The long day

In case you missed the impeachment hearing today with George Kent and Ambassador Bill Taylor, I'm sure you can find it on YouTube.

Here are the three things I think are of note:

1) Ambassador Taylor testified that since his last testimony, a member of his staff told him about a phone call the staff member overheard between Trump and Sondland.  According to the testimony, Trump could be overheard on Sondland's cell asking Sondland about "the investigations" to which Sondland replied the Ukrainians were "ready to move forward."  After the call ended, the staff member reportedly asked Sondland what Trump thought about Ukraine, and Sondland's response was that Trump cares more about the investigations (ie, into Biden and the DNC) than he does about Ukraine.  I assume that staffer will be called to testify.

2) Even if Bill Taylor has a voice reminiscent of Walter Cronkite, George Kent is a far better witness: precise, clear, direct, and having a memory for detail about State Department regulations and affairs as well as for dates and events.  But both witnesses, to their credit, rebuffed any efforts to make them seem partisan, or as Jim Jordan accused them, of being the Democrats' "star witnesses".  Many times Taylor said, "I'm just here to tell you what I know and what I heard."

3) Democratic Representative Peter Welch is a quick wit.  Here's his comeback to Jim Jordan who claimed the hearings are unfair because Republicans don't get to hear from the whistleblower "who started it all":

That was the only light moment and the only one with any reaction from the room in the whole thing, and after five hours of repeats of what we already know, and the totally expected Republican lies and misdirections, it was greatly appreciated. By me at least.

Coming Friday: Marie Yovanovitch.

P.S.  I think George Kent must know what dogs are thinking when you talk to them, because his eyebrows do the same thing.

UPDATE:

Honestly, they don't seem to think anything through any more.

UPDATE:

There was so much of that kind of thing happening all day with the Republicans.  I can only surmise they haven't got a clue how to defend Trump.  Probably because there is no defense.  And Castor was their professional legal interrogator.  Here's a glimpse of him asking questions of Taylor that have nothing to do with Taylor's knowledge or anyone's ability to understand WTF Castor is doing.

UPDATE:  Representative Maloney has a point about the supporting documents that Taylor and Kent say are in the hands of the State Department, as a matter of procedure, and which Pompeo will not turn over to the committee.

UPDATE 11/21:  Ambassador's staff member is David Hale.  He was called to testify in private, and then in public on 11/21.  And, unsurprisingly treated to a barrage of insults from Jim Jordan.

George Kent transcript released

Kent testified in a closed session on Oct. 15, telling lawmakers that, like other career diplomats, he was essentially cut out of decisions about Ukraine due to maneuvering by other administration officials and outsiders, including Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. Kent accused Giuliani of conducting a "campaign of lies" about the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, that led to her early recall from Kyiv.

Kent is among the witnesses scheduled to testify in open hearings next week. He has been in the Foreign Service since 1992, serving in posts ranging from Warsaw to Bangkok.

[...]

Kent makes clear in his testimony that he was alarmed by the role the president’s personal lawyer was playing in trying to shape Ukraine policy — especially his efforts to work with a Ukrainian prosecutor to smear the U.S. ambassador in Kyiv, Marie Yovanovitch.

But he said that others, like Kurt Volker, the special envoy to Ukraine, thought that it was better to engage with Giuliani than to ignore him because of the influence he wielded on President Donald Trump. Volker even brushed off Giuliani’s campaign against Yovanovitch and push to investigate former vice president Joe Biden, a rival for the White House in 2020, saying, according to Kent: ”Well, if there’s nothing there, what does it matter?”

  Politico

Under the bus for Volker.

Kent told investigators that, based on his conversations with other senior American diplomats, Gordon Sondland relayed that Trump “wanted nothing less than President Zelensky to go to microphone [sic] and say investigations, Biden, and Clinton.”

Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, was describing “in shorthand” what Trump wanted the Ukrainians to do, according to Kent.

“Zelensky needed to go to a microphone and basically there needed to be three words in the message, and that was the shorthand,” Kent added.

