Trump Woes Mount With Damaging Witnesses, Mulvaney Blunder
Trump Woes Mount With Damaging Witnesses and Mulvaney Blunder
(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump confronted a steady drip of damaging revelations out of the House impeachment hearings over the last week, but it was his acting chief of staff essentially confirming one of the central allegations at the heart of the inquiry that could prove the most troublesome.
Mick Mulvaney said at a White House briefing the president withheld nearly $400 million in U.S. security aid to Ukraine in part to urge an investigation of a 2016 election conspiracy theory to discredit Democrats.
The episode capped off a rough week for the president, who had ordered his administration to block all cooperation with the impeachment inquiry. Despite that, a stream of witnesses spoke with House investigators behind closed doors.
It got worse on Saturday, when a U.S. House Republican who said he’d consider impeaching Trump -- but isn’t ready to commit -- announced he won’t seek a third term in 2020.
“I did what I came to do,” Francis Rooney, 65, from Florida, a businessman and former ambassador to the Vatican, said in an interview on Fox News. Rooney sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, one of three panels engaged in an impeachment inquiry of the president.
What emerged over the past week through a series of leaked statements and lawmaker accounts was a picture of a shadow foreign policy centered around Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. The accounts were consistent from both career diplomats alarmed at the outsourcing of American diplomacy and from witnesses that Republicans hoped would be more favorable to the president.
One witness, Trump’s former top Russia adviser Fiona Hill, told House panels that John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, referred to Giuliani as a “hand grenade.”
Gordon Sondland, appointed as ambassador to the European Union after donating $1 million to Trump’s inauguration committee, said he was uncomfortable with the parallel diplomacy of Trump’s personal lawyer and he was unaware of Giuliani’s specific objectives.
Other administration officials from the Office of Management and Budget, the Defense Department and the National Security Council are scheduled to testify this coming week. One of the star witnesses will be William Taylor, the current acting ambassador to Ukraine who voiced concern about the reason why foreign aid was being withheld.
“It is astounding to me how many career public servants are coming forward, putting their necks on the line, and testifying,” said Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, an Illinois Democrat and a member of the Oversight committee.
‘Get Over It’
The impeachment probe started with questions about whether Trump froze aid for Ukraine and dangled a U.S. visit for the country’s new president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to pressure him to investigate unfounded allegations regarding a Democratic National Committee computer server, and about former Vice President Joe Biden, a leading 2020 candidate.
Trump and Republicans had declared there was no quid pro quo, but Mulvaney’s admission at the briefing Thursday made it harder for GOP lawmakers to avoid questions about Trump’s conduct.
“I have news for everybody: Get over it. There’s going to be political influence in foreign policy,” Mulvaney said Thursday. He said Trump “absolutely” brought up the server as part of the reason why the administration held up U.S. aid for Ukraine.
Mulvaney’s attempt to later walk back his comments didn’t satisfy Representative Francis Rooney, a Florida Republican. Rooney said Mulvaney’s comments Thursday were “definitely taking disturbing to Def Con 3,” a Defense Department term for a higher state of military readiness.
Rooney said he had given Trump “the benefit of the doubt” when the president said he had held up Ukraine’s aid to demand more support from European governments, “but Mulvaney basically said ‘nope, forget it.’”
Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, one of the most independent Republicans in the chamber, also disagreed with Mulvaney’s dismissive approach to linking politics and foreign policy.
“You don’t hold up foreign aid that we had previously appropriated for a political initiative. Period,” she said on Thursday, adding that she wanted to look at exactly what Mulvaney said, when asked if it was impeachable.
Trump’s re-election campaign, however, embraced Mulvaney’s declaration despite his later statement. By Friday afternoon, the campaign was selling “Get Over It” T-Shirts.
Trading Insults
Republicans were also unsettled by Trump’s abrupt removal of U.S. troops from northern Syria, allowing Turkey to invade territory held by the Kurds, an ethnic minority that partnered with the U.S. against the Islamic State. A pause in Turkish aggression brokered by Vice President Mike Pence in Ankara failed to reassure lawmakers who vowed to push ahead with proposals to sanction Turkey.
This foreign policy disagreement escalated to a House resolution -- supported by roughly two thirds of House Republicans -- to condemn Trump’s withdrawal from Syria. Hours after that vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stood up at a closed bipartisan meeting in the White House to push Trump on his strategy to defeat the Islamic State.
The meeting devolved into insults and the speaker stormed out.
Pelosi later told reporters that impeachment didn’t come up. But the parade of witnesses complying with subpoenas against White House directives added to the tension.
‘Questionable Motives’
There were a few key takeaways that trickled out from the last two weeks of depositions, all of which present a line of questioning for the Committees on Intelligence, Oversight and Foreign Affairs to pursue as they weigh a case for impeachment.
Marie Yovanovitch, a career diplomat, was recalled from her post as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine in May: She told committee members she was the object of a “concerted campaign” by Trump and Giuliani, and penalized by “unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives.”
“I do not know Mr. Giuliani’s motives for attacking me,” she said, adding that his associates “may well have believed that their personal financial ambitions were stymied by our anti-corruption policy in Ukraine.”
Sondland said in his testimony that Yovanovitch was “a delight to work with,” even though Trump called her “bad news” in a phone call with Ukraine’s president.
Sondland’s deposition was perhaps the most troubling for the White House, since he distanced himself not only from the president, but also from other administration officials involved in the allegations. Far from being a favorable witness for Trump, as Republicans had hoped, Sondland said he was dismayed by Mulvaney’s directives to work with Giuliani.
George Kent, a current State Department official, provided more details about the so-called “three amigos” instructed to partner with Giuliani on projects outside official diplomatic channels. That group consisted of Sondland, former special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker and Energy Secretary Rick Perry.
Perry told Trump this week he would step down from the Department of Energy before the end of the year.
Unfolding Process
Volker’s own testimony included text messages between some of the people who are now his fellow witnesses. The most interesting message came from Taylor, in which he said it’s “crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.”
“My impression is that as this investigative process unfolds, things get worse for the president,” said Representative Gerald Connolly of Virginia, an Oversight Democrat. “And to be honest, it seems to me, the Republicans better hope that their demands for releasing the transcripts don’t happen anytime soon.”
Perry and Mulvaney missed a subpoena deadline Friday to turn over documents, and other Trump allies have said they won’t appear.
Giuliani himself has also made clear he does not intend to ever testify to the panels, which may develop into another big legal face-off.
Democrats eventually will have to decide when they have enough information to write articles of impeachment and put them on the House floor for a vote. If Trump is impeached in the House, he must then be convicted by the Senate to be removed from office.
That makes Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a key person for Trump to keep in his corner. He told GOP senators to be ready for an impeachment trial to start as soon as Thanksgiving as Republicans privately discussed wrapping up the six-days-a-week trial by Christmas.
To contact the reporters on this story: Steven T. Dennis in Washington at sdennis17@bloomberg.net;Billy House in Washington at bhouse5@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kevin Whitelaw at kwhitelaw@bloomberg.net, John Harney, Anna Edgerton
©2019 Bloomberg L.P.