Live political reporting continues on Wednesday’s blog:
Evening summary
- In Kentucky, Democrat Andy Beshear has declared victory over Trump-backed Republican Matt Bevin. Beshear is ahead by about 5,300 votes with 100% of precincts reporting. But Bevin has not conceded.
- In Virginia, Democrats have taken both the state House and Senate, gaining full control of the state government for the first time since 1994. Democrat Ralph Northam holds the governorship.
- Watch the home page for more results from those key states and Mississippi, where incumbent governor Tate Reeves, is facing off against Democratic attorney general Jim Hood.
- Today’s elections could offer insights into Donald Trump’s popularity among Republicans as he battles an accelerating impeachment inquiry.
- There are also referendums and political races on the ballot in Maine, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Colorado.
- According to testimony made public today, European Union ambassador Gordon Sondland admitted to a quid pro quo between Trump and the president of Ukraine, revising a prior account.
- Lawmakers also released testimony from Kurt Volker, the former special envoy to Ukraine. It revealed that Volker sent a Ukrainian official the script that Trump wanted the Ukrainian president to read, announcing an investigation into the energy company Burisma (which employed Joe Biden’s son Hunter) and a conspiracy theory about the 2016 election — all via text message.
- The federal trial of Roger Stone began in Washington with jury selection.
Virginia Democrats take over legislature
Democrats have taken both houses of the Virginia state legislature, taking full control of the state government for the first time since 1994.
This means that governor Ralph Northam, a Democrat, can push ahead with gun control measures and other legislation that Republicans had previously blocked. Virginia could also become the 38th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, which would enshrine the idea of gender equity in the US constitution.
The Democratic victories today in both houses of the Virginia legislature mean that the state will soon become the 38th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment and make it officially part of our Constitution. The ERA lost by just one vote in that body earlier this year.
— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) November 6, 2019
The party’s gains occurred in suburban districts that already tended toward Democrats in recent years.
Democrats won big in Virginia legislative elections in 2017 and flipped the state’s US House balance in 2018. Now it will control both legislative houses and the governorship.
Today, Democrats took some smaller races as well.
One of the winners today was Juli Briskman, who in 2017 was famously photographed giving Donald Trump the middle finger while biking past the presidential motorcade. Briskman was fired from her job as a government contractor as a result. Briskman beat Republican Suzanne M Volpe in the race for Loudoun county supervisor.
Updated
Democrat Andy Beshear declares victory in Kentucky governor's race
Eking ahead of Republican incumbent Matt Bevin, Andy Beshear declared victory the gubernatorial race. But Bevin has yet to concede.
Bevin had the backing of Donald Trump, who carried the state by about 30 percentage points in 2016. Trump urged his supporters to vote for Bevin at a rally last night — but it appears the president wasn’t able to drum up enough goodwill among voters for Bevin, whose approval ratings have plummeted due to his cutback of government programs. Bevin threatened to cut Medicaid expansion, which could have pushed about 400,000 people off their health insurance.
Trump held a rally for Governor Matt Bevin in Kentucky last night and told the crowd, "If you lose, it sends a really bad message … you can’t let that happen to me.”
— Molly Knight (@molly_knight) November 6, 2019
Beshear focused his campaign on local issues, promising teachers raises and vowing to protect Medicaid.
Republicans have won other key races, including one over the attorney general position that Beshear is leaving behind.
According to NBC, an estimated 1.4 million voters turned up to the polls— roughly 400,000 more than the number that voted in the last governor’s contest in 2015,
Updated
Kentucky governor’s race too close to call
The race for governor in Kentucky between the incumbent Republican Matt Bevin and the Democratic challenger Andy Beshear remains too close to call, according to the AP:
With 100% of precincts reporting, Beshear has a lead of 4,658 votes out of more than 1.4m counted, or a margin of 0.3 percentage points.
There is no mandatory recount law in Kentucky. Bevin may request counties recanvass their results, which is not a recount, but rather a check of the vote count to ensure the results were added correctly.
Bevin would need to seek and win a court’s approval for a recount, the process for which would be dictated by the court.
Updated
Democrats flip state senate in Virginia
Democrats have taken control of the state senate in Virginia, holding the majority for the first time in five years. It’s still unclear whether they’ll manage to take control of the house as well.
Prior to this election Republicans held slim majorities in both legislative chambers. All 140 legislative seats were on the ballot today.
Trump lost Virginia in 2016 and he remains deeply unpopular in the suburbs, which Democrats are hoping to use to their advantage.
Updated
It’s neck and neck in the Kentucky gubernatorial race
With about 90% of precincts reporting, Democrat Andy Beshear is leading by 2 points. Tt’s still too close to say whether Beshear will flip the seat.
Since Trump took office, Democrats have flipped governorships in: Kansas, Nevada, New Mexico, New Jersey, Illinois, Maine, Wisconsin, Michigan, and now, Kentucky.
— Matt McDermott (@mattmfm) November 6, 2019
According to CNN’s Steve Kornacki, turnout has been higher than anticipated.
With 55% of precincts reporting in Kentucky, turnout is already at 74% of the total for 2015
— Steve Kornacki (@SteveKornacki) November 6, 2019
Updated
Despite Sondland and Volker testimonies, Mark Meadows maintains Trump's innocence
Mark Meadows, a close Trump ally and congressman from North Carolina who was among the House members who questioned witnesses in the impeachment inquiry is maintaining the president’s innocence.
In a selective reading of Sondland’s testimony, Meadows insists that there’s no direct link made by the president between holding up aid to Ukraine and his desire for an investigation.