And I suppose Trump will say he can't be held responsible for how Sondland portrayed what Trump wanted.

As Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani was interested in getting Ukraine to investigate Biden and the 2016 election. And Yuriy Lutsenko, a top prosecutor in Ukraine at the time, saw Yovanovitch as an apparent threat to his ability to keep his position as it became clear that U.S. officials felt he was not doing enough to battle corruption.

“Based on what I know, Yuriy Lutsenko, as prosecutor general, vowed revenge, and provided information to Rudy Giuliani in hopes that he would spread it and lead to her removal,” Kent said.

Kent said he learned that Lutsenko had even met in private with Giuliani in New York, where Lutsenko’s purpose was to “throw mud” at Yovanovitch and Kent himself.

Kent said the two men essentially waged a “campaign of lies” about Yovanovitch, who would be recalled early from her post in May.

[...]

At one point, after Giuliani slammed Yovanovitch, Kent and others in a May 2019 interview, Kent was told by his superiors to "keep my head down and lower my profile in Ukraine,” he said.

The instruction came via an intermediary from David Hale, the undersecretary of State for political affairs, according to Kent’s understanding. It wasn’t clear if Hale had talked to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo about it.

Hale testified to impeachment investigators on Wednesday, but little has yet emerged about what he told them.

[...]

“It was Ambassador Sondland's connections with Mulvaney” that got the U.S. delegation that attended Zelensky’s inauguration a meeting afterwards with President Trump, Kent testified. That meeting “was not done through NSC staff,” Kent said, explaining how it deviated from the typical process for such debriefings.

Sondland, for his part, had testified that “I don’t believe I’ve ever had a formal meeting with Mulvaney … we say hello, we walk by and wave. I don’t believe I’ve sat down with him for a formal meeting on any subject.”

[...]

At a certain point, Kent said, he realized he needed to make a record of his concerns about Ukraine policy. Two conversations in particular triggered the move.

One was with Catherine Croft, a special assistant to Volker. She asked Kent in mid-August, he recalled, whether the U.S. had “ever asked the Ukrainians to investigate anybody.”

He explained to her that if there had been a crime committed in the U.S., there was a treaty that allowed for asking for such assistance, among other options. But if she was talking about asking the Ukrainians to prosecute someone for political reasons, he said, “the answer is, I hope we haven’t, and we shouldn’t because that goes against everything that we are trying to promote in post-Soviet states for the last 28 years, which is the promotion of the rule of law.”

The next day, he learned from William Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Kyiv after Yovanvitch had been pulled out, that Volker had raised the possibility of “investigations” with top Ukrainian officials. So Kent decided to write a “note to the file saying that I had concerns that there was an effort to initiate politically motivated prosecutions that were injurious to the rule of law, both Ukraine and the U.S.”

[...]

Republican Senators Jim Inhofe, Rob Portman and Mitch McConnell called Trump and asked him about the hold on military aid to Ukraine just before the hold was lifted, according to Kent. The questions, and bipartisan criticism of the hold from members of Congress, may have contributed to Trump’s decision to release the aid on September 11.

No doubt. I would love to hear that conversation with McConnell, et al.

Kent says it was his “personal opinion” that only the White House meeting, not the military assistance, was part of a quid pro quo.

“It strikes me that the association was a meeting with the White House, at the White House, not related to the security assistance,” Kent told investigators. “But again, that’s just my personal opinion, other people may have different opinions."

And they do. Nearly everybody else who's testified, in fact. Particularly Gordon Sondland, who was in direct contact with Trump and would know, after his memory was "refreshed".

Full transcript.

Until they get state charges, Rudy can rely on a pardon for any convictions

[George] Kent, the deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, testified that around January 2019 Giuliani requested a visa for former Ukrainian prosecutor-general Viktor Shokin to travel to the United States. Shokin had been pushed out of his position as Ukraine's top prosecutor in 2016 after pressure from Western leaders, including Biden, over concerns that he was not pursuing corruption cases.

