinion also states the office found the complaint “does not involve an ‘urgent concern’” standard, meaning it did not need to be shared with Congress, thus shielding Maguire from any wrongdoing.

“Does not involve an ‘urgent concern’” does not seem likely to become the new “no collusion,” but the opinion does make the complaint seem less damaging for the president than previous reporting had. But given Barr’s efforts to spin and minimize the contents of the Mueller report ahead of its release, the president’s critics are finding it difficult to take the OLC opinion at face value.

And as the president now faces an impeachment inquiry, convincing the public he has done nothing wrong will be important for Trump — and having an ally who is willing to ensure his department helps in crafting this narrative will be invaluable.

4. Does William Barr believe a president is above the law or immune to outside scrutiny?

The Mueller’s report states “a fundamental principle of our government” is that not even the president “is above the law.”

But the Department of Justice’s official position on the matter is that a sitting president cannot be indicted.

Barr has argued that position doesn’t place a president above the law because he or she can still be charged with a crime, and told CBS in May he was “surprised” Mueller used that position as part of the reason he didn’t charge the president with a crime or even give an opinion as to if Trump broke the law.

“He could’ve reached a conclusion,” Barr said. “The opinion says you cannot indict a president while he is in office but he could’ve reached a decision as to whether it was criminal activity.”

So no, Barr does not appear to believe the president is above the law, but he does appear to plan to adhere to current Justice Department guidance that shields the president from indictment, meaning the results of any DOJ investigation into alleged presidential misconduct would need to be reviewed and adjudicated by Congress, which would then choose to impeach Trump or leave him in office.

5. Will William Barr recuse himself from upcoming DOJ investigations?

This is a question with an easy-to-guess answer: Probably not.

During his confirmation hearing, Barr was asked if he would recuse himself from the Mueller investigation given his previous statements about its validity. He answered by saying he’d “seek the advice of the career ethics personnel,” and said, “Under the regulations, I make the decision as the head of the agency as to my own recusal.”


William Barr swears before the Senate Judiciary Committee during his confirmation hearing in January 2019.
Xinhua/Ting Shen/Getty Images

He did make his own decision and decided not to recuse himself. To be clear, there aren’t any publicly reported DOJ investigations into Trump’s conversations with Zelensky so far. But if the department did get involved down the road, given that Barr had publicly expressed his negative opinions about the Mueller investigation and arguably had multiple reasons to recuse himself from that work and did not, it is difficult to see why he would recuse himself from any investigations into Trump’s call with Zelensky. Or into any of the other allegations laid out in the whistleblower’s complaint, which reporting has suggested contains concerns beyond that call.

The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jerry Nadler, has called for Barr to recuse himself from any Department of Justice work that involves the growing scandal around Trump’s call with Zelensky. But despite this demand, Barr is probably here to stay.

Source Article from https://www.vox.com/2019/9/25/20883610/attorney-general-william-barr-trump-phone-call-volodymyr-zelensky-whistleblower-ukraine-scandal

We’ve detected unusual activity from your computer network

To continue, please click the box below to let us know you’re not a robot.

Source Article from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-25/trump-tried-to-talk-his-way-out-of-impeachment-it-didn-t-work

The White House released a rough transcript Wednesday of President Trump’s July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky telling him to work with U.S. Attorney General William P. Barr to investigate the conduct of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. The administration transmitted the whistleblower’s complaint to Congress before the vote, and members of the Intelligence committees had a chance to review it.

On the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Wednesday, Trump dismissed Democrats’ move to open an impeachment inquiry against him, denied that he pressured Ukraine’s leader to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and suggested that the White House should release even more records of his communications.

The July 25 call has been the subject of intense scrutiny since The Washington Post reported last week that a whistleblower had come forward with concerns about the matter.

Trump has acknowledged publicly that he asked Zelensky to investigate Biden’s son, who served on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company that came under scrutiny by authorities there.

A roundup of the day’s events:

● The White House released a rough transcript of the July call between Trump and Zelensky that Democrats say confirms the need for an impeachment inquiry.

● The document showed Trump offering the help of the U.S. attorney general to investigate Biden and promising Zelensky a White House meeting after he said he would conduct such an inquiry.

● House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in a statement that the rough transcript proves that Trump “has tried to make lawlessness a virtue in America and now is exporting it abroad.”

● Zelensky told reporters in New York that Trump did not push him to investigate Biden. “I think you read everything,” he said. “I think you read [the] text. I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be involved to democratic, open elections, elections of U.S.A. … Nobody pushed me.”

● Trump denied that he urged Zelensky to investigate Biden. “In other words, no pressure,” he said.

● Trump later said the White House should make public the transcript of his first conversation with Zelensky in April, after the Ukranian president was elected.

8:00 p.m.: 218 House Democrats support impeachment inquiry

As of Wednesday evening, 217 House Democrats and independent Rep. Justin Amash (Mich.) favored launching an impeachment inquiry, giving the House 218 votes to impeach Trump — the threshold number of votes needed to pass anything in the House.

In the past two days, 78 Democrats said they wanted the House to go through with an impeachment process. Before the whistleblower complaint news broke last week, there were 95 members total who supported doing so.

“Today, for the world to see, we learned in his own words that the President of the United States used the full weight of the most sacred office in the land to coerce a foreign leader in a way that undermines our democracy and threatens our national security,” said Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.), who came out for an impeachment inquiry Wednesday night.

But just because 218 lawmakers want the House to go through with the impeachment process, there’s no guarantee that they would vote to impeach Trump at the end of it. Of the 218, only 25 have said they’d vote to impeach the president right now.

Read more about the Democrats reaching 218 here.

7:15 p.m.: GOP Sen. Sasse says Republicans ‘ought not circle the wagons’

Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse told reporters that his Republican colleagues shouldn’t rush to “circle the wagons and say there’s no there there when there’s obviously a lot that’s very troubling.”

Sasse is among a slim minority of congressional GOP who suggest anything problematic with Trump’s call with the Ukrainian president.

He also cautioned Democrats against moving too fast to “impeach” because they know the “actual substance.”

Additionally, he said, “the administration ought not be attacking the whistleblower as some talking points suggest they plan to do.”

Read more on congressional Republicans’ tepid reactions to the Trump call here.

6:30 p.m.: House backs resolution calling for release of whistleblower report

The House on Wednesday approved a non-binding resolution calling for the immediate release of the whistleblower report to the House and Senate intelligence committees to be reviewed “in a deliberate and bipartisan manner consistent with applicable statutes and processes.”

An earlier version of the resolution drafted by Democrats criticized the “unprecedented and highly inappropriate efforts” by the White House to question the whistleblower’s credibility. But in order to gain bipartisan support House leaders instead agreed to replace it with language matching a bipartisan Senate resolution that was adopted unanimously Tuesday.

The resolution was overwhelmingly approved by members of both parties, 421 to 0, with two lawmakers voting present.

The vote was ultimately moot: The Trump administration transmitted the whistleblower’s complaint to Congress shortly before to the vote and members of the Intelligence committees had a chance to review it.