Democrats and the media are seizing on paragraph five of Sondland's update, where he tells Mr. Yermak the aid may not be released without an anti-corruption statement.
— Mark Meadows (@RepMarkMeadows) November 5, 2019
Even *if* you think this is nefarious... Sondland admits in paragraph FOUR this was based on an assumption! https://t.co/OA7MRn5aGf
It’s true that Sondland was careful not to incriminate the president directly.
Meadows appeared to aid the EU ambassador in efforts to excuse the president. From the testimony released today:
Meadows: “So you’re saying – this is groundbreaking – so you’re saying that someone other than …”
Sondland: “I walked right into that one,”
Meadows: “… Other than Donald Trump is concerned with corruption, and they might withhold foreign aid based on that. Is that correct, Ambassador? I can tell by your smile it’s a yes, is that correct. Are we correct?”
Sondland: “This is like ‘My Cousin Vinny,’”
[Note: According to IMDB, My Cousin Vinny is about a lawyer, portrayed by Joe Pesci, who “shows that he can make up for his ignorance and inexperience with an aggressive, perceptive questioning style.” Apparently a key piece of evidence in the movie, which this reporter has not watched, has to do with tires, which explains the following... ]
Meadows: “Yeah, there are two positive track tire marks here, looks like.”
Defending Trump after transcript release raises more questions about quid pro quo, Meadows said there was "no linkage" made by the president to hold up aid in exchange for announcing probes -- and said people are talking simply about what "Rudy Giuliani might have wanted." pic.twitter.com/FSIzEoPacB
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) November 6, 2019
Meadows’ argument is unlikely to hold water with Democrats pursuing impeachment. As Guardian reporters noted earlier:
Democrats, who have made the quid pro quo offer central to their push for impeachment, seized on the revelations. Chris Murphy, a senator from Connecticut, wrote on Twitter: “Nobody can pretend there’s any lingering debate over what happened. It’s over. Open and shut. Today, the one guy who said there wasn’t a corrupt aid-for-interference deal, changed his story to say that in fact, there was an aid-for-interference deal.”
Sondland, a hotelier and Trump mega-donor, has been placed by other witnesses at multiple key crossroads in the Ukraine affair, including at White House meetings on 10 July in which he pursued Ukrainian officials through the building to press the demand for an investigation of Biden.
He testified for more than 10 hours on 17 October to three House committees running the inquiry, which began releasing transcripts this week.
He originally told investigators he took Trump at his word that there was never a quid pro quo attaching aid or a White House visit to investigations. But as additional witnesses testified and more information became public, Sondland appeared to have a change of heart. The week after his deposition, Sondland returned with lawyers to Capitol Hill to “review” his testimony.
Updated
Virginia polls are now closed
In Virginia, all 140 seats in the legislature are on the ballot. Republicans currently hold slight majorities in each chamber, but voters today will have decided whether that’s to change.
The election is being considered a referendum on Donald Trump. If voters flip enough seats, the Democrats will have full control of the state government for the first time since 1994.
Joe Biden wants his progressive opponents to cut it out with the attacks
A few days ago, defending her healthcare plan against criticism from Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren said that “if anyone wants to defend keeping those high profits for insurance companies and those high profits for drug companies and not making the top 1% pay a fair share in taxes and not making corporations pay a fair share in taxes, then I think they’re running in the wrong presidential primary”.
Joe Biden did not like that response.
In a statement posted online, Biden said: “The other day I was accused by one of my opponents of running in the wrong primary. Pretty amazing. On one level, it is kind of funny.”
But laughing he is not. “These kinds of attacks are a serious problem. They reflect an angry unyielding viewpoint that has crept into our politics,” he said.
This kind of attitude is “representative of an elitism that working and middle class people do not share: ‘We know best; you know nothing’. ‘If you were only as smart as I am you would agree with me.’”
For good measure, he added: “I stand with the Democratic party of Barack Obama”.
Updated
Most polls in Kentucky are now closed
We’ll be watching closely as the results are tallied up in Kentucky’s gubernatorial race between Republican incumbent Matt Bevin (who had Donald Trump stumping for him last night) and the state attorney general Andy Beshear, the Democratic challenger and son of former governor Steve Beshear.
Bevin ran for a US Senate seat in 2014, but he lost the GOP primary to Mitch McConnell. The incumbent governor has closely aligned himself with Trump and focused much of his campaign on his opposition to impeachment. But Bevin, who has cut government services and has said that teachers who participated in walkout protests left their students vulnerable to sexual assault, is one of the least popular governors in the country.
As attorney general, Beshear has fought against many of Bevin’s policies. If he wins the governor’s race, he’ll have to face off against a legislature that’s dominated by Republicans: the GOP has supermajorities in both chambers.
Updated
Republicans are planning last-minute shakeup to place Trump-defenders on key House committees
The House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, is planning to make last-minute changes before public impeachment hearings begin, according to the Washington Post:
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the top Republican on the House Oversight and Reform Committee and a veteran combatant in highly charged Capitol Hill investigations, has taken the leading role in closed-door depositions of key witnesses in the impeachment inquiry. But he is not a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which Democrats last week voted to give the sole power to conduct public hearings.
According to three Republicans familiar with the talks but not authorized to comment publicly, McCarthy (R-Calif.) is considering placing Jordan on the panel, as well as others — such as Reps. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), who have been involved in the depositions but do not sit on the Intelligence Committee.
Trump reportedly wants Jordan, especially, to become more involved. The Ohio congressman has repeatedly defended the president, saying in a recent Fox News interview that he wants to “help the country see the truth here, that President Trump didn’t do anything wrong”.
