I currently reside in the great State of Oklahoma (that may
or not change for me in coming weeks). As such as an Oklahoma voter I am on
Senator James Lankford email list. I am reading the email he sent out on
2/11/20 and it is about the Dem Party Impeachment debacle.
Senator Lankford is quite diplomatic yet precise in his
summary of events. What the Senator could not say diplomatically is that
clearly the Dems in the House operated a Soviet-Communist style show trial and
attempted to intimidate the GOP Senate majority to further the Soviet show
trial. The Dems utterly failed and President Trump was acquitted – FOREVER.
JRH 2/12/20
Your generosity is always appreciated - various credit, check
& debit cards are accepted by my PayPal account:
OR just buy some FEEL GOOD coffee.
BLOG EDITOR: I’ve apparently
been placed in restricted Facebook Jail! The restriction was relegated after
criticizing Democrats for supporting abortion in one post and criticizing
Virginia Dems for gun-grabbing legislation and levying protester restrictions.
Rather than capitulate to Facebook censorship by abandoning the platform, I
choose to post and share until the Leftist censors ban me completely.
Conservatives are a huge portion of Facebook. If more or all Conservatives are
banned, it will affect the Facebook advertising revenue paradigm. SO FIGHT
CENSORSHIP BY SHARE – SHARE – SHARE!!! Facebook notified me in
pop-up on 1/20/20: “You're temporarily restricted from joining and posting to
groups that you do not manage until April 18 at 7:04 PM.”
****************************
SPECIAL EDITION Lankford Letter - Impeachment Conclusion
By Senator James Lankford
Sent 2/11/2020 10:39 AM
Dear Oklahoma friends and neighbors:
The country is deeply divided on multiple issues right now. The impeachment
trial is both a symptom of our times and another example of our division. At
the beginning of our nation, we did not have an impeachment inquiry of a
president for almost 100 years with the partisan impeachment of Andrew Johnson.
After more than 100 years, another impeachment inquiry was conducted when the
House began a formal impeachment inquiry into President Nixon in an
overwhelmingly bipartisan vote of 410-4. Within a period of weeks, President
Nixon resigned before he was formally impeached. Then, just over two decades
later, President Clinton was impeached by the House, on another mostly partisan
vote leading to a partisan acquittal in the Senate.
This season of our history and has been referred to as the Age of
Investigations and the Age of Impeachment. We have had multiple
special counsels since 1974 over multiple topics. This is more than just
oversight; it has been a unique time in American history when the politics of
the moment have driven rapid calls for investigation and impeachment. Over the
past three years, the House of Representatives has voted four times to open an
impeachment inquiry: once in 2017, once in 2018, and twice in 2019. Only the
second vote in 2019 actually passed and began a formal inquiry.
The Mueller investigation that consumed most of 2018 and 2019 answered many
questions about Russian attacks on our voting systems—though no votes were
changed—but it was also a $32 million investigation that took more than two
years of America’s attention. For the last four months the country has been
consumed with impeachment hearings and investigations. The first rumors of
issues with Ukraine arose August 28 when Politico published a story
about US foreign aid being slow-walked for Ukraine, and then on September 18
when The Washington Post published a story about a whistleblower
report that claimed President Trump pressured an unnamed foreign head of state
to do an investigation for his campaign.
Within days of The Washington Post story on September
24, Speaker Pelosi announced that the House would begin hearings to impeach the
President, which led to the formal House vote to open the impeachment inquiry
on October 31 and then a vote to impeach the President on December 18th. But
after the partisan vote to impeach the President, Speaker Pelosi held the
articles of impeachment for a month before turning them over to the Senate,
which began the formal trial of the President of the United States on January
16, 2020. After hearing hours of arguments from both House Managers and the
President’s legal defense team and Senators asking 180 questions to both sides,
the trial concluded February 5, 2020.
Key Dates to Know
·
April 21, 2019 -
President Zelensky is elected President of Ukraine.
·
May 21 - President
Zelensky sworn in. After the ceremony, President Zelensky abolishes Parliament
and calls for quick (snap) elections on July 21.
·
July 21 – Ukrainian
Parliamentary elections. President Zelensky’s party wins a huge majority.
·
July 25 - President
Trump calls President Zelensky to congratulate him and his party.
·
August 12 - An
unnamed whistleblower working in the US intelligence community filed a
complaint that he had heard from others that the President of the United States
had tried to pressure President Zelensky of Ukraine to investigate former Vice
President Joe Biden on an official phone call July 25, 2019.
·
August 26 - The
Inspector General for the Intelligence Community declares the whistleblower
report “an urgent matter” and asks for its release within seven days. The
Justice Department looks over the report and notes that though it was written
by a person in the intelligence community, it is not related to intelligence
matters, so it does not fall within the Inspector General’s jurisdiction and it
is forwarded on to the Department of Justice for review.
·
August 28 - Politico
publishes a story that the annual military aid for Ukraine is currently being
slow-walked.
·
September 9 - The Inspector
General contacts the House Intelligence Committee to let them know that he has
not been able to release the whistleblower report to their committee.
·
September 13 - The
House Intelligence Committee subpoenas the whistleblower report.
·
September 18 - The
Washington Post prints a story with “unnamed sources” that there is a
whistleblower report about the President talking with a foreign leader about a
campaign matter.
·
September 24 - The
House began an informal impeachment inquiry after Speaker Pelosi announced it
at a press conference in the US Capitol.
·
September 25 -
President Trump released the official unredacted “read out” of the phone call
with President Zelensky from July 25.
·
September 26 - The
whistleblower report is declassified and released publicly.
·
October 31 - The
House formally votes along party lines for an impeachment inquiry.
·
December 18 - The
House votes to impeach the President with two articles—Abuse of Power and
Obstruction of Congress
·
January 15 - Speaker
Pelosi releases the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate
·
January 16 - Senate
trial on impeachment begins.
·
February 5 - Senate
trial concludes with acquittal on both articles.
