Alexander Vindman, the top Ukraine expert at the US National Security Council, is testifying to the House impeachment inquiry over concerns he raised about Donald Trump’s 25 July phone call with Volodymyr Zelensky and the administration’s bid to pressure the country into investigating the son of domestic political rival Joe Biden.
The president has meanwhile taken to Twitter to join right-wing media pundits in questioning the patriotism and political loyalties of the decorated Iraq War veteran, branding Lieutenant Colonel Vindman a “Never Trumper”.
House Democrats announced on Monday they will hold a vote on taking the impeachment hearings public on Thursday in response to Republican criticism as Charles Kupperman, a former deputy to John Bolton, failed to appear on Capitol Hill to give a deposition of his own.
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Alexander Vindman, the top Ukraine expert at the US National Security Council (NSC), will tell the House impeachment inquiry on Tuesday he raised concerns about Donald Trump’s 25 July phone call with Volodymyr Zelensky having already warned superiors about the administration’s bid to pressure the country into investigating the son of domestic political rival Joe Biden.
According to his pre-released opening statement, Vindman will tell investigating members of the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight and Reform committees that if Zelensky had done as Trump asked on the call and investigated Hunter Biden, previously a board member of Ukrainian gas company Burisma, it would "undermine US national security".
Vindman, a veteran who was awarded a Purple Heart, will be the first current White House official to testify in the House of Representatives' impeachment inquiry, which was prompted by a CIA whistleblower's report on the call between Trump and Zelensky.
Vindman declares in his prepared statement:
I was concerned by the call. I did not think it was proper to demand that a foreign government investigate a US citizen, and I was worried about the implications for the US government's support of Ukraine.
He voiced similar concerns to the NSC's lead counsel after a meeting on 10 July, his prepared remarks say, as did Fiona Hill, a former NSC adviser on Russia who has testified to impeachment investigators.
At that meeting, Vindman said the US ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, told Ukrainian officials that they needed to "deliver specific investigations in order to secure a meeting with the president," at which point then-national security adviser John Bolton cut the meeting short.
After the meeting, according to Vindman's prepared remarks, Sondland said it was important that the Ukrainian investigations centre on the 2016 election, the Bidens and Burisma. The president's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and others have made discredited allegations that when Biden was vice president, he had a prosecutor fired to halt an investigation into Burisma.
Both Vindman and Hill told Sondland his statements in the meeting were "inappropriate," according to Vindman's prepared remarks. His testimony is at odds with that of Sondland, who spoke to congressional investigators in closed hearings this month. Sondland told them he did not understand "until much later" that Burisma was connected to the Bidens. Sondland said in his opening statement to them that he did not recall taking part in any effort to encourage an investigation into the Bidens.
Vindman could be an important witness in the probe. His statement notes his two decades in the Army, including combat in Iraq, where he was wounded. "I am a patriot and it is my sacred duty and honor to advance and defend OUR country, irrespective or party or politics," he says.
Laura Ingraham on Fox News, however, is already pushing the line that Vindman is a Ukrainian double agent.
Here's a full report on Vindman's statement.
The president himself was in Chicago on Monday to address the International Association of Chiefs of Police Conference and Exposition at which he insulted the Windy City’s top law enforcement official, saying “Afghanistan is a safe place by comparison”, and imitated cops taking out the Dayton mass shooter in August.
Having repeatedly criticised Chicago's record on crime, Trump improably described himself as law enforcement's "greatest and most loyal champion" before accusing police chief Eddie Johnson of putting "criminals and illegal aliens before the city of Chicago" as he called for an end to so-called "sanctuary cities" that he says are knowingly releasing jailed immigrants accused of violent crime.
"Get 'em the hell out of our country and bring them home, let them take care of them," Trump told his audience of police officials. "Countries love sending their worst to us. They don't have to bother with them."
Trump attacked Johnson for "not doing his job" in a city that the president has often ridiculed as a "war zone" for its high murder rate (there have been 425 homicides there so far this year). Chicago is "embarrassing to us as a nation" and "Afghanistan is a safe place by comparison", he said.