Updated
Sondland: ‘No one thought the call was remarkable’
The EU ambassador, Gordon Sondland, who repeatedly testified that he didn’t remember or didn’t recall many of the details of the call central to Trump’s impeachment inquiry, said he didn’t get a read-out of the conversation.
“The only verbal read-out,” he testified was, “‘It was a great call.’ I mean, no one thought the call was remarkable.”
Updated
Lindsay Graham, the chair of the Senate judiciary committee says he won’t read the transcripts.
Lindsey Graham, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, says he won't read any of the transcripts, and dismissed Sondland's reversal.
— Kathryn Watson (@kathrynw5) November 5, 2019
"I've written the whole process off ... I think this is a bunch of B.S."
Per @alanhe
Updated
Volker warned Giuliani that the Biden corruption narrative was not credible, over breakfast
More from the transcript of the Ukraine special envoy, Kurt Volker:
On 19 July, Volker said he had breakfast with Rudy Giuliani and Giuliani’s associate Lev Parnas, and told them that allegations about Joe Biden were “simply not credible”.
“I said to Rudy in that breakfast the first time we sat down to talk that it is simply not credible to me that Joe Biden would be influenced in his duties as vice-president by money or things for his son or anything like that,” Volker said. “I’ve known him a long time, he’s a person of integrity, and that’s not credible. On the other hand, whether Ukrainians may have sought to influence our elections or sought to buy influence, that’s entirely plausible.”
“Why did you have breakfast at the Trump Hotel?” Volker was asked.
“Because,” he responded, “I was guessing that’s where Rudy was going to be staying, so that would be the easiest thing to do.”
Updated
Late afternoon summary. What a day and there's still lots coming up.
My colleague on the west coast, Maanvi Singh, will take you through the next few hours of continued political developments and drama in the US.
Today so far:
- White House hits back over latest impeachment inquiry evidence
- Senate majority leader and Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell goes right out of bounds in predicting Donald Trump will be acquitted at trial in the Senate - before the articles of impeachment have even been drawn up and voted on in the House.
- European Union ambassador Gordon Sondland admitted a quid pro quo between Trump and the president of Ukraine, where the Trump administration was holding back military aid while seeking investigations into US political opponents.
- Key state votes are happening today for the governorships of Kentucky and Mississippi and the state assembly in Virginia. All crucial tests of the popularity of Trump and how much traction Democrats are getting in certain states.
- The federal trial of Roger Stone began in Washington with jury selection. They didn’t get to opening arguments today. Trial expected to last two weeks.
Former Ukraine special envoy Kurt Volker on Giuliani and Trump
The transcript of testimony given last month by Volker in the impeachment inquiry includes a description that on May 23, 2019, Volker, energy secretary Rick Perry and Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland recommended that Donald Trump schedule an Oval Office meeting with the newly elected President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, but Trump stated that Ukrainians “tried to take me down” and that they should “talk to Rudy.”
(BTW, Perry, Volker and Sondland were known in US foreign service circles relating to Ukraine as “the three amigos” who were running the insidious parallel US foreign policy in the region, according to other testimony given so far in the inquiry.)
Released today:
Question from unnamed member of the House committees leading the impeachment inquiry: In fact, in your conversation with the President in May, the stated reasons why he had a deeply rooted distrust or dislike of the Ukrainians was because of what he perceived to be their role in the 2016 election and/or the Paul Manaforte [sic] case. Is that right?
Kurt Volker answers: That was mentioned, but it was a long—longer statement that “they are all corrupt, they are all terrible people,” and, you know, “I don’t want to spend any time with that.” That was—it was a broader statement. And he also said, “and they tried to take me down.” …
He continues: So, you know, we strongly encouraged him to engage with this new President because he’s committed to fighting all of those things that President Trump was complaining about.
Q: And how did the President react?
A: He just didn’t believe it. He was skeptical. And he also said, that’s not what I hear. I hear, you know, he’s got some terrible people around him. And he referenced that he hears from Mr. Giuliani as part of that.
Q: Can you explain a little bit more about what the President said about Rudy Giuliani in that meeting?
A: He said that’s not what I hear. I hear a whole bunch of other things. And I don’t know how he phrased it with Rudy, but it was—I think he said, not as an instruction but just as a comment, talk to Rudy, you know. He knows all of these things, and they’ve got some bad people around him. And that was the nature of it.
Updated
Mulvaney asked to testify on Friday
By the way, it’s academic, really, because he isn’t going to show, but rather than Mulvaney being deposed to appear before the impeachment inquiry on Saturday, as was released to the public earlier, turns out it’s Friday.
The acting chief of staff to Donald Trump will undoubtedly adhere to the gag order, whereby the White House has said it will not cooperate with the inquiry.
BREAKING: Impeachment investigators have asked to depose Trump chief of staff Mick MULVANEY on Friday. pic.twitter.com/TgDZ813vUM
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) November 5, 2019
Roger Stone trial latest
Jury in Roger Stone’s federal trial in Washington being slowly but surely assembled.
On break at first day of Roger Stone’s trial during jury selection: as of 4pm, 31 jurors have taken stand for questions, of them 19 have been accepted to form the jury pool that the final jurors will ultimately be chosen from.
— Ali Dukakis (@ajdukakis) November 5, 2019
Here’s a profile of Stone from earlier this year, by my colleague Ed Pilkington, complete with a classic pic of Stone in Nixon victory/defeat pose.
Stone left the courthouse earlier, complaining of food poisoning.