Important Context of What Was Happening in Ukraine
Ukraine became independent in 1991 when it broke away from
the Soviet Union, but the Ukrainians have faced constant pressure from Russia
ever since. In 2014 Ukraine forced out its pro-Russia president, and Moscow
retaliated by taking over Crimea (and stealing the Ukrainian Navy), then
rolling tanks into eastern Ukraine and taking all of eastern Ukraine by force.
Russian and Ukrainian troops continue to fight every day in eastern
Ukraine.
The people of Ukraine face an aggressive Russia on the east and pervasive Soviet
era corruption throughout the government and the business community. President
Trump met the previous President of Ukraine in 2017 to talk about other
countries helping Ukraine with greater military support funds and to ask how
Ukraine could address corruption on a wider scale. The two Presidents also
spoke about lethal aid (allowing the Ukrainians to buy sniper rifles, anti-tank
javelin missiles, and other lethal supplies) to help them fight the invading
Russians. The US also started sending a couple hundred American troops to train
Ukrainian soldiers in the far west of Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Zelensky
On April 21, 2019, President Zelensky was overwhelmingly elected as the new
President of Ukraine. He was a sitcom actor/comedian who had no political
experience, but was well known for his television show in which he played the
part of a corruption-fighting teacher who was elected as President of Ukraine.
His television popularity helped him win the election, but when he was sworn in
on May 21, he was relatively unknown to most of the world.
On the same day as his inauguration, May 21, President Zelensky abolished
Parliament and called for snap elections to put his party in power. With a new
president in place and parliamentary elections in Ukraine coming, starting in
June of 2019, the President ordered foreign aid to Ukraine to be held until the
end of the fiscal year, but agencies were informed that they should do all the
preliminary work needed before the aid was sent, so it would be ready to
release at a moment’s notice. The leadership in Ukraine was not notified that
there was a hold on their foreign aid.
The new Parliament was elected on July 21, and President Zelensky’s party won
by a landslide. By mid-August, the new Parliament was working on
anti-corruption efforts and trying to establish a High Court on Corruption,
which they put in place September 5, 2019. There was a tremendous amount of
uncertainty in the early days of the new administration, but by mid August
there was clear evidence of actual change in a country that desperately needed
a new direction from its corrupt past.
President Trump’s Phone Call to President Zelensky
On July 25, when President Trump called President Zelensky, the President
congratulated President Zelensky for the big win in Parliament and talked about
“burden-sharing” (other nations also paying their share of support for
Ukraine). The two presidents talked about their disapproval of the previous
ambassadors to each other’s countries. But instead of following all the staff
preparation notes written by Lt. Col Vindman, the National Security Council
staffer assigned to Ukraine, and just talking about “corruption” in general,
the President brought up a question about Ukraine and the 2016 election interference,
which I will note below. President Zelensky also brought up to President Trump
that his staff was planning to meet with Rudy Giuliani, President Trump's
personal attorney, in the coming days, which led to a conversation about Joe
Biden and the firing of the previous prosecutor in Ukraine.
After the call, Lt. Col Vindman contacted an attorney at the National Security
Council to express his “policy concerns” about the call. It is interesting to
note that Lt. Col. Vindman’s boss, Tim Morrison, was also on the call, but he
did not see any problems or concerns with the call according to his own
testimony in the House impeachment inquiry. Within a month a whistleblower
filed a report about the call, saying he heard about the call second-hand and
was concerned about the implications of a conversation about elections on a
head-of-state call. To keep the July 25th call in context with other news, the
day before it took place—July 24—Robert Mueller had testified before Congress
as the last official act to close down the two-and-a-half-year Mueller
investigation and clear the President and his campaign team of any further
accusation of election interference.
During the impeachment trial in the Senate, the House Managers repeated over
and over that the President was planning to cheat “again” on the next election,
but the final conclusion of the Mueller Report was “ultimately, the
investigation did not establish that the (Trump) Campaign coordinated or
conspired with the Russian government in its election-interference
activities.”
This is especially notable, because for years a rumor circulated that Ukraine
was part of the 2016 election interference and that someone in Ukraine was
hiding the Democratic National Committee (DNC) server that was hacked by the
Russians in 2016. As the conspiracy theory goes, it was actually the Ukrainians
that hacked the DNC, not the Russians. This is the “Crowdstrike” theory that
President Trump asked President Zelensky to help solve during the call.
Agencies of the US Intelligence Community have stated over and over that they
did not believe that Ukraine was involved in the Russian election interference
from 2016. I personally agree with the Intelligence Community assessment. But
Rudy Giuliani, and multiple others around President Trump believed there was a
secret plan in 2016 to hurt President Trump’s election from Ukraine. This
accusation was amplified by bits of truth, including that the Ukrainian
Ambassador to the US wrote an editorial in support of Hillary Clinton in 2016 right
before the election, and several other Ukrainian officials publicly spoke out
against candidate Trump in 2016.
There is nothing illegal about a foreign nation speaking out for or against a
presidential candidate, whether Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump in 2016, or
anyone else in the future. It may not be wise to take sides before an election,
but it is not illegal. Just because some Ukrainian officials took sides, does
not mean that the whole Ukrainian government worked on a cyberattack on our
elections. But since this rumor had persisted, and it was a new administration
now in Ukraine, President Trump asked President Zelensky to help clear up the
facts if he could. That is certainly not illegal or improper, and it is
certainly not something that could help the President in the 2020 election,
especially since the 2016 Russian election accusation had just been closed the
day before.
The 2016 “Crowdstrike” theory is the issue that President Trump asked President
Zelensky to “do us a favor” about, not the Biden’s or Burisma. During the July
25 call after the question about “Crowdstrike,” President Zelensky mentioned to
President Trump that one of his advisers would be meeting with Rudy Giuliani
soon. Then, President Trump affirmed that meeting and encouraged them to talk
about the Biden investigation and the firing of the Ukrainian Prosecutor.