Giuliani has previously told CNN he wanted to interview Shokin in person because the Ukrainian promised to reveal dirt on Democrats.

Kent told congressional investigators the State Department had objected to the request, and State did not grant the visa. Giuliani, Kent said, then appealed to the White House to have State reverse its decision. Rob Blair, a White House aide to acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, consulted with State about the decision and sided with the department's rejection of the visa, according to a person familiar.

Shokin's visa was never granted, although Giuliani eventually spoke with Shokin over Skype.

  CNN

That sounds a little like it's not true that State was working with Giuliani in his efforts.

Concerns that Giuliani was inappropriately involved in shaping and driving the administration's Ukraine policy form a significant part of the intelligence community whistleblower's complaint, which prompted the ongoing impeachment investigation into President Donald Trump.

[...]

In their January 23 Skype interview, Shokin provided information, Giuliani has told CNN, about supposed coordination between Democrats and people in Ukraine, as well as claims about Biden's son Hunter Biden, who had sat on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma Holdings. Shokin's successor as prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko, did travel to the US and spoke with Giuliani about these claims later.

Details from those interviews were included in a cache of documents Giuliani delivered to the State Department earlier this year, in hopes that the administration would investigate those claims. The State Department inspector general eventually turned the documents over to congressional investigators.

According to a write-up of his interview with Shokin included in the documents, Giuliani claimed that Shokin "believes the current Ambassador Marie L. Yovanovitch denied his visa" and noted that Yovanovitch was "close to Mr. Biden."

Presumably why they wanted her relieved of her job.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Kent testimony

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent testified for roughly 10 hours.

[...]

“What I can say is he was clearly bothered by the role Mr. Giuliani was playing and the disinformation he was spreading,” Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), a member of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, told reporters after leaving the gathering.

Connolly said Kent expressed concerns with what he described as an informal — and dangerous — alliance between three figures wrapped up in the Ukraine affair: Giuliani; Yuriy Lutsenko, Ukraine's former chief prosecutor; and John Solomon, a former opinion contributor at The Hill, who wrote a series of columns critical of the Bidens.

The three worked in concert, Kent testified, according to Connolly, on a mission to oust Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine who was removed in May, and press Ukrainian leaders to investigate the Bidens for the purpose of boosting Trump's reelection chances next year.

[...]

"And it's sort of this unholy alliance — or unholy triad — that somehow managed to seize control of U.S. foreign policy with respect to Ukraine," Connolly continued. "And as [Kent] said, the consequence would [be to] undermine 28 years of our efforts to promote the rule of law by actually doing something corrupt ourselves."

A source familiar with the matter also said Kent testified that while the State Department viewed former prosecutor general Viktor Shokin as corrupt, Lutsenko was considered to be just as bad.

[Connolly] also underpinned growing scrutiny of individuals who circumvented the proper channels for carrying out Ukraine policy, including acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, and former U.S. special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker.

Kent described a May 23 meeting, organized by Mulvaney, where “it was determined that ... responsibility for U.S.-Ukraine policy was to be transferred to three individuals: Volker, Sondland and [Energy Secretary] Rick Perry,” Connolly said.

[...]

“They revealed that decision at a meeting with Zelensky in Kiev, I believe on June 2,” Connolly said. “And for some Americans from the embassy, that was news to them."

[...]

The group dubbed themselves “the three amigos,” Connolly continued, citing Kent.

[...]

Republicans have loudly complained about the process, saying Democrats are selectively leaking favorable interview tidbits from closed-door hearings while failing to promptly release full transcripts of witness interviews — all complaints that Democrats similarly lodged when the GOP had majority power in the House last year.

  The Hill

Bingo. Congress is so broken. And much, but not all, of the blame for that lies on Mitch McConnell.

Up today: George Kent

George Kent, the deputy assistant secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, oversees administrative policy in a bloc of Eastern European countries, including Ukraine.