BREAKING: Roger Stone has left courthouse early on the 1st day of his trial, complaining of food poisoning. He was clutching a Gatorade bottle as he left the courtroom w/his wife and daughter. Jury selection continues. More scene w/@dsamuelsohn: https://t.co/svoFtbJBof
— Josh Gerstein (@joshgerstein) November 5, 2019
Updated
White House hits back over latest impeachment revelations
Where most readers see a quid pro quo admitted to, belatedly, by Gordon Sondland, the White House sees a nothing burger.
NEW White House statement on impeachment inquiry:
— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) November 5, 2019
"Both transcripts released today show there is even less evidence for this illegitimate impeachment sham than previously thought." pic.twitter.com/GYsv3M1OT7
Extract from the appendix to his testimony shows Gordon Sondland “now recalling” a conversation in which he admits the quid pro quo
Here is a section from the declaration submitted to the impeachment inquiry by Gordon Sondland, in which adds to the testimony that he originally gave in his hearing on Capitol Hill last month.
It’s accompanied by a letter from Robert Luskin, a lawyer at the huge firm Paul Hastings LLP, which says that, according to House rules, the declaration should be included as an appendix to the sworn testimony given by Sondland to the committees leading the inquiry when he testified on October 17.
McConnell predicts Trump would be acquitted in impeachment trial
Republican Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell appears to have bulldozed directly through protocol by forecasting, before the articles of impeachment have even been drafted in the House and Trump put on trial in the Senate, that the president will be acquitted.
“If it were today, I don’t think there’s any question — it would not lead to a removal,” @SenateMajLdr McConnell says of a potential impeachment trial in the Senate.
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) November 5, 2019
“I’m pretty sure I know how it’s going to end.”
/2 McConnell: “I’m pretty sure I know how it’s going to end.” Says Trump will be acquitted by Senate like Clinton & Andrew Johnson
— John Bresnahan (@BresPolitico) November 5, 2019
McConnell
“There were demands, weren’t there?”
Sondland was asked, with respect to the “demands” made by Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani to investigate the 2016 election and Burisma, if “those conditions would have to be complied with prior to getting a meeting.”
Q: There were demands, weren’t there, that an investigation take place of 2016 or Burisma? Ultimately those were demands, were they not?
A: Ultimately, yes.
Q: And it’s fair to say that you had to navigate those demands, you had to accommodate what the President and his lawyer wanted, if you were going to set up this meeting you thought very important?
A: I think that’s fair.
And here’s that link to the extra four pages mentioned at the start of this story today, at the end of many pagers of printed testimony.
Updated
How Sondland got in deeper and deeper
In this part of the transcript of Gordon Sondland’s testimony in Washington last month, the release summarizes how Rudy Giuliani’s demands “kept getting more insidious” as Ambassador Sondland “became aware that there might be a link between the White House visit and aid to the Ukraine that was being held up.”
This all revolves around the allegations that Donald Trump’s cipher/conduit/rogue lip, Giuliani was on a mission ultimately to persuade Ukraine that it must conspicuously agree to investigate 1. (bogus) theories that it was actually Ukraine that tried to tilt the 2016 election for Hillary Clinton, and then framed Russia, and 2. the business activities of Hunter Biden, the son of Trump rival and Democratic 2020 candidate Joe Biden, in his directorship of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company. In the process, $400 million in military aid, already approved by the US Congress for Ukraine, was being held up by the Trump administration, and a coveting meeting at the White House for president Volodymyr Zelenskiy was being dangled.
Q. from investigating committee: When did you first get an inkling of what Mr. Giuliani was interested in?
A. from Sondland: You know, this whole thing was sort of a continuum, starting at the May 23rd meeting, ending up at the end of the line when the transcript of the call came out. And as I said to counsel, it started as talk to Rudy, then others talk to Rudy. Corruption was mentioned.
Then, as time went on—and, again, I can’t nail down the dates—then let’s get the Ukrainians to give a statement about corruption.
And then, no, corruption isn’t enough, we need to talk about the 2016 election and the Burisma investigations. And it was always described to me as ongoing investigations that had been stopped by the previous administration and they wanted them started up again. That’s how it was always described.
And then finally at some point I made the Biden-Burisma connection, and then the transcript was released. So I can’t tell you on that continuum when, what dates, but that’s kind of what happened.”
Sondland spoke to Pompeo about Giuliani
Excerpt from Gordon Sondland’s testimony, where he is giving answers to questions from an unnamed figure on the House committees leading the Trump-Ukraine impeachment inquiry. Here, Sondland says he discussed the seemingly nefarious back-channel diplomacy being led by Rudy Giuliani with secretary of state Mike Pompeo.
State Department officials were “fully aware of the issues” with Giuliani, but “there was very little they could do about it if the President decided he wanted his lawyer involved.”
Q: Did you ever discuss Rudy Giuliani with Secretary Pompeo?
A: Only in general terms.
Q: And what did you discuss?
A: That he’s involved in affairs. And Pompeo rolled his eyes and said: Yes, it’s something we have to deal with.
Q: What about his counselor, Ulrich Brechbuhl? You said you had lots of conversations with Mr. Brechbuhl?
A: On and off, yes.
Q: Did you discuss the linkage between the security assistance, the White House meeting, and the investigations with him?
A: I don’t believe I did, but I don’t recall.
Q: What about Rudy Giuliani, did you discuss Giuliani with Brechbuhl?
A: I may have. Again, people usually smiled when they heard Rudy’s name because he was always swirling around somewhere.