6:25 p.m.: House blocks Republican resolution condemning Pelosi for initiating Trump impeachment inquiry

The House on Wednesday blocked a resolution sponsored by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) that would have denounced Pelosi’s move to initiate an impeachment inquiry into Trump’s actions.

All 231 Democrats present and independent Rep. Justin Amash (Mich.) voted to table the resolution, while all 193 Republicans present voted in favor of the measure.

“The House of Representatives disapproves of the actions of the Speaker of the House, Mrs. Pelosi of California, to initiate an impeachment inquiry against the duly elected President of the United States, Donald J. Trump,” the resolution reads.

6:20 p.m.: Sen. Murphy responds to Trump’s accusations that the senator threatened Ukraine

During his news conference, Trump singled out Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), accusing him of being the one that threatened Zelensky when they met in Kiev several weeks ago over the question of whether Ukrainian officials impeded the Russia investigation.

Trump said Murphy, who is a big gun-control advocate, acts “so nice” about working together on gun policy, but then wastes time on the “witch hunt.”

“Chris Murphy literally threatened the president of Ukraine that if he doesn’t do things right they won’t have Democratic support in Congress,” Trump alleged.

Murphy responded shortly after Trump made those remarks.

“In the meeting Republican Senator Ron Johnson and I had with President Zelensky three weeks ago, I made it clear to him that Ukraine should not become involved in the 2020 election and that his government should communicate with the State Department, not the president’s campaign. I still believe this to be true,” Murphy said.

“I also spoke last night to a top official at the White House who asked me to stay at the table on background checks negotiations. I agreed, and I remain willing to work with the White House on getting a deal done to save American lives,” he added.

6 p.m.: Schiff calls whistleblower complaint ‘deeply disturbing’

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), who was among the lawmakers who read the whistleblower’s complaint, said the allegations made were “deeply disturbing” and “very credible.”

“I can understand why the inspector general found them credible, even without the benefit yet of the inspector general’s full analysis,” he told reporters. “But the complaint was very well written and certainly provides information for the committee to follow up with other witnesses and documents.”

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) also called the complaint “disturbing.”

“The complaint is detailed and it lays out the situation very logically and at the same time with credibility, so the complainant is both acknowledging the things he or she knows and doesn’t know, which I think is the hallmark of a credible document,” he said.

Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.), another member of the Intelligence panel, echoed that sentiment.

“It’s alarming, disturbing, and a blueprint for an extraordinary investigation,” he said. “It indicates other witnesses and evidence that need to be advised and investigated.”

But Quigley also voiced some reservation about the complaint: “It’s hard to say with this president, but with any other president this a nuclear bombshell. With him, I suspect people will see it as just another day.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) downplayed the complaint’s contents, saying it doesn’t cause any additional concerns and he doesn’t think it would cause Trump additional problems if it was made public.

— Karoun Demirjian and Mike DeBonis

5:10 p.m.: Trump suggests White House should release transcript of his first call with Zelensky

At his news conference late Wednesday afternoon, Trump suggested that the White House should make public the transcript of his first conversation with Zelensky, which was in April, after the Ukranian president was elected.

“I think you should ask for the first conversation also. … It was beautiful,” Trump said.

The president also said that Vice President Pence has had “one or two” conversations related to the matter and that information about those calls should be released, too.

“They were perfect,” Trump said. “They were all perfect.”

The president dismissed the notion that his actions amount to an impeachable offense.

“Impeachment for that?” Trump said. “When you have a wonderful meeting or a wonderful phone conversation? It was beautiful. It was a perfect conversation. I think you should ask for Vice President Pence’s conversation. Nothing was mentioned of anything of import.”

4:30 p.m.: Trump says he wants ‘transparency’ from Biden

In tweets shortly before he was scheduled to address reporters in New York, Trump said he had informed House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and all House Republicans that he “fully” supports “transparency on so-called whistleblower information.” But he added that also wants “transparency from Joe Biden and his son Hunter, on the millions of dollars that have been quickly and easily taken out of Ukraine and China.”

“Additionally, I demand transparency from Democrats that went to Ukraine and attempted to force the new President to do things that they wanted under the form of political threat,” Trump said. It was not immediately clear which Democrats Trump was referencing, or what he meant by “political threat.”

Trump has acknowledged publicly that he asked Zelensky to investigate Biden’s son, who served on the board of a Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company that came under scrutiny by authorities there.

Hunter Biden was not accused of any wrongdoing in the investigation. As vice president, Joe Biden pressured Ukraine to fire its top prosecutor, who Biden and other Western officials said was not sufficiently pursuing corruption cases. At the time, the Ukrainians’ investigation was dormant, according to former Ukrainian and U.S. officials.

4:05 p.m.: Castro defends Biden as ‘an honorable man’

One of Biden’s 2020 Democratic presidential rivals, Julián Castro, offered words of support for the former vice president at an event in Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday afternoon.

“He and his family do not deserve these kind of baseless accusations from Donald Trump,” said Castro, who was the housing secretary in the Obama administration. “Donald Trump is trying to do to Joe Biden what he did to Hillary Clinton; to turn somebody who has given a lifetime of service, and done it honorably, into the victim of false accusations.”

At a Democratic debate this month, Castro had gone on the attack against Biden, accusing him of forgetting the details of his own health-care plan. But on Wednesday, he struck a different note.

“Joe Biden is an honorable man,” Castro said. “I think he’s an honest man and his family is honest. I have disagreements with Vice President Biden that I’ve made clear — on health care, on immigration, on other issues — but I don’t want to see this election decided by Donald Trump’s usual tearing down of other people with false accusations.”

— David Weigel

3:35 p.m.: On Wall Street, the fear is Trump’s trade policies, not impeachment

The market reaction to Pelosi’s announcement of an impeachment inquiry into Trump was a giant shrug. This is a political moment for the country, not an economic one, many analysts say.

Stocks fell a bit Tuesday as news of Pelosi’s decision broke, but the market rebounded Wednesday. On Wall Street, few think the process will lead to Trump’s removal from office. Pelosi appears to be inching closer to the votes for an impeachment in the House, but it looks highly unlikely at this point that two-thirds of the GOP-controlled Senate will go along with it.

“Markets have seen this impeachment movie before. So what if the House impeaches if the Senate will never remove the President from office? Markets are way more interested in a trade deal with China,” said Jamie Cox, managing partner at Harris Financial Group in Richmond.

Read more here.

— Heather Long

3:25 p.m.: Congress will receive whistleblower complaint today, lawmaker says

Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, who until now had blocked Congress from seeing the whistleblower complaint that first brought the phone call between Trump and Zelensky to light, will provide that complaint to Congress today by 4 p.m., according to Rep. Devin Nunes (Calif.), the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee.

Lawmakers have demanded the whistleblower’s complaint be made available to them, both before and after seeing the White House’s readout of the call.

Nunes made the announcement while speaking on the House floor in defense of Trump.