After linking the case of Empire actor Jussie Smollett, who faked a racist assault by MAGA cap-wearing Trump supporters for publicity, to the impeachment inquiry (both "scams", he said), the president went on to praise the police responders in Ohio after Connor Betts opened fire with a AR-15 rifle in the early hours of 4 August, killing nine people and injuring 27.
"Boom, boom, boom", the president said. "They were out there. Perfect. There was no fear. There was no anything. They reacted."
Here's Alex Woodward's report.
Johnson had already announced he would be snubbing the president's speech in a statement declaring “the values of the people of Chicago are more important than anything he would have to say.”
He gave a press conference of his own yesterday, defending himself and the Chicago Police Department.
House Democrats meanwhile announced yesterday they will hold a formal vote on taking the impeachment hearings public on Thursday in response to constant Republican criticism of interviews being carried on behind closed doors so far, which saw a posse of angry GOP congressmen led by Matt Gaetz and Steve Scalisestorm the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility last week and delay the deposition of senior diplomatic official Laura Cooper for five hours while they ate takeaway pizza.
The measure was announced by House speaker Nancy Pelosi in a letter sent to her fellow Democrats on Monday:
While the exact text of the resolution was not immediately made public, Democrats have said it will formalise procedures as they pursue the next steps in the impeachment process.
In her letter, Pelosi reiterated that the US Constitution does not require the House to hold a formal vote and noted that a federal court had agreed with that fact.
"The Trump administration has made up this argument - apparently out of whole cloth - in order to justify its unprecedented cover-up, withhold key documents from multiple federal agencies, prevent critical witnesses from cooperating and defy duly authorised subpoenas," the speaker wrote, adding: "Nobody is above the law".
Here's Clark Mindock's report.
Yesterday at the impeachment inquiry, Charles Kupperman, a former deputy to John Bolton, failed to appear before the three House panels conducting the Ukraine phase of the investigation.
Other panels are probing separate issues, including Trump's finances and abuses of White House security clearances.
Kupperman put off testifying while asking a court to rule on whether he should comply with a congressional subpoena or honour the Trump administration's order not to testify, his lawyers said last week. DC district judge Richard J Leon has scheduled a hearing on the matter for Thursday because “the time-sensitive nature of the issues raised in this case,” according to The Washington Post.
Democrats in turn said they would not let further legal maneuverings delay their work. At least nine others have testified despite being instructed by the White House not to do so, House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff reminded Kupperman.
Speaking of Schiff - regular target of Trumpian ire - he has hit back after the president mocked him as "the biggest leaker in DC" in justification for not telling Congress about the military raid in Syria that led to the death of Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi over the weekend.
Overnight, Trump shared a declassified picture of the dog - a Belgian Malinois - who helped chase down al-Baghdadi. It's name remains classified information, apparently.
Discussing the raid yesterday, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff Mark Milley also refused to give up the heroic canine's name and, more importantly, said he had no idea where Trump got his graphic account of the terrorist's brutal dealth from. The president's taste for embellishing stories is no secret, of course.
White House spokesman Hogan Gidley was put in the unenviable position of having to downplay the boos that rang out at the Nationals Stadium in DC on Sunday when the president attended Game 5 of baseball's World Series...
...inadvertently channelling this classic incident from The Simpsons in so doing.
Narjas Zatat has more for Indy100.
After returning from Chicago, Trump and the first lady hosted Halloween early at the White House yesterday, which saw them handing out sweets to giddy trick-or-treaters in costumes while the Air Force Strolling Strings band played the theme from The Addams Family, a tune that felt strangely approprate for the hosts.
The event yielded some superbly surreal pictures.
(Michael Reynolds/EPA)
(Michael Reynolds/EPA)
(Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty)
(Michael Reynolds/EPA)
(Alex Brandon/AP)
(Alex Wong/Getty)
(Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty)
Thin gruel from Trump on Twitter so far today, pure anti-impeachment messaging that sees him appearing to suggest "Shifty Schiff" is in league with disloyal Republicans.