Q: Yeah, but, I mean, he was causing serious issues in the U.S. relationship with Ukraine. Did you raise those concerns with—
A: Listen, the State Department was fully aware of the issues, and there was very little they could do about it if the President decided he wanted his lawyer involved.
Q: And does that include Secretary Pompeo and his counselor, Ulrich Brechbuhl?
A: My speculation is yes, that they hit a brick wall when it came to getting rid of Mr. Giuliani.
Parnas has since been charged in New York with crimes related to campaign finance violations, and has also said he will cooperate with the impeachment inquiry Photograph: Reuters Staff/Reuters
Here’s how Gordon Sondland first got sucked into the Trump-Ukraine swamp (just a reminder that he’s ambassador to the European Union and Ukraine is not in the EU, so he was way out of his playground from the off.
During an Oval Office meeting on May 23, 2019, with Gordon Sondland, Kurt Volker, and energy secretary Rick Perry (aka the “three amigos” - explanation in a moment, for those who didn’t see the original reference to this colorful description), Donald Trump, according to Sondland’s testimony “just kept saying: Talk to Rudy, talk to Rudy.”
That’s the president’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, not officially a member of the Trump administration, let alone the foreign service personnel.
Excerpt from testimony just released:
Q: When President Trump told you to—you and the others, I understand, everyone at that meeting, and we’ll get to that meeting in more detail—but when he told you to discuss with Rudy Giuliani concerns about Ukraine, did you know at that point what he was referring to?
A: He didn’t even—he wasn’t even specific about what he wanted us to talk to Giuliani about. He just kept saying: Talk to Rudy, talk to Rudy.
Q: Right, I understand that, and I understand he wasn’t specific. But when he said that, did you know what he was talking about?
A: I didn’t, other than he said: Ukraine is a problem.
Updated
Sondland admits quid pro quo with Ukraine testimony
The explosive revelations in the extra four pages of testimony from Gordon Sondland are detailed in this story from the New York Times.
Crucially, Sondland said that “resumption of the US aid would likely not occur until Ukraine provided the public anticorruption statement that we had been discussing for many weeks”.
The Times writes of these new facts thus:
A critical witness in the impeachment inquiry offered Congress substantial new testimony this week, revealing that he told a top Ukrainian official that the country likely would not receive American military aid unless it publicly committed to investigations President Trump wanted.
The disclosure from Gordon D. Sondland, the United States ambassador to the European Union, in four new pages of sworn testimony released on Tuesday, confirmed his involvement in essentially laying out a quid pro quo to Ukraine that he had previously not acknowledged.
[...] In his updated testimony, Mr. Sondland recounted how he had discussed the linkage with Andriy Yermak, a top adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, on the sidelines of a Sept. 1 meeting between Vice President Mike Pence and Mr. Zelensky in Warsaw. Mr. Zelensky had discussed the suspension of aid with Mr. Pence, Mr. Sondland said: “I said that resumption of the U.S. aid would likely not occur until Ukraine provided the public anticorruption statement that we had been discussing for many weeks,” Mr. Sondland said in the document, which was released by the House committees leading the inquiry, along with the transcript of his original testimony from last month.
Updated
Sondland and Volker testimony released
The four new pages of testimony from Sondland referenced in the last post are from an addendum to what’s just been released - the link has crashed it’s so popular, so we’ll bring you that asap!
Meanwhile, the main documents of the testimony of Gordon Sondland, the US ambassador to the European Union, and Kurt Volker, former US envoy to Ukraine, have both been released.
Sondland here. Volker here.
Testimony from European Union ambassador Gordon Sondland to the impeachment inquiry reveals that he told a top Ukrainian official that they wouldn’t get vital US military aid unless the country publicly committed to investigations that Donald Trump had been demanding from Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, into the president’s domestic political rival, Joe Biden.
Four new pages of sworn testimony released moments ago, from Sondland’s closed-door testimony last month, confirm he was involved in the quid pro quo between the US and Ukraine that is at the heart of the impeachment inquiry, and which Sondland hasn’t admitted to before.
Updated
Testimony from Sondland and Volker damaging for Trump
Some details of the testimony from EU ambassador Gordon Sondland and former Ukraine enjoy Kurt Volker to the impeachment inquiry last month are dribbling out, via CNN journalists so far.
There is a clear indication that they detailed a parallel foreign policy being carried out in Ukraine via Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani. Sondland indicated that secretary of state Mike Pompeo was told about it. Volker spoke of Giuliani as a conduit to Trump.
Typically, that would be official US diplomats, it almost goes without saying.
Nothing about this is normal!
Volker says Giuliani was a problem. Was hurting relations. pic.twitter.com/o7SsujHGxz
— Shimon Prokupecz (@ShimonPro) November 5, 2019
Updated
First trickle
The latest transcripts from the closed-door testimony in the impeachment inquiry are making their way rather painfully and fitfully into the public domain today. They’re kind of out, apparently, but most reporters don’t have them yet.
Here’s a tiny snippet from CNN’s Shimon Prokupecz, about back door diplomacy.
Excerpt from Volker’s testimony!!!
— Shimon Prokupecz (@ShimonPro) November 5, 2019
So official channels wouldn’t work, they decided on a back door. Here’s the counter intelligence concern. They knew their info would get to Trump.
Ukrainian’s “asked to be connected” to Mr. Giuliani as a direct conduit to President Trump. pic.twitter.com/8WSCp9XlGZ
More to come, hang in there.
What about the "blue wave" in Virginia?
Virginians go to the polls today to choose their state legislature. Despite a surge of Democratic success in the 2017 statewide elections, the Republicans hung on by a whisker to their traditionally-solid majority in the general assembly in Richmond.