“The media coverage and the Democrats’ hysterical and politicized response is reminiscent of countless episodes during the course of the Russia collusion hoax,” Nunes said. “That’s why Republicans look forward to actually reading the material on which the Democrats, from a position of ignorance, are basing their unrestrained accusations.”

3:10 p.m.: Congress ‘must pursue the facts,’ Biden says

Biden reacted to the White House release of a readout of the call between Trump and Zelensky, referring to it as an “abridged version that the White House was willing to issue to the public” and reiterating his call for the full whistleblower complaint about Trump’s conduct on the call be made available to Congress.

As the Biden statement came out, Trump was attacking Biden during a media availability at the United Nations with Zelensky, who seemed to be doing his best to stay out of the middle of this U.S. political scandal.

Biden, who has called for impeachment if the White House doesn’t cooperate with the House’s investigations, said that Congress “must pursue the facts and quickly take prompt action to hold Donald Trump accountable.”

“In the meantime, I will continue to focus my campaign not on how Donald Trump abused his power to come after my family, but on how he has turned his back on America’s families,” Biden said.

2:50 p.m.: ‘No pressure’ on Zelensky, Trump says, despite rough transcript of call

Trump told reporters on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly that he did not pressure Zelensky on the July call. The president also strenuously defended the actions of his personal attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani, who he said is “looking to find out where the phony witch hunt started.”

“Rudy Giuliani is a great lawyer,” Trump said. “He’s a great mayor. He’s highly respected. I’ve watched the passion that he’s had on television over the last few days.”

Trump began his highly-anticipated face-to-face meeting with Zelensky with a joke, noting that “he’s made me more famous, and I’ve made him more famous.”

Zelensky, a comedian before he was elected in April, also tried to keep the mood light by noting that “it’s better to be on TV than by phone.”

— Anne Gearan

2:20 p.m.: Cruz says Democrats are trying to ‘undo’ 2016 election

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) joined other Republicans in accusing Democrats of seeking to “undo” the results of the 2016 election through impeachment.

But if Trump were removed from office, it would not result in a Democrat taking his place. Instead, Vice President Pence would be in line to become president.

“Since the day President Trump was elected, congressional Democrats have been working to find any reason under the sun to impeach the president and undo the results of the last election,” Cruz said. “First, it was Mueller, then the Mueller report found no collusion. Now it’s Ukraine. Next month, it will be something else.”

2 p.m.: Pelosi privately urges narrow Trump impeachment probe focused on Ukraine

Pelosi urged fellow Democratic leaders in a private meeting to keep the impeachment investigation narrowly focused on Trump and his dealings with the president of Ukraine, according to five Democrats familiar with the conversation.

The closed-door meeting took place hours after the White House released a rough transcript of the July 25 phone call between Trump and Zelensky in which Trump pressed Zelensky to work with Attorney General William P. Barr and Giuliani to investigate Biden.

Inside the room, Democrats said, Pelosi told colleagues that keeping the inquiry narrowly focused on the Ukraine allegations could help keep the investigation out of the courts, where a slew of investigative matters have been bogged down for months — though she did not rule out ultimately including other episodes in a potential impeachment package.

Read more here.

— Mike DeBonis and Rachael Bade

1:20 p.m.: White House mistakenly sends Trump-Ukraine talking points to Democrats

In the hours after the release Wednesday of the rough transcript of Trump’s July phone call with Zelensky, the White House circulated an email with proposed talking points for Trump’s defenders.

Unfortunately for the White House, the email was mistakenly sent to not only Republicans but also Democratic lawmakers and their staff.

The message, titled, “What You Need To Know: President Trump’s Call with President Zelensky,” was quickly recalled — but not before Democrats took to Twitter to ridicule the White House over the error.

Read more here.

1:15 p.m.: Trump calls House impeachment inquiry a “manufactured crisis”

Trump called the House impeachment inquiry a “manufactured crisis” Wednesday afternoon and said it undermines the ability of Democrats to make progress on trade deals and gun legislation.

“I don’t think they can do any deals. All they’re talking about is nonsense,” Trump said at a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York.

“She’s wasting her time on … a manufactured crisis,” Trump said of Pelosi.

1 p.m.: Democratic chairmen says no “quid pro quo” is required for wrongdoing

A joint statement issued Wednesday afternoon by four Democratic committee chairmen sought to push back on Trump’s argument that he had done nothing wrong because his request for Zelensky to investigate the Bidens was not linked to U.S. military aid to Ukraine.

“Let’s be clear: no quid pro quo is required to betray our country,” the statement said. “Trump asked a foreign government to interfere in our elections — that is betrayal enough. The corruption exists whether or not Trump threatened — explicitly or implicitly — that a lack of cooperation could result in withholding military aid.”

The statement was issued by Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.), Oversight Chairman Elijah E. Cummings (Md.) and Foreign Relations Chairman Eliot L. Engel (N.Y.).

12:45 p.m.: Impeachment inquiry threatens to overtake Capitol, upend trade and spending talks

House Democrats’ new impeachment inquiry threatens to overtake Capitol Hill and chill legislating on other fronts, deepening partisan divisions and mistrust between lawmakers and administration officials who’ve already struggled to secure deals on spending and trade.

Trump’s top agenda item, a rewrite of the 1994 trade deal between Mexico, Canada and the United States, could be the first victim.

The formal impeachment inquiry, announced Tuesday, will test whether congressional Democrats and the White House can attempt to continue governing on other matters. Numerous Republicans have said the impeachment inquiry changes everything.

Democrats are trying to forge ahead, multitasking on trade and budget talks while also preparing for impeachment.

Read more here.

— Erica Werner and David J. Lynch

12:30 p.m.: Some Senate Republicans question White House’s judgment

Several Senate Republicans were stunned Wednesday and questioned the White House’s judgment after it released a rough transcript of Trump’s call with Ukraine’s president.

One Senate Republican, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly, said the transcript’s release was a “huge mistake” that the GOP now has to confront, even as Republicans argue that House Democrats are overreaching with their impeachment effort.

A top Senate GOP aide said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is expecting Wednesday’s closed-door lunch to be eventful and possibly tense as Republicans react to the transcript and debate their next step.

“It remains troubling in the extreme. It’s deeply troubling,” Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) told reporters Wednesday, when asked about the transcript.

Read more here.

Robert Costa

12:15 p.m.: Schiff says rough transcript reveals “mafia-like shakedown”

At a news conference Wednesday afternoon, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) said the rough transcript reveals “a classic mafia-like shakedown of a foreign leader.”

Schiff said Zelensky’s statements in the rough transcript “reflect a Ukrainian president who was desperate for U.S. support.” Trump, he said, was eager to leverage that situation.

“This is how a mafia boss talks. … ‘I have a favor I want to ask you,’ ” Schiff said. And the favor, “of course, is to investigate his political rival,” he added.

He also took aim at Trump’s mentions of Barr in the call.

The fact that Trump would invoke the attorney general, Schiff said, sends a message to the Ukrainian president that “this is the United States government asking, and we plan to effectuate that through the Department of Justice.”

