WTF Just Happened Today

Wednesday, October 16, 2019

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1/ The White House is conducting its own investigation into why a rough transcript of Trump's July 25 call with Ukrainian President Zelensky was placed into a secret server for secure storage. Trump's advisers and White House lawyers began the fact-finding review to find out why deputy White House counsel, John Eisenberg, placed the rough transcript of the call in a computer system typically reserved for the country's most closely guarded secrets. Eisenberg has said he limited access to the transcript over concerns about leaks. It is unclear who asked for or initiated the review, though acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney has encouraged it and his aids are helping with it. Some officials fear the review is intended to assign blame for the impeachment inquiry. (New York Times)

2/ Mick Mulvaney put Gordon Sondland, Kurt Volker, and Energy Secretary Rick Perry in charge of managing the U.S.-Ukraine relationship instead of diplomats at the National Security Council and the State Department. The State Department's Ukraine expert, George Kent, testified during a closed-door hearing before the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs, and Oversight committees that Mulvaney was responsible for stripping control of the country's relationship with Ukraine from those who had the most expertise. Kent also told lawmakers that he had been told by a supervisor to lie low after he raised complaints about Rudy Giuliani's efforts to undermine U.S. foreign policy in Ukraine. Current and former officials said Mulvaney met frequently with Sondland and that details of their discussions were kept from then-National Security Adviser John Bolton and other officials who were raising internal concerns about the hidden Ukraine agenda. Mulvaney was also the one who, at Trump's direction, placed a hold on nearly $400 million in aid to Ukraine leading up to Trump's July 25 phone call to pressure Zelensky to pursue Giuliani’s agenda against the Bidens. (Washington Post / CNN)

• A former top White House foreign policy adviser told House impeachment investigators that she viewed Sondland as a national security risk because he was so unprepared for his job. Fiona Hill did not accuse Sondland of acting maliciously or intentionally putting the country at risk, but described him as and Trump donor-turned-ambassador. (New York Times)

• Michael McKinley, who resigned as a senior adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, testified that he quit because career diplomats had been sidelined on Ukraine. During his closed-door deposition to the House Intelligence Committee, McKinley testified about how experts had been sidelined as Trump pursued his own agenda on Ukraine. McKinley also testified that he repeatedly asked Pompeo for a show of support for the Marie Yovanovitch after she was abruptly removed from her post following a monthslong push by Trump to get rid of her on the basis of "unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives." Pompeo was silent. (New York Times / CNN)

• House Democrats requested that Acting U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor appear for a deposition in the investig...

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