Will it flip today? The so-called blue wave, which also elected a record number of women to the general assembly, was echoed in the 2018 national mid-term elections.
Key Republican districts flipped, notably giving the US Congress Virginia freshman Democrats Jennifer Wexton, who ousted moderate(ish) Republican Barbara Comstock on the outskirts of DC, and Abigail Spanberger, who beat glowing red Republican Dave Brat in a district closer to Richmond (with his infamously sexist remarks on the campaign trail).
There is a lot of interest to see if, this time also, what happens in Richmond in the election today is a forbearer of how Virginia will vote in 2020.
Since this time last year, Trump has been castigated in the Mueller report and engulfed by the impeachment inquiry centering on his conduct in relation to Ukraine.
And Virginia’s Democratic governor Ralph Northam narrowly survived a scandal over black-face photographs from the past, while his deputy, Justin Fairfax, was at the center of sexual assault allegations.
Local media are talking about the key districts voting today.
Mick Mulvaney to be called as witness
He won’t turn up willingly, of course, but the impeachment inquiry investigators want to depose him to testify on Capitol Hill.
Mulvaney, the acting chief of staff to Donald Trump, will no doubt hove to the gag order imposed by the White House that pledges non-cooperation with the inquiry.
House impeachment inquiry now calling Mick Mulvaney for a deposition.
— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) November 5, 2019
(Not without a fight, of course.)
Last month Mulvaney suggested that there was a quid pro quo in relations with Ukraine in a rare, official White House press briefing, no less. He embarrassingly tried to walk back that statement later in the day. It was another unforced error from the Trump administration in the impeachment inquiry.
At the time he said the Trump administration’s decision to withhold millions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine was part of efforts to clean up corruption in the country. He was apparently referring, at least in part, to unsubstantiated conspiracy theories about a purported Ukrainian link to Russia’s hack of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) during the 2016 presidential election.
“The look back to what happened in 2016 certainly was part of the thing that he was worried about in corruption with that nation,” Mulvaney told reporters in the White House briefing room.
“Did he also mention to me in the past the corruption that related to the DNC server? Absolutely, no question about that,” Mulvaney continued. “But that’s it. That’s why we held up the money.”
Asked about mixing politics with foreign policy, Mulvaney replied: “We do that all the time with foreign policy … I have news for everybody. Get over it. There is going to be political influence in foreign policy. Elections have consequences.”
Mulvaney’s statement contradicted Trump’s repeated denials that his administration had made military aid to Ukraine contingent upon Kyiv’s willingness to open an investigation into the debunked DNC theory and the dealings of Hunter Biden, the son of Trump’s 2020 Democratic election rival Joe Biden, in Ukraine.
Mulvaney’s been asked to appear on Capitol Hill on Saturday. Don’t hold your breath.
Inbox: House committees have sent a letter asking Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney to appear at a deposition on November 9, as part of the impeachment inquiry.
— Zachary Cohen (@ZcohenCNN) November 5, 2019
Updated
Stone supporter holds up jury selection
Roger Stone trial was delayed briefly today by this chap.
At US District Court for DC. Roger Stone trial was delayed when this supporter, Anthony Haydenn, fell ill and ambulance was called. Haydenn, 54, from New York, said: “I suddenly got a confused, unstable, blackout feeling. I didn’t mean to embarrass him. He’s a good guy.” pic.twitter.com/4kNgQa2jCO
— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) November 5, 2019
Jury selection had been slow to get underway anyway. Hoping for opening arguments to begin asap tomorrow - we’ll keep you posted and let you know when the jury has been picked so that this federal trial can get underway.
This associate of Donald Trump is accused of lying to Congress, witness tampering and obstruction of justice, chiefly relating to the release to the public on Wikileaks of emails from Hillary Clinton’s election campaign, hacked by Russian operatives in 2016.
Harris on the ballot in New Hampshire - officially
Democratic 2020 candidate Kamala Harris is struggling to keep up in the election race, as her outgoing funds exceed the cash coming in from fundraising efforts and her poll numbers stay stubbornly paltry.
She’s made the Democratic debate in Atlanta, Georgia, this month (Nov 20) and has qualified for the December debate.
It’s 90 days to the Iowa caucuses, the first voting in the decision process to decide the Democratic party nominee for president, and the former California attorney general and now Senator Harris is focussing her efforts there.
But in the “Live free or die” granite state, New Hampshire, she is now also formally on the ballot. The NH primary is on February 11, 2020.
NEW: @KamalaHarris’ New Hampshire state director Craig Brown just filed on her behalf at the state house in Concord, NH to have Harris be officially on the ballot for the New Hampshire primary in February, a campaign aide confirms to NBC News. https://t.co/ECnHdH8YkK
— Amanda Golden (@amandawgolden) November 5, 2019
The impeachment inquiry, which is likely to move to the congressional trial phase in the US Senate early next year, will take 2020 candidates and senators Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar and Harris off the campaign trail, but it will also give them a potentially useful platform to show off their chops in the questioning process - on TV.
Harris on the campaign trail.
No-shows in impeachment inquiry
As we wait for the expected release, hopefully very soon, of transcripts from the testimony behind closed doors last month of Gordon Sondland, EU ambassador, and Kurt Volker, former envoy to Ukraine, it’s pretty certain that the two new witnesses expected on Capitol Hill today will not show up. This time yesterday, the first two transcripts to be made public were out, with an extraordinary account of the smear and ambush of since-ousted Ukraine ambassador Marie Yovanovitch.