12:05 p.m.: Pelosi says rough transcript confirms need for impeachment inquiry, questions whether Trump cares about ethics

Pelosi said in a statement that the rough transcript confirms the need for an impeachment inquiry of a president who, she said, “has tried to make lawlessness a virtue in America and now is exporting it abroad.”

“The release of the notes of the call by the White House confirms that the President engaged in behavior that undermines the integrity of our elections, the dignity of the office he holds and our national security,” Pelosi said.

The California Democrat said that she respects Trump’s responsibility to engage with foreign leaders.

But, she said, “It is not part of his job to use taxpayer money to shake down other countries for the benefit of his campaign. Either the President does not know the weight of his words or he does not care about ethics or his constitutional responsibilities.”

Pelosi also accused the Justice Department of “acting in a rogue fashion” and being “complicit in the President’s lawlessness.”

12 p.m.: Trump-Zelensky call shows lengths to which foreign leaders go to flatter Trump

The rough transcript of Trump’s phone call with Zelensky provides evidence of Trump asking the Ukrainian president to investigate the conduct of Biden and his son Hunter.

But it also reveals the lengths to which foreign leaders will go in their private conversations with Trump to flatter the president to win his favor.

Zelensky, who was elected in April, lavishes praise on Trump in four distinct ways in the July phone call.

Most significantly, Zelensky mentioned that he stayed at one of Trump’s properties.

“Actually, last time I traveled to the United States, I stayed in New York near Central Park, and I stayed at the Trump Tower,” Zelensky told Trump, according to the rough transcript.

Read more here.

11:30 a.m.: Hoyer says House focus will be on Ukraine matter

House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) called the rough transcript “pretty damning” and told reporters Wednesday morning that Democrats would focus on it.

“We are going to focus on this particular matter,” Hoyer said, adding that it’s “not hard to understand.”

As they move forward with an impeachment inquiry, House Democrats have been in talks about how narrowly to focus on the Ukraine matter vs. material from an array of other investigations.

Holding up a copy of the rough transcript, Hoyer said, “Even that which is in this document is pretty damning. … These are very serious national security issues.”

Hoyer added that there are no plans to cancel an upcoming two-week recess because it is important for members to have time to explain to constituents what happened in the Ukraine matter.

Earlier Wednesday, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said the rough transcript confirmed “several things.”

“The President, Donald Trump, clearly pressured the Ukrainian president to commence an investigation of the Biden family to dig up political dirt in order to bolster the president’s electoral prospects in 2020,” Jeffries said. “That is textbook abuse of power, and the transcripts have become Exhibit A in that regard.”

— Rachael Bade and Mike DeBonis

11:20 a.m.: Nadler says Barr should recuse himself from Ukraine matter

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) demanded Wednesday that Attorney General William P. Barr recuse himself from further involvement in the Ukraine matter, citing his mention in the rough transcript.

The document shows that Trump urged Ukraine’s leader to contact Barr about opening an inquiry tied to Biden.

“The President dragged the Attorney General into this mess. At a minimum, AG Barr must recuse himself until we get to the bottom of this matter,” Nadler tweeted.

— Mike DeBonis

11:15 a.m.: Democratic presidential candidates pounce on release of rough transcript

Several Democratic presidential candidates pounced on the release of the rough transcript of Trump’s call with Zelensky, saying it bolstered the case for the president’s impeachment.

“This ‘transcript’ itself is a smoking gun,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said on Twitter. “If this is the version of events the president’s team thinks is most favorable, he is in very deep jeopardy. We need to see the full whistleblower complaint and the administration needs to follow the law. Now.”

Former Obama Cabinet secretary Julián Castro also called the rough transcript a “smoking gun.”

“Donald Trump pressured a foreign government to work with his Justice Department to investigate a political opponent. Congress should cancel recess and begin impeachment proceedings immediately,” Castro said on Twitter.

Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.), meanwhile, said the document amounted to an admission on the part of Trump.

“Trump pressured the Ukrainian president to work with the U.S. Attorney General to investigate a political opponent. He must be impeached,” she tweeted.

Billionaire activist Tom Steyer said the rough transcript showed Trump is “a traitor,” while former congressman Beto O’Rourke (D-Tex.) said it showed Trump is “unfit for office and needs to be impeached.”

10:40 a.m.: Schumer says he strongly supports House impeachment inquiry

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday that he strongly supports Pelosi’s decision to move forward with a formal impeachment inquiry.

“The president’s conduct made an impeachment inquiry unavoidable,” Schumer said during remarks on the Senate floor. “The events of recent days have brought sharply into focus the question of whether President Trump abused the powers of his office and betrayed the public trust for personal and political gain.”

10:40 a.m.: Trump calls on Democrats to apologize

Shortly after the rough transcript was publicly released, Trump went on Twitter to call on Democrats to apologize.

“Will the Democrats apologize after seeing what was said on the call with the Ukrainian President?” he wrote. “They should, a perfect call — got them by surprise!”

Trump also tweeted a clip of a younger Pelosi speaking on the House floor about how unfairly Republicans were treating then-President Bill Clinton during his impeachment.

Shortly afterward, speaking to reporters in New York, he continued to insist he is the victim of “the single greatest witch hunt in American history.”

“It’s a disgraceful thing,” Trump said. “The letter was a great letter, meaning the letter revealing the call.”

He claimed the rough transcript showed he put “no pressure” on Zelensky.

While Democrats had suggested he had a “call from hell,” Trump said, it instead “turned out to be a nothing call.”

10:30 a.m.: “Is it out?” House Republican leaders were unaware rough transcript was released

House Republican leaders were apparently caught unawares that the White House released the rough transcript of Trump’s call with Zelensky.

At their weekly news conference, which began at 10 a.m., House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) and others stuck largely to talking points that were the same as those they used on Tuesday — keeping the focus on Biden and Pelosi.

“No one has read this transcript,” McCarthy said at one point, chastising a reporter.

At another point, McCarthy said, “When this transcript comes out …”

After reporters and others in the room clarified that the rough transcript had already been released, McCarthy responded, “Is it out?”

Shortly afterward, House Republican leaders wrapped up the news conference.

10:15 a.m.: Hillary Clinton says Trump has “betrayed our country”

Shortly after the rough transcript was released, Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee defeated by Trump in 2016, took to Twitter to offer her support for impeachment.

“The president of the United States has betrayed our country,” she wrote. “That’s not a political statement — it’s a harsh reality, and we must act. He is a clear and present danger to the things that keep us strong and free. I support impeachment.”

10:15 a.m.: McConnell accuses House Democrats of rushing to judgment

In remarks shortly after the rough transcript was released, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) accused House Democrats of having an “impeachment addiction.”

“While our friends across the Capitol rush to judgment and dive deeper into their nearly three-year-old impeachment addiction, we’ll stay focused on the American people’s business,” McConnell said during remarks of the Senate floor.

10 a.m.: Rough transcript shows Trump offering U.S. assistance to Zelensky for Biden investigation

Trump told Zelensky to work with the U.S. attorney general to investigate Biden’s conduct and offered to meet with the leader of Ukraine at the White House after he promised to conduct such an inquiry, according to a newly released rough transcript of the call.