That may seem out of the blue, but in Washington, DC, that week, the city was
buzzing about a Washington Post article that had been written three days
before (July 22, 2019) detailing Hunter Biden’s giant salary ($83,000 per
month) for doing essentially nothing for a corrupt Ukrainian natural gas
company and how it undercut Vice President Biden’s message on corruption.
It is important to get the context of that week to understand the context of
the phone call that day. I have no doubt that the story was just as big of news
in Kiev, Ukraine as it was in Washington, DC, that week. President Trump’s
personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, had been in and out of Ukraine since November
2018, meeting with government officials and trying to find out more about the
“Crowdstrike” theory or any other Ukrainian connection to the 2016 election.
During that time Rudy Giuliani met several former prosecutors from Ukraine who
blamed their departure on Vice President Biden. It is clear that Rudy Giuliani
was working to gain information about both of these issues in his capacity as
President Trump’s private attorney.
It is not criminal for Rudy Giuliani to work on opposition research for a
presidential campaign or to work on behalf of his client to clear his name from
any issues related to the 2016 campaign, which he had done since November 2018.
Some have stated that since this was “foreign information,” it is illegal. That
is absolutely not true. In fact, Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National
Committee in 2016 paid a British citizen, Christopher Steele, to work his
contacts in Russia to create the now debunked “Steele Dossier” which the FBI
used to open its investigation into President Trump, leading directly to the
appointment of Special Counsel Mueller. That “Dossier” was opposition research
done in Russia by a British citizen, paid for by the Clinton campaign team.
Their opposition research was not illegal, but the use and abuse of that
document by the FBI to start an investigation was certainly inappropriate and
is most likely illegal. But, the FBI warrant issue is still being investigated
by the ongoing Durham probe.
During the July 25 call, when President Zelensky brought up
the issue of Rudy Giuliani and President Trump replied to his statement. You
can argue that President Trump should not have discussed the issue with
President Zelensky when he brought it up, but it is certainly not illegal or
impeachable to talk about it, especially when there are serious questions about
Hunter Biden’s work with Burisma. That is not a conservative conspiracy theory;
the issue of Hunter Biden’s employment in Ukraine was a problem for years at
the State Department. It had been raised to Vice President Biden when he was
still in office. Every State Department official interviewed for the Trump
impeachment investigation noted that at best it was a clear conflict of
interest and it was the center of a huge story on corruption in the Washington
Post on July 22, 2019. It had the appearance of high-level corruption by
using a well-placed family member on the board of a known corrupt gas company
in Ukraine to shelter it from prosecutors. Hunter Biden had only resigned from
the Burisma board a few months before the July 25 phone call, just prior to
when his dad announced his run for the Presidency in 2019.
After the July 25 phone call, Attorney General Barr did not have any follow up
meetings or calls with Ukrainian officials. Rudy Giuliani did have additional
conversations with Ukrainian officials, which are legal to do since he is a
private attorney representing the President.
Text of July 25, 2019 Phone Call between Presidents Trump and Zelensky:
The President:
Congratulations on a great victory. We all watched from the United States and
you did a terrific job. The way you came from behind, somebody who wasn't given
much of a chance, and you ended up winning easily. It's a fantastic
achievement. Congratulations.
President Zelensky: You are absolutely right Mr. President. We
did win big and we worked hard for this. We worked a lot but I would like to
confess to you that I had an opportunity to learn from you. We used quite a few
of your skills and knowledge and were able to use it as an example for our
elections and yes it is true that these were unique elections. We were in a
unique situation that we were able to achieve a unique success. I'm able to
tell you the following; the first time you called me to congratulate me when I
won my presidential election, and the second time you are now calling me when
my party won the parliamentary election. I think I should run more often so you
can call me more often and we can talk over the phone more often.
The President: (laughter) That's a very good idea. I think
your country is very happy about that.
President Zelensky: Well yes, to tell you the truth, we are
trying to work hard because we wanted to drain the swamp here in our country.
We brought in many many new people. Not the old politicians, not the typical
politicians, because we want to have a new format and a new type of government.
You are a great teacher for us and in that.
The President: Well it is very nice of you to say that. I will
say that we do a lot for Ukraine. We spend a lot of effort and a lot of time.
Much more than the European countries are doing and they should be helping you
more than they are. Germany does almost nothing for you. All they do is talk
and I think it's something that you should really ask them about. When I was
speaking to Angela Merkel she talks Ukraine, but she ·doesn't
do anything. A lot of the European countries are the same way so I think it's
something you want to look at but the United States has been very very good to
Ukraine. I wouldn't say that it's reciprocal necessarily because things are
happening that are not good but the United States has been very very good to
Ukraine.
President Zelensky: Yes you are absolutely right. Not only
100%, but actually 1000% and I can tell you the following; I did talk to Angela
Merkel and I did meet with her I also met and talked with Macron and I told
them that they are not doing quite as much as they need to be doing on the
issues with the sanctions. They are not enforcing the sanctions. They are not
working as much as they should work for Ukraine. It turns out that even though
logically, the European Union should be our biggest partner but technically the
United States is a much bigger partner than the European Union and I'm very grateful
to you for that because the United States is doing quite a lot for Ukraine.
Much more than the European Union especially when we are talking about
sanctions against the Russian Federation. I would also like to thank you for
your great support in the area of defense. We are ready to continue to
cooperate for the next steps specifically we are almost. ready to buy more
Javelins from the United States for defense purposes.
The President: I would like you to do us a favor though
because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. 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. As you saw yesterday, that whole
nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an
incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine.
Whatever you can do, it's very important that you do it if that's possible.