In Yovanovitch’s transcript we see her describing her “shock” at discovering that Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal emissary who has also worked for Ukrainian and Russian interests, was attempting to destroy her reputation.
Meanwhile, today, Wells Griffith, the US national security council’s international energy and environment director didn’t show this morning and Michael Duffey, associate director for national security programs in the office of management and budget, had never been expected to show up for his 2PM appointment with the House intelligence committee, so if he turns up out of the blue that would be a huge surprise.
Here is a handy recent piece on some of the main players in the impeachment inquiry.
Updated
Mississippi voter turnout expected to be high
It’s a red hot race for the governorship of Mississippi today. The local leading paper, the Clarion Ledger daily newspaper and online site out of Jackson, has live coverage of the election today.
Like in Kentucky, the Democratic challenger to the Republican candidate is the state attorney general.
AG Jim Hood has a perhaps surprisingly decent chance at the governorship - which would be the first time a Democrat has been in that post for 16 years.
The voting system in the state favors the party in power in the state legislature, however, as the winner needs not just a majority of the popular vote statewide but a tallied results in a majority of the state electoral districts backing them.
Mississippi Lieutenant Governor, Republican Tate Reeves, is the guy to beat.
Updated
No opening arguments in Roger Stone trial today
That’s confirmed, jury selection is taking a bit longer than some estimated, in the Roger Stone trial in Washington today, and what with the incident with a spectator in the courtroom needing medical attention, it’s all behind the pace.
Latest forecast is that opening arguments will get underway tomorrow. Whether first thing or later in the day...well, watch this space and we’ll let you know as soon as we know. It should be a lively trial and an unwelcome echo for Trump from the Russia investigation, as the impeachment inquiry ramps up.
Hiatus in Stone trial
The Roger Stone trial in federal court in Washington is proceeding a little more haltingly than expected. There’s been a medical incident involving a spectator and the courtroom has been cleared and the trial put in recess while this is dealt with.
It looks very much like opening arguments won’t get underway today.
Kentucky close race for governor
Will the Trump factor be enough to carry Republican incumbent Matt Bevin to victory in the Kentucky governor’s race tonight, or will it sink him, even?
Potus was effectively stumping for him in the state at his rally last night - where he spoke for 80 minutes straight, sheesh. What’s worse, 80 minutes of Trump or eight minutes of Rand Paul, who was the president’s sidekick last night and, disgracefully, called on the media to unmask the whistleblower who sparked the Trump-Ukraine impeachment inquiry. Just wrong.
The whistleblower is protected by law and, besides, their words have been overtaken as if by an avalanche by the substance of the testimony given by witnesses in the inquiry so far and the memo issued by the White House itself summarizing the fateful phone call in which Trump asked the Ukrainian president to investigate a rival in the 2020 US presidential election, Democrat Joe Biden.
Bevin is deemed to be unpopular in deeply-Republican Kentucky. His Democratic challenger, state attorney general Andy Beshear, was out stumping with his father, former governor Steve Beshear, yesterday on the last day of the campaign before voting today.
Local media say Beshear has been campaigning for 17 months in this hugely-important race. Trump won the state easily in the 2016 presidential election.
Bevin attended the Trump’s rally in Louisville last night. There was no escaping the impeachment inquiry.
Some supporters wore tee shirts saying “Read The Transcript”. A. the memo is not a transcript. Testimony so far has indicated there are even more damning bits in the full transcript, with more details of Trump asking Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate Biden. B. the memo was damning.
Voters fired up
But perhaps not in the way Fox sees it. There are important races in some key states today. Here’s the president’s echo-routine as he retweets Fox News. He’s tweeting up a storm this morning, so feel free to take a look yourself, but, if you’re busy, you won’t have missed anything earth-shattering if we don’t reproduce them here - nothing really moves the needle.
“The Impeachment Hoax has fired up voters in Kentucky, Mississippi and Louisiana.” @foxandfriends
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 5, 2019
Updated
Climate crisis - allies dismayed but the fight is far from over
The European Union has voiced regret at the US government’s confirmation yesterday of its decision to pull out of the Paris climate agreement. But the body expressed hopes that one of the world’s biggest CO2 emitters will backpedal on its decision and rejoin the accord.
That’s probably wishful thinking in terms of a policy U-turn from the Trump administration on the climate crisis. But one year from now who’s knows how the Trump-Ukraine impeachment inquiry and the presidential election will have turned out?
European Commission spokeswoman Mina Andreeva said earlier today that the global deal signed in 2015 remains “the most important international agreement on climate change” and insisted that the EU will continue to “fight global climate change under this legal framework.”
Despite the US formal notice of departure, Andreeva added that the 28-member bloc will continue working with various US-based entities and stakeholders who remain committed to the deal, the AP writes.
“The Paris agreement has strong foundations and is here to stay. Its doors remain open and we hope that the US will decide to pass (them) again one day,” Andreeva said.
Scientists are warning of “untold suffering” in a new report.
Germany said the announcement from Trump’s secretary of state Mike Pompeo yesterday is “regrettable” but no surprise. (For a great commentary on what Pompeo is up to more widely in his career, read this from my colleague Julian Borger.)
Environment Minister Svenja Schulze said the US had announced its plan to withdraw from the pact two years ago and “luckily it has remained alone in doing so.”
Nearly 200 nations signed the landmark 2015 climate deal to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) by the end of the century, with each country providing its own goals for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases.
Meanwhile, the 2019 UN COP 25 climate conference will now happen in Spain not Chile, prompting more dismay from activists and one stuck on this side of the Atlantic to ask for a ride....
Since Friday afternoon I’ve been traveling east through the beautiful southern states in the USA to get to the east coast and hopefully find a transport to COP25 in Madrid... pic.twitter.com/WMig6dGKnb
— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) November 4, 2019
Updated
First no-show of the day...?
Well. Wells. Griffith. Hasn’t turned up for his scheduled 9AM testimony behind closed doors to the Trump-Ukraine impeachment inquiry.
Happening today in the impeachment inquiry:
— Geoff Bennett (@GeoffRBennett) November 5, 2019
- NSC official Wells Griffith scheduled for closed-door testimony at 9AM. Appearance not confirmed.
- OMB official Michael Duffey scheduled for 2PM. Not expected to appear.
- Expecting transcripts of Sondland & Volker depositions.
Here’s our Adam Gabbatt with a short, lively video explainer on how that whole impeachment thing works, anyway.
Warren warns on climate crisis and denier-in-chief
Whoah, sorry about the slow roll there, folks, some of us just had a connectivity issue in Guardian US HQ in the Big Apple, but after a nail-biting few minutes - just enough time to cook up a conspiracy theory about who might be jamming the wifi - we’re back live.
Leading 2020 Democratic candidate Elizabeth Warren writes for us today on the climate emergency, just a few hours after Donald Trump formalized the process of pulling out of the 2015 landmark Paris climate accord. He promised ages ago that the US would pull out but there is an official process which involves notifying the United Nations and pulling out to a specific timetable, which Trump did yesterday at the first opportunity.
So now we’re on a climate countdown. Unless there is a policy earthquake, the US will leave the accord a year from now. Trump is busy dismantling environmental regulation as fast as he can anyway, while the world’s leading climate science experts give humanity very little time to make huge change and reverse the trajectory of the crisis for our planet.
And here’s a wise note from my colleague Lauren Gambino.
In November 2020, it won’t just be Donald Trump on the ballot but also the chance to renew America’s climate leadership for a safer, cleaner, more secure and more prosperous future.” @ewarren https://t.co/zp9nFf4j0e
— Lauren Gambino (@laurenegambino) November 5, 2019
Updated
Trump crony on trial
Roger Stone will face a judge and jury in what is expected to be a two-week trial, beginning today in Washington.
It’s not known yet exactly when opening arguments will begin, because jury selection begins this morning, but there has been pre-screening of jurists and it could take just a day or less.
The Guardian’s David Smith is in the court house, where federal judge Amy Berman Jackson will preside, and he’ll bring us the drama as and when proceedings begin.
The case involves charges related to his alleged efforts to exploit the Russian-hacked Hillary Clinton emails for political the political gain of Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign.
Stone, a longtime adviser to Trump, in January of this year pleaded not guilty to charges in the Trump-Russia investigation, then ran a gauntlet of protesters outside the courthouse waving Russian flags and playing the Beatles’ “Back in the USSR”.
Supporters had shouted, “We love Roger!” and held aloft signs such as, “Free Stone, fire Mueller”. Protesters yelled, “Lock him up!” and “Fucking traitor!”
The Republican strategist and self-proclaimed dirty trickster is charged in a seven-count indictment from special counsel Robert Mueller with obstruction, lying to Congress and witness tampering.
Stone, briefly served on Trump’s campaign but was pushed out amid infighting with campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. Though sidelined, he continued to communicate with Trump and stayed plugged into his circle of advisers, the Associated Press adds.
The indictment says Stone repeatedly discussed WikiLeaks in 2016 with campaign associates and lays out in detail Stone’s conversations about emails stolen from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and posted in the weeks before Trump beat Clinton.
After WikiLeaks on July 22, 2016, released hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee, the indictment says, a senior Trump campaign official “was directed” to contact Stone about additional releases and “what other damaging information” WikiLeaks had “regarding the Clinton campaign.” The indictment does not name the official or say who directed the outreach to Stone.
Impeachment woes pile on for Trump
Good morning, US politics watchers, it’s a massive day on Capitol Hill, in a courthouse in Washington, and in some key voting states across the country. We’ll be there for all the action – live, do join us. Today:
- Wells Griffith, the US national security council’s international energy and environment director, is scheduled to testify behind closed doors in the Trump-Ukraine impeachment inquiry on Capitol Hill today. It’s now yet known whether he will turn up or prefer to obey what’s effectively a gag order from the White House - a directive for administration figures not to cooperate with the investigation.
- Michael Duffey, associate director for national security programs in the office of management and budget is also due to testify but is definitely not forecast to turn up.
- But there’s more - the House intelligence committee is expected to release more transcripts today from closed-door testimony in recent weeks. Around about noon, US east coast time, get ready for the transcripts of EU ambassador Gordon Sondland and former Ukraine envoy Kurt Volker. We can make a good guess that they will cast a poor light on Donald Trump - but also likely on themselves.
- Roger Stone. Remember the Trump-Russia inquiry, all those lifetimes ago? The substance of all of that is merely dormant, not dead. Today, Trump loyalist, longtime conservative uber-fixer and all around mischief-maker Roger Stone goes on trial in federal court in Washington, DC. He’s chiefly accused of lying to Congress, witness tampering and obstruction. Special counsel Robert Mueller found evidence of communications between Stone and WikiLeaks related to the public release of Democratic party emails hacked by Russian operatives during the 2016 election. Jury selection could be quick today.
- There are key governor’s races in Kentucky and Mississippi, where Democratic hopefuls are battling Republican incumbents. And important and hopefully illuminating state house elections are taking place in Virginia and New Jersey, which should offer clues about how those electorates are leaning ahead of the 2020 presidential election.