Those statements and others in a July 25 phone call between Trump and Zelensky were so concerning that the intelligence community inspector general thought them a possible violation of campaign finance law. In late August, intelligence officials referred the matter to the Justice Department as a possible crime, but prosecutors concluded last week that the conduct was not criminal, according to senior Justice Department officials.

The administration’s disclosures underscore how the president’s phone call has consumed the federal government in recent days, and how the White House is scrambling to defuse the situation by offering more details of what the president said.

On Wednesday, the administration released a White House rough transcript of the call and detailed behind-the-scenes discussions about how to handle the accusations.

Read more here.

Devlin Barrett, Matt Zapotosky, Carol D. Leonnig and Josh Dawsey

9:30 a.m.: Number of House members supporting impeachment inquiry swells to 200

The number of House members who say they support at least opening an impeachment inquiry into Trump has swelled to 200, a figure that includes 199 Democrats and Rep. Justin Amash (Mich.), a former Republican who recently left the party, according to an updated Washington Post tally.

In just the past two days, the number has grown by 60, with many members tying their decisions to Trump’s call with Zelensky.

Twenty-two of the 24 Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over the impeachment inquiry, have expressed public support for the move.

Read more here.

— JM Reiger

9:15 a.m.: House to vote Wednesday afternoon to condemn administration for withholding whistleblower complaint

The House plans to vote Wednesday afternoon on a resolution condemning the administration’s efforts to block the release of the whistleblower complaint alleging that Trump’s promise to a foreign leader constituted an “urgent concern” to national security.

Acting director of national intelligence Joseph Maguire has refused to share the complaint from a U.S. intelligence official in what Democrats say is a clear violation of the law.

Michael Atkinson, the inspector general for the intelligence community, reviewed the complaint and determined that it was credible and troubling enough to be considered a matter of “urgent concern,” a legal threshold that requires notification of congressional oversight committees.

“We hope that all Members of the House — Democrats and Republicans alike — will join in upholding the rule of law and oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution as Representatives of the American people,” Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said in a joint statement.

In a rare, albeit subtle protest from the GOP-led Senate, lawmakers adopted a resolution on Tuesday calling for the White House to turn over the complaint to the intelligence committees, as is required under law.

8:30 a.m.: Giuliani says the rough transcript was read to him

Giuliani said Wednesday morning that the rough transcript had been read to him, an acknowledgment that prompted protests from Democratic members of Congress who had yet to review the document.

During an appearance on Fox News’s “Fox & Friends” in which he defended Trump and attacked Biden, Giuliani was asked if he had seen the rough transcript.

“Let’s say it was read to me,” he replied.

“The whole thing?” asked co-host Brian Kilmeade.

“I hope,” Giuliani replied.

Democrats, including House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), argued that Giuliani, who doesn’t hold a government position, should not have had an opportunity to review the rough transcript before they did.

7:25 a.m.: Trump complains again about Democrats “frozen with hatred and fear”

Trump went on Twitter early Wednesday to complain about continued Democratic scrutiny of his actions.

“There has been no President in the history of our Country who has been treated so badly as I have,” he wrote. “The Democrats are frozen with hatred and fear. They get nothing done. This should never be allowed to happen to another President. Witch Hunt!”

Trump’s salvo followed several tweets on Tuesday night in which he shared video clips of friendly commentators arguing that he is being treated unfairly.

6:40 a.m.: New poll shows limited support for impeachment

Amid a groundswell of support for impeachment proceedings among House Democrats, a new poll finds a majority of Americans do not favor ousting Trump from office.

Thirty-seven percent of voters say that Trump should be impeached and removed from office, while 57 percent say he should not be impeached, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday morning.

The poll was conducted from Thursday through Monday, as details were emerging about Trump’s call with Zelensky.

The poll shows a stark partisan divide on the question of impeachment. Among Democrats, 73 percent support impeachment, while 21 percent are opposed. Among Republicans, only 4 percent support impeachment, while 95 percent are opposed.

Read more here.

5 a.m.: Giuliani pursued shadow Ukraine agenda as key foreign policy officials were sidelined

Trump’s attempt to pressure the leader of Ukraine followed a months-long fight inside the administration that sidelined national security officials and empowered political loyalists — including the president’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani — to exploit the U.S. relationship with Kiev, current and former U.S. officials said.

The sequence, which began early this year, involved the abrupt removal of the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, the circumvention of senior officials on the National Security Council, and the suspension of hundreds of millions of dollars of aid administered by the Defense and State departments — all as key officials from these agencies struggled to piece together Giuliani’s activities from news reports.

Several officials described tense meetings on Ukraine among national security officials at the White House leading up to the president’s phone call on July 25, sessions that led some participants to fear that Trump and those close to him appeared prepared to use U.S. leverage with the new leader of Ukraine for Trump’s political gain.

Read more here.

— Greg Miller, Josh Dawsey, Paul Sonne and Ellen Nakashima

Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-ukraine-controversy/2019/09/25/9390e9b8-df82-11e9-b199-f638bf2c340f_story.html

A little girl in Illinois had a run-in with a coyote and her family’s home surveillance camera captured the close encounter.

Christine Przybylski, 5, ran down the driveway in hopes of retrieving her Halloween costume from the mail and came back empty-handed, but still got a scare.

The surveillance video showed a coyote lurking as Christine ran around the family’s Villa Park front yard outside Chicago.

Przybylski family via WLS
Christine Przybylski, 5, was playing in the front yard of her Villa Park, Ill. home when she was chased by a roaming coyote.

“I just skipped out the door and I went to the mailbox,” she told ABC Chicago station WLS. “I decided to go to the swing and when I went to the swing he [ran] by — I was like ‘Oh my God.'”

As she ran away from the swing, the coyote circled the swing and charged straight at her.

The wild animal came so close that the young girl said, “I feeled it’s ear and it like almost bited my rib.”

WLS
Christine Przybylski, 5, was playing in the front yard of her Villa Park, Ill. home when she was chased by a roaming coyote.

She managed to run up the stairs of the home’s front deck and inside to tell her mom.

“We heard her scream and she came in with this wild story,” her mother Elizabeth Przybylski said of her daughter, who emphatically repeated that she had seen a coyote.

“He really pursued her violently,” she added, after they watched back the footage. “I’m so glad she got away.”

The concerned mom said Christine will be accompanied while playing in the front yard from now on and neighbors believe that the coyotes live in a nearby wooded area.

Source Article from https://abcnews.go.com/US/coyotes-violent-pursuit-young-girl-caught-camera-familys/story?id=65849137

Nancy Pelosi’s giant step toward impeachment, which she resisted for so long, may well backfire against the Democrats.

But by any fair analysis, the transcript released yesterday of President Trump’s call with the Ukraine leader did not help his cause.

This is not a partisan observation, as I’ve repeatedly said and written that the media coverage of Trump is relentlessly negative and often unfair. And as I noted yesterday, the press has so badly overhyped so many Trump controversies, large and small, that there is a collective numbness to the latest cries of scandal.