President Zelensky: Yes it is very important for me and
everything that you just mentioned earlier. For me as a President, it is very
important and we are open for any future cooperation. We are ready to open a
new page on cooperation in relations between the United States and Ukraine. For
that purpose, I just recalled our ambassador from United States and he will be
replaced by a very competent and very experienced ambassador who will work hard
on making sure that our two nations are getting closer. I would also like and
hope to see him having your trust and your confidence and have personal
relations with you so we can cooperate even more so. I will personally tell you
that one of my assistants spoke with Mr. Giuliani just recently and we are
hoping very much that Mr. Giuliani will be able to travel to Ukraine and we
will meet once he comes to Ukraine. I just wanted to assure you once again that
you have nobody but friends around us. I will make sure that I surround myself
with the best and most experienced people. I also wanted to tell you that we
are friends. We are great friends and you Mr. President have friends in our
country so we can continue our strategic partnership. I also plan to surround
myself with great people and in addition to that investigation, I guarantee as
the President of Ukraine that all the investigations will be done openly and
candidly.. That I can assure you.
The President: Good because I heard you had a prosecutor who
was very good and he was shut down and that's really unfair. A lot of people
are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and
you had some very bad people involved. 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. The former ambassador from the United States, the woman,
was bad news and the people she was dealing with in the Ukraine were bad news
so I just want to let you know that. 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.
President Zelensky: I wanted to tell you about the prosecutor.
First of all, I understand and I'm knowledgeable about the situation. Since we
have won the absolute majority in our Parliament, the next prosecutor general
will be 100% my person, my candidate, who will be approved, by the parliament
and will start as a new prosecutor in September. He or she will look into the situation,
specifically to the company that you mentioned in this issue. The issue of the
investigation of the case is actually the issue of making sure to restore the
honesty so we will take care of that and will work on the investigation of the
case. On top of that, I would kindly ask you if you have any additional
information that you can provide to us, it would be very helpful for the
investigation to make sure that we administer justice in our country with
regard to the Ambassador to the United States from Ukraine as far as I recall
her name was Ivanovich. It was great that you were the first one who told me
that she was a bad ambassador because I agree with you 100%. Her attitude
towards me was far from the best as she admired the previous President and she
was on his side. She would not accept me as a new President well enough.
The President: Well, she's going to go through some things. I
will have Mr. Giuliani give you a call and I am also going to have Attorney
General Barr call and we will get to the bottom of it. I'm sure you will figure
it out. I heard the prosecutor was treated very badly and he was a very fair
prosecutor so good luck with everything. Your economy is going to get better
and better I predict. You have a lot of assets. It's a great country. I have
many Ukrainian friends, their incredible people.
President Zelensky: I would like to tell you that I also have
quite a few Ukrainian friends that live in the United States. Actually last
time I traveled to the United States, I stayed in New York near Central Park
and I stayed at the Trump Tower. I will talk to them and I hope to see them
again in the future. I also wanted to thank you for your invitation to visit
the United States, specifically Washington DC. On the other hand, I also want
to ensure you that we will be very serious about the case and will work on the
investigation. As to the economy, there is much potential for our two countries
and one of the issues that is very important for Ukraine is energy
independence. I believe we can be very successful and cooperating on energy
independence with United States. We are already working on cooperation. We are
buying American oil but I am very hopeful for a future meeting. We will have
more time and more opportunities to discuss these opportunities and get to know
each other better. I would like to thank you very much for your support.
The President: Good. Well, thank you very much and I
appreciate that. I will tell Rudy and Attorney General Barr to call. Thank you.
Whenever you would like to come to the White House, feel free to call. Give us
a date and we'll work that out. I look forward to seeing you.
President Zelensky:
Thank you very much. I would be very happy to come and would be happy to meet
with you personally and get to know you better. I am looking forward to our
meeting and I also would like to invite you to visit Ukraine and come to the
city of Kyiv which is a beautiful city. We have a beautiful country which would
welcome you. On the other hand, I believe that on September 1 we will be in
Poland and we can meet in Poland hopefully. After that, it might be a very good
idea for you to travel to Ukraine. We can either take my plane and go to Ukraine
or we can take your plane, which is probably much better than mine.
The President: Okay, we can work that out. I look forward to
seeing you in Washington and maybe in Poland because I think we are going to be
there at that time.
President Zelensky:
Thank you very much Mr. President.
The President: Congratulations on a fantastic job you've done.
The whole world was watching. I'm not sure it was so much of an upset but
congratulations.
President Zelensky: Thank you Mr. President bye-bye.
Based on a whistleblower report about the July 25 call, the
House Intelligence Committee subpoenaed the report on September 13 and started
its impeachment inquiry on September 24.
Senate Trial
House Managers’ Case for Impeachment
In the Senate impeachment trial, House Managers stated their belief that the
President had carried out a “scheme to cheat in the 2020 election” by
withholding financial aid to Ukraine and withholding a White House meeting with
the new President of Ukraine in exchange for Ukraine announcing it would
investigate Joe Biden, Burisma, and 2016 election interference.
Let's discuss the facts of both.
White House Meeting
There is no question that President Trump had offered a White House meeting to
President Zelensky three times: once in May on a phone call after President
Zelensky won his election, once in June in a letter, and finally in the July
25th call after President Zelensky’s party won the parliamentary elections. But
Tim Morrison (a State Department official called as a witness by the House)
also testified that they were working on heads-of-state meetings with twelve
other heads of state during that same time period. Many nations were trying to
line up meetings in the White House during the summer of 2019.
During the July 25 call, President Zelensky offered to instead move their
meeting from a White House meeting to a face-to-face meeting in Warsaw, Poland,
when they would both be there on September 1, 2019. The Presidents agreed, and
planning began on the meeting in August. By August 22, the meeting planning was
in full swing as noted by emails in the House hearing’s evidence. However,
Hurricane Dorian slammed into the US in the hours leading up to the September 1
meeting, causing a last-minute shift to the Vice President traveling to Poland
so the President could stay in the US to monitor hurricane relief.
We know that Vice President Pence met face-to-face with President Zelensky, and
they spoke about other nations paying their fair share to help Ukraine and the
issue of corruption across Ukraine. We know from the preparation materials and
the meeting notes themselves that during the meeting the Vice President did not
bring up or discuss the issue of Burisma, Joe Biden, or any other campaign
conversation with President Zelensky.