Two Republican senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine have refused to co-sponsor Senate Judicary Committee chairman Lindsey Graham's resolution condemning the House impeachment inquiry.
"As awful as their process is, the formal impeachment inquiry lies in the House, and it’s not the Senate’s role to dictate to the House how to determine their own rules,” Murkowski said in a statement.
Collins meanwhile told Politico:
Just as I don’t like it when House members try to tell us to abolish the filibuster, I’m not sure it’s productive for the Senate to try to dictate to the House how to conduct the inquiry.
Utah senator Mitt Romney has also so far refused to sign on as a co-sponsor but hasn't ruled out doing so.
Graham's resolution has been sent on to Roy Blount, chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, who says he is waiting for the exact language of Pelosi's newly announced House vote to emerge before he acts, according to The Hill:
Let's see what she actually proposes. I read her letter and it could mean not very much, or maybe it will mean more than we're just going to formalise the unfair way we've been doing things.
Former White House chief of staff John Kelly appeared at the Sea Island Summit political conference in Georgia over the weeked, hosted by The Washington Examiner, and revealed that he had warned the president not to hire a "yes man" as his replacement when he left office on 2 January, predicting that, if he did so, he would be impeached:
I said, whatever you do - and we were still in the process of trying to find someone to take my place - I said whatever you do, don't hire a 'yes man', someone who won't tell you the truth. Don't do that. Because if you do, I believe you will be impeached.
After his successor Mick Mulvaney's devastating quid pro quo gaffe, Kelly looks like a prophet.
The White House has been keen to shut this line down, however, with Trump issuing a statement to CNN denying it was ever said:
John Kelly never said that, he never said anything like that. If he would have said that I would have thrown him out of the office. He just wants to come back into the action like everybody else does.
Press secretary Stephanie Grisham went ever further - and deeper into self-parody than ever before:
I worked with John Kelly, and he was totally unequipped to handle the genius of our great president.
A controversial migrant detention centre in Homestead, Florida, that had been accused of holding children in "prison like conditions" has finally been shut down by the Trump administration.
Clark Mindock has the full story.
Rudy Giuliani is still refusing to lie low and is currently being ridiculed for talking about [Osama] "Ben Laden" in a tweet, not nailing the spelling despite having been mayor of New York City during 9/11.
In the last hour, Trump has attempted to discredit Lieutenant Colonel Vindman, inflated his own popularity among the GOP, claimed the death of al-Baghdadi's would-be successor Abu Hassan al-Muhajir and misspelled the name of California congressman and dairy farmer Devin Nunes while shilling a new conspiracy theory booklet ahead of the Christmas rush.
Here's more on the death of al-Muhajir, who was killed late on Sunday near Jarablus, a town about 140km northeast of Barisha in Syria, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Trump's visit to Chicago on Monday did not go down at all well with the city's Democratic mayor Lori Lightfoot, who has denounced his "insulting, ignorant buffoonery".
"President Trump knows as much about policing as he does running a fair and transparent government," she says (ooof!) and backs up her embattled police superintendent Eddie Johnson.
He really has a nack for infuriating mayors doesn't he? From Nan Whaley in Dayton to Jacob Frey in Minneapolis and our own dear Sadiq Khan in London, he's annoyed them all.
The House committees conducting the impeachment inquiry are seeking the testimony of Robert Blair, senior adviser to acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, according to CNN.
It is not clear at present with Blair will appear voluntarily or whether a subpoena will have to be issued but he is a person of interest to Schiff's team as he was on the Zelensky call.
Blair previously served as associate director for national security programs in the Office of Management and Budget, and followed Mulvaney to the West Wing in January this year as his national security adviser when the latter became acting chief of staff.
Trump likes to bash The Washington Post as "the Amazon Washington Post" because the newspaper is owned by that Croesus of online retail, Jeff Bezos.
Now the almost-Richest Man in the World is coming for the US government, threatening to sue the Pentagon over the loss of a $10bn (£7.8bn) cloud computing contract to Microsoft.