MEDIA’S UKRAINE REPORTING PRESSURES PELOSI INTO FINALLY BACKING IMPEACHMENT

But now that we have the transcript of the July call, it’s clear that the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post reports were largely accurate. It was not, as the president said yesterday, a “nothing call.”

That doesn’t mean it rises to the level of an impeachable offense. It doesn’t mean there aren’t legitimate questions about Joe Biden’s intervention in Ukraine while his son was making big bucks from a gas giant.

But if you flipped the script—if Barack Obama had asked Ukraine in 2011 to help investigate one of Mitt Romney’s sons—Republicans would have gone nuclear.

One thing we learned from the transcript is that Trump brought up a company with Ukrainian ties that is said to have been involved in the hacking of Democratic emails during the last campaign.

This came right after Volodymyr Zelensky was talking about military aide, saying “we are almost ready to buy more Javelins from the United States for defense purposes.”

“I would like you to do us a favor, though…I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike… I guess you have one of your wealthy people… The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think you’re surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it.”

Crowdstrike is the company supposedly tied to the 2016 hacking.

Zelensky is friendly throughout, promising cooperation, and was the first to bring up Rudy Giuliani.

SUBSCRIBE TO HOWIE’S MEDIA BUZZMETER PODCAST, A RIFF OF THE DAY’S HOTTEST STORIES

Then Trump played the Biden card and referenced the former vice president pressuring Ukraine to fire a prosecutor who had what was apparently an inactive case against the Ukrainian gas giant that was paying Hunter Biden big bucks.

“I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that’s really unfair…Mr. Giuliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor of New York City, a great mayor, and I would like him to call you. I will ask him to call you along with the attorney general. Rudy very much knows what’s happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great…

“There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it… It sounds horrible to me.”

So in just one week, we have confirmation that Trump did ask Zelensky to investigate his political rival, which would obviously help the president’s reelection prospects.

But was there pressure? A quid pro quo? Trump did not specifically bring up military aid, but then, he didn’t have to. Zelensky was acutely aware that the White House—the president did it personally—had held up $391 million in appropriated payments to his country.

“All they’re talking about is nonsense,” Trump said at the U.N. yesterday, adding: “It’s all fake stuff the media makes up with the Democrats, their partners, they’re one and the same, they’re partners.”

And Zelensky, at a televised meeting, said he never felt pressured by Trump.

As the pundits parse the call, this is ultimately not a legal question. High crimes and misdemeanors is whatever a majority of the House says it is.

Pelosi may come to regret unleashing these forces, since polls show that impeachment remains unpopular with a majority of the country.

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/media/impeachment-is-risky-but-transcript-supports-medias-ukraine-reporting

Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, pictured in July 2018, is testifying before the House and Senate intelligence committees on Thursday.

Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images


hide caption

toggle caption

Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, pictured in July 2018, is testifying before the House and Senate intelligence committees on Thursday.

Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

The nation’s top spy is set to face Congress on Thursday as Washington hurtles toward another milestone in the fast-deepening Ukraine affair.

Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire is scheduled to testify about the origins of the flap at 9 a.m. ET before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

He then has a closed session in the afternoon before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Watch the House hearing here when it begins.

The House hearing will be watched closely in a capital roiling after House Democrats reached a new consensus this week about moving ahead with an impeachment inquiry — although no one knows what that may mean in practical terms or whether it will bring real consequences for Trump.

The saga began with a complaint to the intelligence community’s internal watchdog about allegedly improper commitments made by President Trump to a foreign leader.

That led, on Wednesday, to the extraordinary release by the White House of the account of a call in which Trump asked Ukraine’s president to investigate the family of former Vice President Joe Biden.

What still isn’t clear is what the whistleblower complaint — if it became public — might add to the public understanding about the Ukraine case. The intelligence committees received partial, still-classified copies of the document on Wednesday.

Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., who sits on the House intelligence panel, told NPR on Wednesday that the materials he reviewed were “alarming” — but incomplete.

Swalwell said the committee still must hear from the whistleblower in person and see other documents that so far have not reached Congress, including those related to the inspector general’s investigation.

“We will ask for more,” he said. “We’re entitled to more.”

How much can DNI discuss?

Maguire has vowed, in general terms, that he’ll do his duty in handling the Ukraine affair — but he also denied a press report on Wednesday that he had threatened to resign if he was constrained from talking with lawmakers.

“At no time have I considered resigning my position since assuming this role on Aug. 16, 2019,” he said. “I have never quit anything in my life, and I am not going to start now.”

Maguire found himself in the job following Trump’s removal of the Senate-confirmed former DNI, Dan Coats, and the resignation of his deputy, Sue Gordon. There is no word as to when the White House might nominate their full-time replacements.

So in the meantime, Maguire is caught in the midst of the latest contretemps among Trump, the intelligence community and a foreign government. And Maguire may face questions on Thursday that go beyond the nature of the complaint to the top intelligence inspector general.

President sanguine

Trump told reporters on Wednesday that he had at least one other phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, as did Vice President Pence — calls that Trump said were also innocent.

Trump said he was willing to release a transcript of those earlier calls, but he was dismissive about the reaction by Democrats.

“Impeachment, for that?” he said. “When you have a wonderful meeting — a wonderful phone conversation?”

The president stuck by his characterization of what he called the real Ukraine story — one he said was about “corruption” involving Biden, his family, Ukraine and China.

Trump responded to a question about whether his request to Ukraine’s leader was improper by charging that President Obama and conspirators within the U.S. government had persecuted him in the earlier Russia imbroglio.

Biden has denied any wrongdoing and condemned what he called conspiracy theorizing by Trump and the president’s supporters.

The former vice president repeated on Wednesday his earlier call that Trump cooperate with Congress’ investigations into the Ukraine affair and said that if Trump doesn’t, he’ll throw his support behind impeachment.

“It is a tragedy for this country that our president put personal politics above his sacred oath,” Biden said. “He has put his own political interests over our national security interests, which is bolstering Ukraine against Russian pressure.”

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2019/09/26/764354457/u-s-intelligence-boss-joseph-maguire-to-face-congress-on-ukraine-affair

We’ve detected unusual activity from your computer network

To continue, please click the box below to let us know you’re not a robot.

Source Article from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-25/trump-tried-to-talk-his-way-out-of-impeachment-it-didn-t-work

Chat with us in Facebook Messenger. Find out what’s happening in the world as it unfolds.

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/25/health/fish-climate-crisis-ipcc/index.html

Amazon just released a bunch of new products — here’s a look at…

By throwing many ideas into the market and seeing what sticks, Amazon hopes to spread key homegrown technologies, such as Alexa and Sidewalk, a newly announced wireless…

read more

Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/26/us-sanctions-on-china-firms-show-iran-is-potential-flashpoint-eurasia.html

Mr. Trump jumped in: “In other words, no pressure.”

But critics seized on the conversation as proof that the president violated his oath of office by coercing another world leader into supporting his personal political agenda.

