WTF Just Happened Today

Thursday, October 24, 2019

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1/ House Democrats could take the impeachment inquiry public as soon as mid-November. Moving the largely closed-door investigation toward the public spotlight comes as the Trump administration has tried to block witnesses and withhold documents while his allies have cast the inquiry as a smear campaign against Trump. Yesterday, House Republicans delayed proceedings for more than five hours when about two dozen of them entered and refused to leave a secure room where Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary Laura Cooper was set to testify about what happened to the military aid Trump ordered withheld from Ukraine. (Washington Post / Bloomberg)

2/ The White House's trade representative withdrew Ukraine's trade privileges as Trump was withholding $391 million in military aid and security assistance. In late August, Robert Lighthizer pulled Ukraine's trade privileges from a global trade program after John Bolton, then-national security adviser, warned him that Trump would probably oppose anything that benefited Kiev. (Washington Post)

• The White House trade adviser declined to say whether investigating the Bidens came up during trade talks with China. Peter Navarro said answering the question would "violate a principle here" and "I'm not going to talk about that stuff." (CNN)

3/ Trump's top envoy to Ukraine testified that the U.S. ambassador to the E.U. not only knew of a quid pro quo, but had also communicated the threat to Ukraine. William Taylor said he understood that on Sept. 1st, Gordon Sondland warned Andrey Yermak, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's aide, that security assistance "would not come" unless Zelensky committed to pursuing the investigation into Burisma, the energy company where Joe Biden's son held a board seat. On Sept. 9th, Sondland texted Taylor to say there was "no quid pro quos" of any kind authorized by Trump. Sondland's attorney added that his client "does not recall" such a conversation. By Taylor's account, however, Sondland already knew the terms of the quid pro quo and had relayed them to Zelensky's aide a week earlier. (Washington Post / Politico)

4/ Zelensky was concerned about pressure from the Trump administration to investigate Biden before before his July 25th call with Trump. Zelensky met with a small group of advisers on May 7th for a meeting that was supposed to be about Ukraine's energy needs. Instead, the group spent three hours talking about how they were going to handle the calls for investigations coming from Trump and Giuliani, as well as how to avoid getting wrapped up in the U.S. election process. The meeting occurred before Zelensky was inaugurated, roughly two weeks after Trump called to congratulate him the night he won the April 21st ele...

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