  The Hill

Not according to Sondland and Giuliani:



So we see that it's true, caged rats will eat each other.

Kent had tried to protect [US Ukraine ambassador Marie] Yovanovitch from the internal smear campaign building against her, according to documents delivered to Congress earlier this month by the State Department's inspector general.

He is being deposed by three separate committees leading the Democrats' impeachment inquiry: Intelligence, Oversight and Foreign Affairs.

The big three that are doing all the impeachent hearings.*

The details surrounding the closed-door depositions have largely been kept under wraps. Democrats have released certain details of the various testimonies — including a string of text messages, delivered by Volker, between top diplomats discussing the Ukraine affair — which they say verify the allegations against the president.

[...]

"The tragedy here — the crime here — is that the American people don't get to see what's going on in these sessions," Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio), senior Republican on the Oversight Committee, said Monday, ahead of Hill's testimony.

Yes, THAT's the crime.

Kent was another one ordered by State not to testify, but who is appearing under subpoena.  And happy to do so.

  * Matt Gaetz tried to crash the Fiona Hill hearing and was ejected.

Not sure.  I would think there are others - including Jim Jordan - who would be happy to tell all to Trump.

Hearing schedule

I agree.  The public has a need and a right to hear everything in these impeachment interviews that isn't classified.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Trump cabal is burning it all down

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo returned Monday morning from a European trip to a State Department workforce that is increasingly demoralized and resentful under his leadership, amid a growing belief that he has subordinated its mission and abandoned colleagues in the service of President Trump’s political aims.

  WaPo

Well, there's not a limited supply of whistles. They know what they can do.

The “prevailing mood is low and getting lower, if it can,” said Thomas R. Pickering, a diplomatic dean who served in high-ranking department positions and held seven ambassadorships, including to Russia and the United Nations, under six presidents of both parties.

[...]

Most worrisome to the department is concern that Pompeo did not intervene to protect U.S. diplomats either enlisted by Giuliani to assist his efforts [to pressure Ukraine] or punished for being insufficiently committed to the cause, according to more than a dozen current and former officials, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.

Trump, according to Giuliani, ordered that career diplomat Marie Yovanovitch be fired as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, and she was removed from her post in May.

[...]

Yovanovitch and George Kent, the deputy assistant secretary of state responsible for Ukraine, were accused by Giuliani and conservative media figures of trying to protect the Bidens from an investigation by Ukrainian prosectors and working at the behest of George Soros, the billionaire philanthropist. The Open Society Foundation that Soros underwrites has been one of the funders of anti-corruption and transparency causes in Ukraine, along with the U.S. Agency for International Development and the congressionally funded National Endowment for Democracy.

[...]

In internal documents turned over to Congress by the State Department inspector general last week, Kent warned in an email to colleagues that Yovanovitch had become the target of a “classic disinformation operation.”

One of the conspiracy theories pushed by Giuliani and a columnist for The Hill was that Yovanovitch provided a “do not prosecute list” to Ukrainian officials to protect Biden and others. “One key sign of it being fake is that most of the names are misspelled in English — we would never spell most that way,” Kent said in one email to colleagues.

[...]

Kent’s concerns about the smear campaign were sent to the top U.S. diplomat for Europe, Philip Reeker, and later forwarded to the No. 3 official at the department, David Hale, and State Department counselor T. Ulrich Brechbuhl, a close confidant of Pompeo.

On March 31, Reeker emailed Brechbuhl a breakdown of Kent’s concerns about the conspiracy theory against Yovanovitch, saying that “it’s a good summary of the story lines being peddled.” Yovanovitch is due to testify before investigating committees on Capitol Hill later this week. Brechbuhl and Kent, as well as Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, are also expected to provide depositions. An expected appearance by Kent on Monday was canceled.

[...]

“All of us felt like she was incredibly shabbily treated,” said a senior Western diplomat. “My understanding is that Pompeo was quite well briefed and took a passive role when the removal of Masha Yovanovitch happened. He couldn’t have been ignorant of the subject matter or the interests at play.”

