Andriy Derkach, an independent member of Ukraine’s parliament, said at a press conference on Tuesday that he had received recorded phone call conversations between presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden, then-vice president in the Obama administration, and former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, which Derkach reportedly played at the press conference.
The Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/ukrainian-lawmaker-releases-leaked-phone-calls-of-biden-and-poroshenko/2020/05/19/cc1e6030-9a26-11ea-b60c-3be060a4f8e1_story.html">reported</a> that the &#8220;recordings of private phone calls between former vice president Joe Biden and former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko&#8221; were &#8220;a new broadside against the presumptive Democratic nominee for U.S. president.&#8221;
The Post reports that Derkach has past links to Russian intelligence and that he claimed that the tapes were made by Poroshenko. The Post noted that the clips consisted of &#8220;edited fragments of phone conversations [between] Biden and Poroshenko&#8221; but did not dispute that the clips were authentic.
The Post said that recordings &#8220;shed relatively little new light on Biden&#8217;s actions in Ukraine,&#8221; which were hotly contested last year.
However, one particular exchange stood out as being potentially newsworthy.
It was widely <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/436816-joe-bidens-2020-ukrainian-nightmare-a-closed-probe-is-revived">reported</a> last year that Biden bragged to a group of people in 2018 that he threatened Poroshenko that if he did not fire Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company that Biden&#8217;s son, Hunter Biden, was on the board of, that the U.S. would pull $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees from Ukraine.
In one of the audio clips that Derkach allegedly released dated February 18, 2016, Poroshenko appeared to tell Biden [emphasis added]:
<blockquote>I have some positive and negative news. I will start with positive news. … Yesterday, I met with the General Prosecutor Shokin. And despite the fact that we didn’t have any corruption charges, we don’t have any information about him doing something wrong, I specifically asked him – no, it was a day before yesterday – I specifically asked him to resign &#8230; as his position as a state person. And despite of the fact that he has a support in the power and as a finish of meeting with him, he promised me to give me the statement on resignation. And one hour ago he bring me the written statement of his resignation. And this is my second step for keeping my promises.</blockquote>
USA Today <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/10/03/what-really-happened-when-biden-forced-out-ukraines-top-prosecutor/3785620002/">reported</a> last year that, according to former Obama administration officials and an anti-corruption advocate in Ukraine, the reason that Biden pushed for Shokin to be fired was that &#8220;Shokin wasn&#8217;t pursuing corruption among the country&#8217;s politicians.&#8221; The Post cites a scandal that &#8220;erupted under [Shokin&#8217;s] watch in which prosecutors were found with bags of diamonds and stashes of cash&#8221; and Shokin having &#8220;clashed with two young prosecutors whom Western officials hoped would clean up what has long been a corrupt office.&#8221;
Biden spokesman Andrew Bates responded to the release of the tapes by claiming, “They heavily edited this, and it’s still a nothingburger that landed with a thud.”
Here is how The Post summarized the aforementioned phone call:
<blockquote>In one call, Poroshenko reported to Biden that he had met with Shokin and asked for his resignation and that Shokin had, an hour before the call, complied and written a letter resigning from his post. Poroshenko described the move as the “second step of keeping my promises.”</blockquote>
The Post did not mention that Poroshenko allegedly told Biden that he didn&#8217;t &#8220;have any information about [Shokin] doing something wrong&#8221; when he asked Shokin to resign from his position, which Biden had said must happen in order for Ukraine to get the $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees.
It is not clear whether there is any missing context or comments in the alleged remarks that Poroshenko made to Biden that could change the meaning of what was said between the two.
LISTEN:
<iframe title="$1 billion of US taxpayers&#039; money in exchange for maintaining Burisma schemes" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EbmDLhJ43cU?start=240&#038;feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
President Donald Trump&#8217;s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., highlighted another leaked audio clip that allegedly showed portions of a private phone call between Biden and Poroshenko from a conversation that supposedly took place on May 13, 2016. Transcript of that clip below:
<blockquote>THEN-VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Hey Mr. President, Joe Biden. How are you?
THEN-UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT PETRO POROSHENKO: Very well indeed, as usual, when I hear your voice. Thank you very much.
BIDEN: Well you are doing very well, congratulations on getting the new Prosecutor General. I know there is a lot more that has to be done, but I really, I really think that&#8217;s, I think that&#8217;s good. And I understand your working with Rada in the coming days on a number of additional laws to secure the IMF. But congratulations on installing the new Prosecutor General, it&#8217;s going to be critical for him to work quickly to repair the damage Shokin did. And I&#8217;m a man of my word and now that the new Prosecutor General is in place, we&#8217;re ready to forward to signing that new $1 billion loan guarantee. And I don&#8217;t know how you want to go about that. I&#8217;m not going to be able to get to Kyiv anytime soon, I mean, next month or so. And, and I don&#8217;t know whether you could either sign it with our ambassador or if you came here, we could sign or if you want, we&#8217;re inviting Groysman here later. I&#8217;m going to be talking to him later this morning, not for that purpose, we&#8217;re inviting him to Washington and so I&#8217;ll leave it up to you as to how you want that done and when you want it done.
POROSHENKO: First of all, thank you very much indeed for these words of support. Believe me, that it was a very tough challenge and a very difficult job and Mrs. Tymoshenko and Mr. Lyashko fraction tried to break this because we not only voted for the new Prosecutor General, which we do in a very short period of time, within one day we changed the law. By the way, in this law we are presenting the set, the new structure of the General Prosecutor&#8217;s Office, including the General Inspection as we agreed with you. And the second thing, I immediately invited Lutsenko and said that he should contact your embassy and I would be very pleased if you will have certain person, who can come either from Washington or whatever. We have here &#8211; I don&#8217;t remember his name &#8211; the Ukrainian origin American prosecutor. He is a little bit old. I sent to the Jeffrey his name, and he was ready to come and to be assistant and adviser. He has a very good experience in the American system and he can be the person of trust within new prosecution system. I think this is exactly the right time to do that. And if he&#8217;s still ready to come and to cooperate from the very first step, from the very first minute of the new Prosecutor, that is exactly what I&#8217;m looking for.
BIDEN: Well, let me, let me get in contact with the Justice Department and pursue that. I&#8217;ll get his name and let me find out where that is, because it is in our interest, obviously, to provide professional assistance as quick as we can. So this gets up and started it in the right direction. So, I will move on that as soon as we hang up. I&#8217;ll put that in train and I&#8217;ll get back to you as to what we are, what I am able to do.
POROSHENKO: Absolutely. Second, thank you very much indeed, this is exactly what I am looking for. The second thing is that I want to thank you that you give me your word that immediately when we change the legislation and I appoint the new Prosecutor General, and it would be Yuriy Lutsenko as we agreed on our previous meeting in Washington and when it happen, we can have this loan guarantee and thank you very much&#8230;</blockquote>
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Yikes!!!! This is not a “perfect conversation” 
An audio recording of a conversation between Joe Biden and Petro Poroshenko on May 13, 2016 &#8211; YouTube <a href="https://t.co/7R2YxzDpGM">https://t.co/7R2YxzDpGM</a>
&mdash; Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) <a href="https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/1262855485574787073?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 19, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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US Vice President Joe Biden visits Kyiv