The document provided a rare opportunity to review a private conversation between the United States president and another leader.

It included a note cautioning that it was “not a verbatim transcript” but was based on “notes and recollections of Situation Room duty officers” and national security staff. Voice recognition software was also used in preparing the document, which included long, direct quotations, senior administration officials said.

An American official translated Mr. Zelensky’s statements into English, officials said. The document included three ellipses indicating that part of Mr. Trump’s comments may be missing, though it is unclear how much was left out. Administration officials said the ellipses indicated when Mr. Trump trailed off or was inaudible.

The release of the conversation’s details marked a culmination of an extraordinary series of revelations that began in recent weeks with the whistle-blower’s private expressions of concern about Mr. Trump’s actions and prompted Democrats in Congress to officially begin an impeachment inquiry.

And unlike most Washington memos, Wednesday’s document was written like a movie script.

“There is a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution, and a lot of people want to find out about that,” Mr. Trump said to Mr. Zelensky, referring to unfounded allegations that the former vice president tried in 2015 to stop a prosecution of a company that his son worked for at the time.

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/25/us/politics/ukraine-transcript-trump.html

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., commented on the announcement of a formal impeachment inquiry against President Trump on the Senate floor. He warned that “our friends across the capitol rush to judgment,” as more Democrats come out in favor of impeachment proceedings.
» Subscribe to NBC News: http://nbcnews.to/SubscribeToNBC
» Watch more NBC video: http://bit.ly/MoreNBCNews

NBC News Digital is a collection of innovative and powerful news brands that deliver compelling, diverse and engaging news stories. NBC News Digital features NBCNews.com, MSNBC.com, TODAY.com, Nightly News, Meet the Press, Dateline, and the existing apps and digital extensions of these respective properties. We deliver the best in breaking news, live video coverage, original journalism and segments from your favorite NBC News Shows.

Connect with NBC News Online!
NBC News App: https://smart.link/5d0cd9df61b80
Breaking News Alerts: https://link.nbcnews.com/join/5cj/bre…
Visit NBCNews.Com: http://nbcnews.to/ReadNBC
Find NBC News on Facebook: http://nbcnews.to/LikeNBC
Follow NBC News on Twitter: http://nbcnews.to/FollowNBC
Follow NBC News on Instagram: http://nbcnews.to/InstaNBC

Senator Mitch McConnell Claims House Democrats Have An ‘Impeachment Addiction’ | NBC News

Source Article from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tc-im2lIBRg

Utah Republican Rep. Chris Stewart announced on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle” and on social media late Wednesday that the explosive whistleblower complaint concerning President Trump’s July call with Ukraine’s leader has been declassified — and Stewart said that it doesn’t contain any damning information.

“I encourage you all to read it,” Stewart tweeted. The complaint was not immediately available to the public, but was expected to be released Thursday morning.

“It’s been declassified and it’s been released,” Stewart separately told anchor Laura Ingraham. “So it should be available for everyone to go and look at.”

Stewart added that he has viewed the complaint, and was initially “anxious” before viewing the complaint, but now is “much more confident than I was this morning that this is going to go nowhere. … there are just no surprises there.”

TRUMP GOES ON THE OFFENSIVE, ALLEGES BIDEN CORRUPTION, SAYS DEMS THREATENED UKRAINE AID MULTIPLE TIMES

He continued, “The entirety of it is focused on this one thing, and that’s the transcript of one phone call, the transcript that was released this morning.”

The bombshell development came hours before Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire was set to testify before Congress on Thursday. Fox News is told there was serious conversation among lawmakers as to how far Maguire could go in an open session at the hearing. One source tells Fox News the administration may have declassified the document so it could be discussed publicly during the hearing.

A bipartisan select group of intelligence committee lawmakers in the House and Senate, who have been demanding details of the whistleblower’s complaint, gained access to the document in a classified setting earlier Wednesday ahead of Maguire’s testimony.

Earlier in the day, the White House released a declassified transcript of Trump’s July call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, showing Trump sought a review of former Vice President Joe Biden’s efforts to have Ukraine’s former top prosecutor fired.

Joe Biden has acknowledged on camera that, when he was vice president, he successfully pressured Ukraine to fire that prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, who was investigating the natural gas firm Burisma Holdings — where Hunter Biden was on the board. Shokin himself had separately been accused of corruption.

Trump made the request on the call only after Zelensky first mentioned Ukraine’s corruption issues, and after Trump separately requested as a “favor” that Ukraine help investigate foreign interference in the 2016 elections, including the hack of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) server involving the data security company CrowdStrike.

Multiple news outlets, including The New York Times, CNN, and The Washington Post, inaccurately reported that the “favor” related specifically to investigating Biden.

“I guarantee as the President of Ukraine that all the investigations will be done openly and candidly,” Zelensky said in the transcript. That prompted Trump to remark, “Good, because I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good. … he was shut down and that’s really unfair. … The other thing, there’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you ·can look into it … It sounds horrible to me.”

The transcript did not demonstrate that Trump leveraged military aid to Ukraine to obtain a “promise” on a Biden investigation, as a widely cited report in The Washington Post had claimed.

READ THE FULL TRANSCRIPT OF THE TRUMP PHONE CALL

Meanwhile, lawyers for the whistleblower – a member of the intelligence community – confirmed to Fox News on Wednesday that the whistleblower wanted to testify before Congress and was waiting on possible guidance from Maguire.

The lawyers also confirmed to Fox News they had worked with a nonprofit to establish a GoFundMe page seeking to raise an initial $100,000 for the whistleblower’s legal defense.

The whirlwind turn of events came as President Trump has continued his efforts to turn the tables on Democrats.

WHISTLEBLOWER SETS UP GOFUNDME, WANTS $100G

At a press conference in New York on Wednesday, Trump specifically called attention to a little-discussed CNN report from May, which described how Democratic Sens. Robert Menendez, Dick Durbin, and Patrick Leahy pushed Ukraine’s top prosecutor not to close four investigations perceived as critical to then-Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe — and, by Democrats’ current logic, seemingly implied that their support for U.S. aid to Ukraine was at stake.

“The Democrats have done what they’re accusing me of doing,” Trump said.

The Democratic senators wrote in a letter to Ukraine’s leader at the time: “In four short years, Ukraine has made significant progress in building [democratic] institutions despite ongoing military, economic, and political pressure from Moscow. We have supported [the] capacity-building process and are disappointed that some in Kyiv appear to have cast aside these [democratic] principles to avoid the ire of President Trump.”

The senators called for the top prosecutor to “reverse course and halt any efforts to impede cooperation with this important investigation.”

The Post’s Marc Thiessen initially flagged the letter on Tuesday, calling it evidence of a “double standard” among Democrats.

“Senator Chris Murphy literally threatened the president of Ukraine that if he doesn’t do things right, they won’t have Democrat support in Congress,” Trump added.

That was a reference to the Connecticut Democrat’s comments at a bipartisan meeting in Kiev earlier this month when Murphy called U.S. aid the “most important asset” of Ukraine — then issued a warning.

“I told Zelensky that he should not insert himself or his government into American politics,” Murphy said, according to The Hill. “I cautioned him that complying with the demands of the President’s campaign representatives to investigate a political rival of the President would gravely damage the U.S.-Ukraine relationship. There are few things that Republicans and Democrats agree on in Washington these days, and support for Ukraine is one of them.”

Responding to Trump’s statements, Murphy said that “in the meeting Republican Senator Ron Johnson and I had with President Zelensky three weeks ago, I made it clear to him that Ukraine should not become involved in the 2020 election and that his government should communicate with the State Department, not the president’s campaign. I still believe this to be true.”

Trump’s comments came shortly after he wrapped up a joint media appearance with Zelensky — who flatly told reporters that he did not feel “pushed” to investigate Joe Biden.

“We had a great phone call,” Zelensky said earlier, as he sat across from Trump. “It was normal.”

In colorful language, Trump told reporters that the evidence clearly showed Democrats were disingenuously attacking him for political gain.

“We have the greatest economy we’ve ever had,” the president said. “When you see little [House Intelligence Committee Chair] Adam Schiff go out and lie and lie and stand at the mic, smart guy by the way. … Then he goes into a room with [House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry] Nadler, and they must laugh their asses off.”

“They must laugh their asses off.”

— President Trump, referring to Democrats Jerry Nadler and Adam Schiff

Not all Democrats in the House have been on board with impeachment. 2020 presidential candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, said Wednesday that the Ukraine transcript did not present a “compelling” reason to impeach the president.

Taking the fight to the Democrats over the scores of Democrats who do support an impeachment inquiry could pay dividends for Republicans ahead of next year’s elections. The National Republican Congressional Committee indicated Wednesday that its fundraising was up 608 percent after Democrats’ impeachment push.

And the Trump reelection campaign and GOP announced they had raised a combined $5 million in just 24 hours.

Trump on Wednesday also called for transparency “from Joe Biden and his son Hunter on the millions of dollars that have been quickly and easily taken out of Ukraine and China.”

After Trump spoke, political scientist Ian Bremmer said the real scandal wasn’t Biden’s pressure to get rid of Ukraine’s prosecutor, but Hunter Biden’s lucrative business work in Ukraine.

Hunter Biden took a key position at Burisma shortly after Joe Biden visited Ukraine in 2014 and pushed officials there to greatly increase natural gas production. Hunter made tens of thousands of dollars a month but had no relevant credentials.

“Impossible to justify $50k/month for Hunter Biden serving on a Ukrainian energy board w zero expertise unless he promised to sell access,” Bremmer wrote.

“That’s a problem for the Vice President, but completely unrelated to Biden urging Ukraine President to fire his Special Prosecutor,” Bremmer continued. “[The prosecutor] was corrupt, refused to investigate anyone, and who Dems and GOP agreed needed to go.”

Also during the day, the Justice Department – in a new letter from the Office of Legal Counsel obtained by Fox News –pushed back on the claim that the whistleblower brought out something of “urgent concern” that would have to be turned over to Congress.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

The letter also said the intelligence community inspector general found “some indicia of an arguable political bias on the part of the complainant in favor of a rival political candidate,” but still said the allegations “appeared credible.” Fox News previously reported that, according to a source, the individual also did not have “firsthand knowledge” of the phone call.

Sources, meanwhile, said the original allegations spoke to a possible campaign finance violation, but the DOJ concluded that Trump’s request for an investigation did not qualify as a “thing of value” for his campaign – and therefore did not constitute a criminal violation.

Fox News’ Alex Pappas, Ed Henry, Jake Gibson, Catherine Herridge, Kevin Corke and Brooke Singman contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.foxnews.com/politics/whistleblower-complaint-on-ukraine-call-has-been-declassified-gop-lawmaker-says

President Trump signed a partial trade agreement along with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in New York, where the two leaders are attending the United Nations General Assembly.

Evan Vucci/AP


hide caption

toggle caption

Evan Vucci/AP

President Trump signed a partial trade agreement along with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in New York, where the two leaders are attending the United Nations General Assembly.

Evan Vucci/AP

U.S. farmers, who have been hard hit by President Trump’s trade wars, got some relief Wednesday, when Trump signed an interim trade deal with Japan.

The agreement calls for lower Japanese tariffs on U.S. farm exports such as beef and pork. It also locks in tariff-free digital commerce. But it does not address the president’s threat to level punishing tariffs on imported cars from Japan. A top trade negotiator says Trump has no plans to act on that threat for now.

Trump signed the partial trade agreement along with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in New York, where the two men are attending the United Nations General Assembly.

“It’s a tremendous trade deal,” Trump told reporters. “It’s a very big trade deal.”

The partial agreement is scheduled to take effect in January, with negotiations on a larger trade deal beginning four months later.

Trump was flanked by American farmers and ranchers whose exports have suffered as a result of the president’s hard-edged trade policies. China, in particular, has curtailed its purchases of pork and soybeans, putting downward pressure on prices.

“What we need in the future is more agreements like this all around the world,” said Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation. “What we need is trade. That’s what makes rural America grow.”

U.S. beef and pork producers have been at a disadvantage in Japan after Trump withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership — a 12-nation deal negotiated during the Obama administration. The other 11 countries went ahead with that agreement, giving competitors such as Australia and New Zealand preferential access to the Japanese market.

“Once implemented, the agreement signed today puts U.S. pork back on a level playing field with our competitors in Japan,” said David Herring, a hog farmer from North Carolina who leads the National Pork Producers Council.

The advocacy group Farmers for Free Trade also praised the agreement with Japan as a step in the right direction. “Our farmers need trade wins, not trade wars,” the group said in a statement. “We hope this new agreement leads to more wins, as well as progress in achieving a better trade relationship with China.”

The agreement also guarantees that digital commerce between the U.S. and Japan can flow freely without tariffs or other trade barriers.

“What we’ve really done is lock in the best possible standards you can have,” said U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer.

While the farm provisions affect a powerful political constituency, the digital agreement may have more lasting impact on the U.S. economy.

“Digital is the big growth area in world commerce today,” said Gary Hufbauer, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said the deal would give a lift to economies on both sides of the Pacific but cautioned that the partial agreement doesn’t go far enough.

“A comprehensive trade deal with Japan would provide some much-needed predictability—not only for the U.S. and Japan but for all our trade allies,” Myron Brilliant, the chamber’s executive vice president, said in a statement.

Benefits for Japan in the partial agreement include lower tariffs on some exports, such as machine tools, bicycles and musical instruments.

Japan wanted a commitment from the U.S. that Trump would not impose tariffs on Japanese cars, which would be a serious blow to one of the country’s major industries.

The agreement does not make any guarantee on auto tariffs, but Lighthizer did offer Japan some reassurance.

“At this point, it certainly is not our intention — the president’s intention — to do anything on autos” with respect to Japan, Lighthizer told reporters.

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2019/09/25/764345859/u-s-farmers-get-a-much-needed-break-under-partial-trade-pact-with-japan