The White House found the next available time when President Trump and
President Zelensky would both be in the same place at the same time to set up a
face-to-face meeting: September 25 at the UN Assembly in New York. That meeting
was set up, and it took place as scheduled.
In the Senate impeachment trial, the House managers maintained that only a
White House meeting was sufficient and that it was being withheld, but the
facts show that President Zelensky himself floated the idea of a meeting in
Poland and that the meeting was not barred or withheld.
In the early months of President Zelensky’s term, there was a great deal of
concern about him, his staff, and his plans because he was an unknown political
figure. Until more was known about him, it was entirely appropriate to show
caution in coordinating a meeting, but once his nationwide anti-corruption
efforts began in August, it was clear that face-to-face meetings were planned
and carried out.
There was no withholding of a face-to-face meeting with President Trump and
President Zelensky. There cannot be a quid pro quo if the meeting was not
withheld from Ukrainian officials.
Foreign Aid to Ukraine
The House Managers claimed that there was a secret plot to “extort” or “bribe”
the leadership of Ukraine to investigate Hunter Biden in exchange for around
$400 million of US aid. The aid was State Department and foreign military aid
that had been provided for the past four years, since Ukraine had been in a war
with Russia.
After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and its occupation of Crimea and
the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, the US started sending aid to help the
Ukrainian government. Congress allowed lethal and non-lethal aid to support
Ukraine, but during the previous administration, only non-lethal aid was sent.
Under President Trump’s administration, it was determined that the United
States would give the leadership of Ukraine lethal aid to help them fight off
Russian tanks, which was President Zelensky’s reference to “javelins” in the
July 25th phone call and his gratitude to President Trump for allowing those
tank killing rockets to flow to Ukraine.
To be clear, the theory of funds being withheld from Ukraine in exchange for an
investigation does not originate from the July 25 call read out. There is
nothing in the text of the call that threatens the withholding of funds in
exchange for an investigation.
The theory originates from the fact that aid was held back by the Office of
Management and Budget, headed by the President’s Acting Chief of Staff, Mick
Mulvaney, and the “presumption” of US Ambassador to the European Union, Gordon
Sondland, that the aid must have been held because of the President’s desire to
get the Biden investigation done, since the President’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani
was working to find out more about the Biden investigation.
Ambassador Sondland told multiple people about his theory, but when he finally
called President Trump and asked him directly about it, the President responded
that he did not have any quid pro quo, he just wanted the President of Ukraine
to do what he ran on and “do the right thing.” Obviously, people who assume the
worst about President Trump take this as a secret message that there actually
was a quid pro quo, but the most important fact is that Ambassador Sondland did
not read it that way after his call with the President. Ambassador Sondland
believed that the President was serious. Unfortunately, the White House Counsel
was never allowed to cross examine Ambassador Sondland during the House
investigation to get the facts about who he talked to and why he came to
believe for a while that there was an effort to push for investigations in
exchange for money.
During the Senate trial, I listened closely to the facts surrounding the
withholding of aid money to Ukraine. This was by far the most serious charge
against the President. Two key questions had to be answered for me: why was the
aid held, and why was the aid released. There was no question the aid was held
for a couple of months.
The question was why?
Statements from the House witnesses during the House impeachment inquiry
answered the two key questions: the aid was held because there was a legitimate
concern about the new President of Ukraine and his administration in the early
days of his presidency and the aid was released on time when the new Ukrainian
Parliament starting passing anti-corruption laws in August and after Vice
President Pence sat down face to face with President Zelensky on September 1 in
Poland to discuss their progress on corruption.
We should not lose track of what was happening in Ukraine in 2019. A new
President was elected who was a TV actor with no political experience and no
record on how he would handle Russia or the issue of widespread national
corruption in Ukraine. He ran on a platform of anti-corruption at all levels,
but no one knew how he would govern. His campaign was funded by a Ukrainian
oligarch who owned a major media outlet, and one of his first advisers was the
former attorney for that oligarch.
I personally spoke to many of the State Department officials in Ukraine in May
of 2019 and heard their concerns about the new government. Then, newly elected
President Zelensky used his power to dissolve their Parliament the day he was
sworn in and called for “snap elections” in which the vast majority of the
newly elected leaders were from his newly formed party. To our State Department
and the White House, this was either a really a good sign or a really bad sign.
Either Ukraine was about to take a major change for the better with new
leadership, or this new young leader was about to assume real centralized
power. No one knew for certain in May, June, and July of 2019. Within a few
weeks in August, the new Parliament got to work passing anti-corruption laws
and making significant changes in their accountability and for the country.
This was a very good sign.
When Vice President Pence met face to face with President Zelensky September 1,
both sides had confidence the country was taking a new direction. On September
10 Vice President Pence and Senator Rob Portman met with President Trump to
tell him about the progress that had been made, and both advised lifting the hold
on aid. The aid was lifted the next day, September 11. No investigation into
Hunter Biden or Burisma was ever done by Ukraine, and no part of the US
Department of Justice was ever involved in any investigation of Hunter Biden or
Burisma.
Though the aid was frozen in June, there was no public announcement of the
hold, as explained by the White House Counsel, to keep this from becoming a
public issue while the White House monitored the progress and status of the
transition in Ukraine.
On August 27, Politico published an article that noted that the foreign
aid had been held by the US. This caused President Zelensky’s office to reach
out to the State Department and ask why. During the House impeachment
proceedings, four of the House witnesses (Ambassador Voelker, Ambassador
Sondland, Ambassador Taylor, and Tim Morrison) all testified that the Ukrainian
leadership learned about the temporary hold in aid after the Politico
article was published.
The issue of the hold was also the first question from President Zelensky to
Vice President Pence when they met September 1 in Poland. The idea that the
leadership in Ukraine had pressure placed on them to do an investigation fails
the most essential test, did the leadership of Ukraine even know that the aid was
being held? The answer from multiple American and Ukrainian leaders was no,
they did not know there was a hold on the aid from the White House. You cannot
have pressure to act on an investigation, if they did not even know the aid was
being held.