[...]

Some officials insist Pompeo tried to shield Yovanovitch. As White House criticism of her rose in the spring, Pompeo “was trying to save her from what could have happened — the tweeting, and it could have gotten really bad,” said a U.S. official familiar with the matter.

“So many in the building — in the bureaus — resent what is this targeting of a career person,” this official said. “But it’s so sad that no one can tell them all that was going on to prevent a much worse outcome: a humiliating public thrashing.”

[...]

Chris Ruddy, a longtime Trump friend, said, “I don’t think Mike Pompeo should be held responsible for Rudy’s activities.”

The secretary, one person familiar with events said, was frustrated with Giuliani’s actions and was not privy to many of his conversations with Trump. Pompeo listened in on the July call between Trump and Zelensky, this person said, because he was nervous about what Trump might say.

And should have been. And kept quiet about it.

State Department officials were buoyed by Pompeo when he arrived at the department 18 months ago promising to restore their “swagger” after the tenure of the doleful and isolated Rex Tillerson, Trump’s first secretary. Now many agree with one anxious official who said that keeping up with the newest text messages and press accounts has become exhausting. “I just want the soap opera to end,” the official said.

Then get out your whistle.

Giuliani, who pressed the interests of Trump — “my client” — throughout the spring and summer in meetings and messages with diplomats and Ukrainian officials, offered a two-edged assessment of Pompeo in an interview with The Washington Post on Thursday, saying that the secretary knew everything but was a disappointment who did little.

[...]

After Giuliani said he provided the State Department with information about the perceived lack of loyalty by some department officials, he said, “I was told by the secretary they were going to investigate it internally. . . . I believed I had found someone who was going to look into this.” But Trump, he said, had to demand “three times” that Pompeo fire Yovanovitch. “The State Department was undercutting it,” Giuliani said. “They were protecting her.”

And how long do we think it will be before Trump is throwing Pompeo under the bus?

Rather than complicity in an attempted shakedown of Ukraine, according to [some], Pompeo and his diplomats were trying to facilitate a compromise that would satisfy the demands of the president and his attorney, while promoting a U.S.-Ukraine relationship that would meet the important foreign policy needs of both.

And did they really believe they could do that? They should have been pulling out the 25th amendment. They deserve no kudos.

The most comprehensively public statement of Pompeo’s views came on a European trip last week, when he spoke to journalists in Athens on Saturday. Everything the State Department had done regarding Ukraine, he said, was in the interests of the American people and “at the direction of the president.”

Interests of a handful of American people, most named Trump.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Add another charge of obstruction of justice to the impeachment articles

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo fired a broadside at House Democrats on Tuesday, saying State Department officials scheduled to appear this week before committees conducting the impeachment inquiry would not be made available until “we obtain further clarity on these matters.”

[...]

The refusal, in a letter to House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot L. Engel (D-N.Y.), described the demand for depositions by five officials who played a role in U.S. relations with Ukraine as “an attempt to intimidate, bully, and treat improperly, the distinguished professionals of the Department of State."

  WaPo

They're distinguised okay. By their undermining of the Constitution.

The committee, along with the House Intelligence and Oversight panels, had requested the five officials to appear for depositions this week and next, to begin Wednesday with Marie Yovanovitch, who was recalled by Pompeo as ambassador to Ukraine in May, prior to the end of her tour.

Other State Department officials scheduled for depositions include Kurt Volker, the administration’s special envoy to Ukraine, who resigned last week; Deputy Assistant Secretary George Kent; U.S. ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland; and State Department Counselor T. Ulrich Brechbuhl.


[...]

Saying that no subpoenas had been issued for the five depositions, he said “we are not aware of any other authority by which the committee could compel appearance at a depositions,” and that the scheduled depositions thus “could only be read as a request for a voluntary appearance of the five Department officials.”

Subpoena their asses. And then let them gain clarity in those cells in the House basement if they don't appear.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE: