Donald J. Trump ✓ @realDonaldTrump

False stories are being reported that a few Republican Senators are saying that President Trump may have done a quid pro quo, but it doesn’t matter, there is nothing wrong with that, it is not an impeachable event. Perhaps so, but read the transcript, there is no quid pro quo!

The Justice Department is demanding identifying details about the senior Trump administration official who denounced the president in a New York Times Op-Ed last year under the byline Anonymous, according to a letter from a senior law enforcement official on Monday ahead of a forthcoming book by the still-unnamed writer.

President Trump wanted Attorney General William P. Barr to hold a news conference declaring the commander in chief had broken no laws during a phone call in which he pressed his Ukrainian counterpart to investigate a political rival, though Barr ultimately declined to do so, people familiar with the matter said.

The request from Trump traveled from the president, to other White House officials, and eventually to the Justice Department. The president has mentioned Barr’s declination to associates in recent weeks, saying he wished Barr would have held the news conference, Trump advisers say.

Roger J. Stone Jr., a former aide and longtime friend of President Trump, was found guilty on Friday of obstructing a congressional investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election in what prosecutors said was an effort to protect Mr. Trump.

MagnarTheGreat wrote: ↑

January 25th, 2019, 8:31 pm

Get Me Roger Stone (2017) - IMDb



Roger Stone goes back with Paul Manafort a long way as well as Trump.

Roger Stone has a Richard Nixon tattoo. He was Nixon's dirty trickster.

New York Times - Everyone Who’s Been Charged in Investigations Related to the 2016 Election

David Holmes, the state department aide who overheard President Donald Trump's conversation with the US ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, said that Sondland told Trump that the Ukranian President would do "anything you ask him to," and that he confirmed the Ukrainians were going to "do the investigation."

"Sondland told Trump that (Ukrainian President Volodymyr) Zelensky 'loves your ass,'" Holmes said, according to a copy of his opening statement obtained by CNN. "I then heard President Trump ask, 'So, he's gonna do the investigation?' Ambassador Sondland replied that 'he's gonna do it,' adding that President Zelensky will do 'anything you ask him to.'"

Holmes explained that Sondland placed the call to Trump, and he could hear Trump because the call was so loud in the restaurant where they were with two others.

"Even though I did not take notes of those statements, I have a clear recollection that these statements were made," he added.

Holmes also confirmed Taylor's testimony about the President's thoughts on Ukraine, saying he had asked Sondland "if it was true that the President did not 'give a s--- about Ukraine."

Holmes said Sondland had responded that Trump cares only about "big stuff." When Holmes said that the Ukraine war was big, Sondland responded, " 'Big stuff' that benefits the President, like the Biden investigation that Mr. Giuliani was pushing," Holmes said.

Hill, one of the foremost U.S. experts on Russian President Vladimir Putin, appeared to take aim at Republicans on the panel, led by ranking member Rep. Devin Nunes of California, who have repeatedly questioned witnesses about alleged efforts by Ukrainians to hurt President Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign.

She said during her opening statement in the impeachment testimony that "some of you on this committee appear to believe that Russia" and its spy services didn’t attack the U.S. in 2016 "and that perhaps, somehow, for some reason, Ukraine did."

Giuliani undertook what appear to be two previous episodes of trading diplomatic favors to Ukrainians in return for steps to protect Trump from the Mueller investigation. The first apparent trade involved a meeting between Trump and Ukraine’s then-president Petro Poroshenko in return for a Ukrainian investigation that would exonerate Manafort, then a prime target of Mueller’s.

The next apparent quid pro quo took place the next year. The U.S. sold desperately needed Javelin missiles to Ukraine that year, and the New York Times reported at the time that Ukraine suspended cooperation with the Mueller investigation. (This is another one of those Trump-era episodes where a credible report of shocking misconduct immediately sinks without a trace into the vast ooze of other Trumpian outrages.) “In every possible way, we will avoid irritating the top American officials,” one Ukrainian lawmaker and close ally of President Poroshenko explained to the Times.