It is interesting to note, when I researched the records of past foreign aid
payment dates and times to Ukraine, I found the 2019 aid was in line with the
date the 2016, 2017, and 2018 aid was sent. The vast majority of the military
aid to Ukraine was obligated in August or September for the past four years.
Though the aid was ready to go out the door a couple months earlier in 2019, it
was certainly not late, based on the record of the previous three years. In
fact, the State Department aid was obligated September 30 in 2019, but it was
obligated September 28 in 2018. As quoted by the Ukrainian Minister of Defense,
“the aid was held such a short time, we did not even notice.”
During the two days of question-and-answer time, I asked a specific question
related to this issue because I felt it was important to get the context of the
aid, since there had been so much made of the issue during the trial. Here is
the full text of my question to the White House Counsel:
House Managers have described any delay in military aid
and state department funds to Ukraine in 2019 as a cause to believe there was a
secret scheme or quid pro quo by the President. In 2019, 86% of the DOD funds
were obligated to Ukraine in September, but in 2018, 67% of the funds were
obligated in September and in 2017, 73% of the funds were obligated in
September. In the State Department, the funds were obligated September 30 in
2019, but they were obligated September 28 in 2018. Each year, the vast
majority of the funds were obligated in the final month or days of the fiscal
year. Question: Was there a national security risk to Ukraine or the United
States from the funds going out late in September in the two previous years?
Did it weaken our relationship with Ukraine because the vast majority of our
aid was released in September each of the last three years?
In response to my question, White House Counsel detailed the
fact that military aid from the US was not for immediate use. It was designed
to help the Ukrainian military buy materials for the next year, so it was
common for the aid to be obligated at the end of the fiscal year (September
30), and it was also common for some money to be left unobligated and carried
over into the next fiscal year, as it was in 2019.
While it is easy to create an intricate story on the hold placed on foreign aid
to Ukraine, it is also clear that President Trump has temporarily held foreign
aid from multiple countries over the past two years, including: Afghanistan,
Pakistan, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Lebanon, and others. There is no
question that a President can withhold aid for a short period of time, but it
must be released by September 30, the end of the fiscal year, which it was in
this instance.
Constitutional Issues Around This Impeachment
Article I, Section 2 of the United States Constitution grants the US House of
Representatives “the sole power of impeachment,” while Article I, Section 3
states that “the Senate shall have the sole power to try all
impeachments.”
The Constitution is clear that the House does not control the Senate process
and the Senate does not control the House process. However, during the
impeachment trial of President Trump, the House tried repeatedly to dictate to
the Senate how it should conduct its trial.
The “sole power to try” means laying out rules for the trial, including when
and if to call additional witnesses or request more documents.
In addition to laying out roles and responsibilities for impeachment, our
Constitution also provides basic rights for the accused. The Fifth Amendment
ensures due process. However, the receipt of due process is not contingent upon
waiving another right, like immunity or executive privilege. But that is
exactly what the House tried to force President Trump to do.
The President is not above the law, but neither is the House of
Representatives. If there was a question as to the scope and proper use of the
President’s right to assert immunity or executive privilege regarding
conversations he had with his closest advisers, that question is proper for a
court to determine, not Congress, and surely not the House on its own accord.
To put this in constitutional terms, the Legislative Branch cannot prevent the
Executive Branch from having access to the Judicial Branch. The House wanted to
move quickly and prevent the President from ever going to court to resolve any
issue. That has never been done for a good reason, the separation of powers. In
previous legal battles with the President, it has taken months to resolve
critical issues, like Bush v. Gore in 2000 or even in the Clinton
impeachment trial, when the House took two months to resolve an issue with
witnesses in court. It does not have to drag on for years.
The House also wanted the Chief Justice of the United States to “rule on” any
issue quickly, instead of allowing the President to go through the courts. This
would have created a new judicial executive branch by putting all the judicial
power of the nation in one person, not in the Judicial Branch, as is stated in
the Constitution. It would have also ignored the text of the Constitution where
it notes that the Chief Justice “presides” in the court of impeachment, not
“decides.” The sole power of impeachment is in the Senate, not the Senate, plus
the one Justice. The Chief Justice keeps the trial moving along, based on the
rules of the trial, but he or she is not a decider of fact, that is reserved to
the Senate. The House Managers wanted to ignore that part of the Constitution
to move the trial faster for expedience. We cannot ignore the Constitution or
create bad precedent, no matter which party is being tried for
impeachment.
Further, the Sixth Amendment guarantees that the accused has the ability to both
confront the witnesses against him and to have the assistance of counsel. The
majority of the impeachment inquiry in the House was done without a meaningful
opportunity for the president to participate and administration witnesses were
denied the ability to have counsel present for depositions.
The Constitution lays out a clear separation of powers, but importantly also
provides a system of checks and balances. For something as important as
impeachment, it is imperative that the process be one that is squarely within
the bounds of the Constitution and is one that the American people can trust.
Unfortunately, the process undertaken by the House to impeach President Trump
falls wildly short of the standards put in place by our Founders.
Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution states that “the President, Vice
President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from
office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high
crimes and misdemeanors.”
During the trial of President Trump, there was a lot of conversation about what
constitutes a “high crime” or “misdemeanor.” Notably, the House did not charge
the President with any crimes. Rather, the House chose to impeach the President
for “abuse of power” and “obstruction of Congress.”
The House theoretically could have chosen to file articles of impeachment for
crimes such as bribery, extortion, solicitation of interference in an election,
or violations of the Impoundments Clause Act. For any of these crimes, the
House would have had to prove specific elements of each. Since they couldn’t
prove any of those crimes, they chose to charge the President with “abuse of
power.” As was noted in the trial, forty Presidents have faced accusation of
“abuse of power” going back as far as George Washington.
The abuse of power charge for President Trump was based on allegations that he
improperly withheld aid to Ukraine and conditioned a meeting with President
Zelensky at the White House in exchange for an investigation into former Vice
President Biden and his son Hunter. Over the course of the last four months, we
heard the term quid pro quo used over and over again but the facts do not show
criminal quid pro quo. As previously mentioned, President Zelensky asked to
meet with President Trump in Poland and that meeting was set up. Further, while
the aid to Ukraine was delayed, it wasn’t delayed more than it had been the
previous two years, and the aid was released without an investigation (or even
an announcement of one) into the Biden’s.
The second article of impeachment, Obstruction of Congress, had an even weaker
constitutional foundation. The investigation was announced September 24, but
did not officially begin until October 31. The impeachment vote in the House
was December 18. This very short time table and the accusation that the
President refused to follow the law, honor the courts and that he acted like a
“King” did not meet even the most basic constitutional standards for
justice.
For example, during the Mueller investigation, the President’s team fully
cooperated with the investigation that included over 2,000 subpoenas and 500
witnesses, including the President’s Chief of Staff, multiple cabinet officials
and many lower-level officials that were all made available. It was clear
throughout the investigation that the President did not like or agree with the
Mueller investigation, but he also fully cooperated with every subpoena, each
witness and every document. In fact, they released over a million pages of documents
to the Mueller team.
President Trump also made his disagreement with the courts very clear on issues
like the census, whether travel restrictions can be put in place to ensure
national security, or whether particular funds can be used to secure our
southern border. But, each time the President lost in court, his Administration
complied with orders from the Judiciary. That is how our system of government
is supposed to work.
When disagreements happen between the Legislative Branch and the Judicial
Branch, they usually lead to resolution, not impeachment. The Fast and Furious
investigation, which lasted more than three years in the Obama Administration,
led to a vote in the House to hold then-Attorney General Eric Holder in
contempt, but it never led to an impeachment inquiry, even though there was a
clear and consistent refusal to cooperate with Congress or turn over key
documents for three years.
In this case the accusation that President Trump ignored subpoenas or refused
to follow the law is not correct. The President’s team made it very clear that
they would cooperate during the impeachment inquiry with properly authorized
and issued subpoenas, but the House refused to issue subpoenas that were
consistent with the law to seek resolution for documents and witnesses. The
House was focused on speed, not legal process.
The House, in a rush to impeachment last fall, issued multiple subpoenas for
documents and testimony before the House had given authority to the committees
to issue subpoenas for an impeachment inquiry, which happened October 31. Since
there was no authority to issue the subpoenas, they were not duly authorized.
The House also demanded testimony from the President’s inner circle without
working through the legal questions and the House demanded Executive Agency
witnesses appear without allowing them to bring Agency counsel with them. All
of those issues created very real legal and constitutional problems. Agency
individuals have always been allowed to have legal counsel with them when they
are deposed, except this time.
As a Member of Congress, I cannot demand the President turn over documents or
give testimony in any fashion that I would prefer, just because I have
oversight responsibilities. In the same way, the President or other Executive
Branch officials cannot demand I turn over my notes or provide my staff for
testimony without going through the courts and gaining a legal subpoena.
Congress has vigorously and rightfully protected its rights from unwarranted
investigations from any president. And presidents have done the same. But in
all cases, the law must be followed and the proper process must be pursued to
get the information in a legal way.
Additional Witnesses
From the very first moments of the Senate trial, the House Managers fought for
additional witnesses and documents from the President. Their argument, and
justification for the second article of impeachment, centered on the White
House’s refusal to turn over documents and make every witness available without
going through the normal legal process.
Per the resolution adopted by the Senate, the House record was part of the
trial record. The Senate had the testimony of the witnesses the House chose to
question as part of the overall information of the trial. The House already had
28,000 pages of documents that were part of the evidence they submitted to the
Senate. Although, the House Managers admitted during the Senate impeachment
trial that they still have not released all of the documents and witness
testimony that they had gathered in their investigation to the White House
Counsel or to the Senate. We do not fully know why the House held back some of
its witness testimony and released others.
The House witness testimony was used extensively in the Senate trial.
Witnesses who testified live or via video in the House and
Senate Impeachment:
·
David Holmes, Political
Counselor, US Embassy Ukraine, State Department
·
Dr. Fiona Hill, White House
Adviser, National Security Council
·
David Hale, Undersecretary
for Political Affairs, State Department
·
Laura Cooper, Deputy
Assistant Secretary of Defense
·
Gordon Sondland, US
Ambassador to the European Union
·
Tim Morison, Former White
House Advisor
·
Kurt Voelker, Former
Special Envoy for Ukraine
·
Lt. Col Alexander Vindman,
National Security Council
·
Jennifer Williams, Aide to
the Vice President
·
Marie Yovanovitch, Former
Ambassador to Ukraine
·
George Kent, Deputy
Assistant Secretary of State
·
Bill Taylor, Former United
States Ambassador to Ukraine
The House Managers repeated over and over that additional
witnesses would only take a week to depose, which is a clearly false statement.
New witnesses took longer than a week to depose in the House inquiry, clearly
it would take just as long or longer in a Senate trial. The remaining “wish
list” of witnesses all had clear issues that needed to be resolved in the
courts, which would take a couple of months to resolve, which is why the House
Managers did not push for their testimony in the House impeachment process,
they valued speed more than legal process.
House Managers repeatedly stated that witnesses only took a week to depose in
the Clinton Senate impeachment trial, but they know that during the Clinton
Senate trial all three called witnesses previously deposed in the House inquiry
or in the Grand Jury investigation and all issues of Executive privilege had
already been decided through the courts. There were no new witnesses in the
Senate trial of President Clinton. Also, the Clinton White House had already
had the opportunity to cross examine witnesses or the investigators in the
Clinton impeachment inquiry; this time the Trump White House had been denied
that right. So, if new witnesses would be added for the Senate trial, the White
House should have the right to also cross examine the previous House witnesses
that they had been denied the right to cross examine in the past. This would
all take much longer than a week and the House Managers knew that.
During the Clinton Impeachment trial in the Senate, there were no additional
documents requested, only previously deposed witnesses. The House Managers did
not go through the legal process to get documents, like the Mueller
investigation had done, so all of the new document requests from the House
Managers would take at least three to five weeks to complete, once a legal
subpoena is delivered. It takes time to search all databases, review the
documents for classified materials, determine any legal issues, and release
them to the investigation. Once the documents are turned over, both legal teams
need time to review the documents. Again, the House Managers knew these facts,
but they continued to repeat over and over that it would only take a week to
get all the documents.
The first question for the Senate trial was: do we have enough evidence and
testimony to answer the questions the House presented in their articles of
impeachment? If the answer is yes, then we do not need additional witnesses or
documents. If the answer is no, then we do need additional information. There
were many leaks and newspaper stories during the trial designed to push the
Senate to vote to ask for more testimony, but that did not change the primary
question. We already knew from evidence that there was no quid pro quo, no
Ukrainian investigations and no withholding of a public meeting with President
Trump.
The New York Times story on January 26 and again on January 31 are clear
examples of an attempt to bring doubt on the information and witness testimony.
Both stories stated that someone had read the pending John Bolton book
manuscript and that in the book Bolton stated that President Trump had talked
about investigations in exchange for aid funding for Ukraine. The New York
Times also wrote that the book would state that Acting Chief of Staff, Mick
Mulvaney, and White House Counsel, Pat Cipollone, were also a part of the
scheme. I looked at both stories closely and noticed that the reporters had not
read the manuscripts or quoted the manuscripts; they were reports from someone
who stated that they had read the manuscripts. Both stories took significant
liberties to describe the intent in the manuscripts, but the reporter had
apparently also not spoken to John Bolton.
On January 23, 2020, the National Security Council lawyers sent a letter to the
legal team handling the book publishing for John Bolton to inform him that the
manuscript contained some classified information and it would need have some
edits before publication in March. Then, on January 26, the New York Times
published a story that someone had leaked some of the details of the book, but
they had not released the actual manuscript. While I am interested in seeing
the actual manuscript, I am also very aware that this selective leak was
designed by The New York Times and whoever leaked the information
to influence the ongoing trial.
It was clear from the earliest days of the trial that the House had a clear
political strategy as well as a court-room strategy. During the trial I had the
responsibility to hear the facts but also to separate the politics from the
facts. Politically, it was best for the House to move as quickly as possible through
impeachment so that vulnerable Democratic members could vote for impeachment,
and then move quickly to other topics. But since the presidential election is
in full swing, it was politically better for Democrats to make the Senate trial
move as slow as possible to hurt the President during the campaign. That
explains why the House did not take the time to formally request documents or
testimony from many individuals; they needed to move fast and try to force the
Senate to move slowly. It also explained why the House passed impeachment on a
party line vote, then held the articles of impeachment for a month before
delivering them to the Senate to start the trial. The House Managers said
repeatedly that the evidence was clear and that they had proved their case.
But, if that was true, why would the Senate need to call additional witnesses?
I think the reason is that the witness process was about delay, more than
facts.
Final Thoughts
The facts do not support the accusation in the Trump impeachment, and it
certainly did not need to come to this moment of national division. While, it
was clear that the House Managers wanted to drag the trial on for months in the
Senate, through the primary election season, their case consisted of
hypothetical story lines and “presumptions” more than facts that warrant the
removal of a President. This does not meet what Alexander Hamilton in Federalist,
No. 65 described as the “due weight” for the arguments.
But impeachment has certainly created the division in our society that
Alexander Hamilton predicted. Over 200 years ago he wrote, “The prosecution [of
impeachments], will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community,
and to divide it into parties more or less friendly or inimical to the
accused.” This has been an incredibly divisive season in our nation. It is not
about one person, it is about all of us. We individually choose how we handle
disagreements with family, friends, and people on the other side of particular
issues. Our government represents us, so it is up to us to model for our
government how to handle disagreements.
We are now past impeachment, and it's time to work on the issues that matter
most to the American people. As we move forward, every American should speak
out on the issues that are important to them and the voices that speak for
their point of view. But, we should remember that we have much more in common
than we have that divides us. It is my hope that our nation does not go through
a season like this again for a very long time and that we can move past this
age of impeachment to an age of oversight and accountability.
I appreciate all the engagement with our office during the impeachment
proceedings. We had thousands of calls and emails over the past month. We had
hundreds of thousands of views on the nightly Facebook Live updates each day
during the trial. While not every Oklahoman agrees with every decision I make
on behalf of our state, I am grateful most choose to be respectful in
expressing their points of view. At the end of the day, we are Oklahomans. We
may not all agree on each issue, but we can be respectful of each other in our
disagreement.
I am honored to serve our state and nation. We have many important issues to
address in the coming days, I pray we can work on them together for the future
of our state and nation.
James Lankford
United States Senator for Oklahoma
++++++++++++++++++++++
BLOG EDITOR: I’ve apparently
been placed in restricted Facebook Jail! The restriction was relegated after
criticizing Democrats for supporting abortion in one post and criticizing
Virginia Dems for gun-grabbing legislation and levying protester restrictions.
Rather than capitulate to Facebook censorship by abandoning the platform, I
choose to post and share until the Leftist censors ban me completely.
Conservatives are a huge portion of Facebook. If more or all Conservatives are
banned, it will affect the Facebook advertising revenue paradigm. SO FIGHT
CENSORSHIP BY SHARE – SHARE – SHARE!!! Facebook notified me in
pop-up on 1/20/20: “You're temporarily restricted from joining and posting to
groups that you do not manage until April 18 at 7:04 PM.”
___________________________
If you would like more
information on these topics or any other legislation currently before the US
Senate, please do not hesitate to call my DC office at (202) 224-5754. My
Oklahoma City office can be reached at (405) 231-4941 and my Tulsa office at
(918) 581-7651. You can also follow me on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram for updates on my work in Congress.