Ukrainian Lawmaker Releases Recorded Phone Calls Of Biden, Poroshenko That Contain Eyebrow-Raising Remarks

Joe Biden

Russia

Ukraine

After signaling otherwise earlier in the week, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) — a frequent critic of President Trump and the lone Republican to vote guilty on one of the Democrats&#8217; articles of impeachment — is going to vote in favor of subpoenaing a consultant connected to Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian energy company that paid Hunter Biden tens of thousands of dollars a month to serve on its board while his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, headed up U.S.-Ukraine relations.
On Thursday, Romney indicated that he was leaning toward once again breaking with his fellow Republicans to reject the measure, <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/486130-romney-biden-burisma-probe-appears-political">telling</a> reporters, &#8220;There&#8217;s no question but that the appearance of looking into Burisma and Hunter Biden appears political, and I think people are tired of these kind of political investigations.&#8221; The senator added that he &#8220;would prefer that investigations are done by an independent, nonpolitical body.&#8221;
But, as <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/486311-romney-to-vote-for-burisma-subpoena">The Hill</a> reports, Romney&#8217;s spokeswoman Liz Johnson said Friday that after meeting with the senator who&#8217;s leading the investigation, Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee Ron Johnson (R-WI), Romney has decided to support the subpoena of former Blue Star Strategies consultant Andrii Telizhenko.
&#8220;Senator Romney has expressed his concerns to Chairman Johnson, who has confirmed that any interview of the witness would occur in a closed setting without a hearing or public spectacle,&#8221; said Johnson. &#8220;He will therefore vote to let the Chairman proceed to obtain the documents that have been offered.&#8221;
With Romney agreeing to vote for the subpoena, Johnson has the simple majority necessary to issue the subpoena requiring Telizhenko to potentially provide relevant documents to and speak with the panel as part of its investigation into potential corruption involving Burisma and the Bidens.
<div dir="ltr">Romney&#8217;s decision, which gives the Republican-led panel an 8-6 majority, is &#8220;a blow to Democrats, who have warned that Johnson could inadvertently help spread Russian misinformation or use the investigation to target former Vice President Joe Biden as his presidential campaign has a burst of new momentum,&#8221; The Hill notes. </div>
The subpoena the panel is now poised to pass involves Washington-based consulting firm Blue Star Strategies, which worked with Burisma and which referenced Hunter Biden in its communications with the State Department on Burisma&#8217;s behalf, as reported by the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/firm-hired-by-ukraines-burisma-tried-to-use-hunter-biden-as-leverage-documents-show-11573009615?mod=article_inline" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Wall Street Journal</a>.
As <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/senator-gives-updates-on-biden-burisma-investigation-biden-trump-respond">The Daily Wire</a> reported, Johnson provided some updates to the press this week on his panel’s investigation into potential Ukrainian corruption involving Burisma. The Senate Homeland Security Committee chair told reporters Wednesday that he expects to release an interim report on the investigation within one to two months.
Referencing then-Vice President Joe Biden&#8217;s successful pressuring of Ukraine&#8217;s president to remove Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, who was pushing to investigate potential corruption involving Burisma, Johnson told reporters Wednesday, “[I]f I were a Democrat primary voter, I’d want these questions satisfactorily answered before I cast my final vote.&#8221;
&#8220;My investigations are not focused on the Bidens. They’re just not,” Johnson said. “But I can’t ignore them because they’re part of the story. They made themselves part of the story. If there’s wrongdoing, the American people need to know it. If there is no wrongdoing or nothing significant, the American people need to understand that as well.&#8221;
In an appearance on Fox News Wednesday, Johnson <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/ron-johnson-works-to-verify-document-about-apology-by-burisma-tied-firm-to-fired-top-ukraine-prosecutor-for-misinformation-campaign">said</a>, &#8220;I know it was a big explanation that everybody wanted him fired, but there is a document, we have to verify it, but there is a document supposedly contemporaneous that said that the contact by Blue Star to the prosecutor general’s office was all about apologizing for the misinformation campaign conducted against Shokin. Kind of raises some eyebrows, some questions that need to be answered.&#8221;
Biden has consistently denied any wrongdoing, portraying the Republicans&#8217; interest in Burisma and the removal of Shokin as conspiratorial and politically motivated. On Wednesday, Biden’s campaign <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/senator-gives-updates-on-biden-burisma-investigation-biden-trump-respond">responded</a> to Johnson’s statements to the press by saying the committee chair just did the Democratic frontrunner &#8220;an enormous favor.&#8221; &#8220;Senator Johnson just accidentally did us an enormous favor by explicitly admitting that he is abusing congressional authority in a manner that would make the founding fathers spin in their graves,&#8221; said campaign spokesman Andrew Bates.
Trump also responded to Johnson&#8217;s announcement about the release of the interim report, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/senator-gives-updates-on-biden-burisma-investigation-biden-trump-respond">telling</a> Fox News Wednesday night, that Burisma remains &#8220;a major issue&#8221; for Biden and vowing to &#8220;bring that up all the time because I don’t see any way out&#8221; for Biden.

Mitt Romney

In Blow To Democrats, Mitt Romney To Back Burisma Subpoena Connected To Bidens

2020 Election

Burisma

Hunter Biden

The chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee provided an update Wednesday on his panel&#8217;s investigation into potential corruption involving Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings and then-Vice President Joe Biden, who pressured the Ukrainian government to fire a prosecutor that was pushing to investigate the company, which was then employing Biden&#8217;s son.
An interim report on the investigation, said Senate Homeland Security Committee Chair Ron Johnson, will be released within the next two months, and it will likely include a document the panel believes may be key to determining if wrongdoing took place. The document involves a Washington-based firm representing Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company that was paying Biden&#8217;s son tens of thousands a month at the time to serve on its board despite his lack of expertise in the industry or region.
&#8220;These are questions that Joe Biden has not adequately answered,&#8221; Johnson told reporters Wednesday, as reported by <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/04/joe-biden-probe-2020-election-120924">Politico</a>. &#8220;And if I were a Democrat primary voter, I’d want these questions satisfactorily answered before I cast my final vote.&#8221;
&#8220;My investigations are not focused on the Bidens. They’re just not,&#8221; Johnson said. &#8220;But I can’t ignore them because they’re part of the story. They made themselves part of the story. If there’s wrongdoing, the American people need to know it. If there is no wrongdoing or nothing significant, the American people need to understand that as well.&#8221;
The panel is likely to release its interim report within one to two months, Johnson announced.
In an interview with Fox News&#8217; Martha MacCallum on Wednesday, Johnson said his committee is working to verify a document that describes an apology for the &#8220;misinformation campaign&#8221; against former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, who was working to investigate Burisma at the time Biden pressured Ukraine to remove him.
&#8220;I know it was a big explanation that everybody wanted him fired, but there is a document, we have to verify it, but there is a document supposedly contemporaneous that said that the contact by Blue Star to the prosecutor general’s office was all about apologizing for the misinformation campaign conducted against Shokin,&#8221; said Sen. Johnson, as reported by the <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/ron-johnson-works-to-verify-document-about-apology-by-burisma-tied-firm-to-fired-top-ukraine-prosecutor-for-misinformation-campaign">Washington Examiner</a>. &#8220;Kind of raises some eyebrows, some questions that need to be answered.&#8221;
Johnson highlighted the document in a recent memo to the committee saying that it might be necessary to subpoena employees of Blue Star Strategies, which, as the Examiner notes, &#8220;mentioned Hunter Biden in communications with the State Department in an apparent effort to improve its image in Washington, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/firm-hired-by-ukraines-burisma-tried-to-use-hunter-biden-as-leverage-documents-show-11573009615?mod=article_inline" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">according to a</a> Wall Street Journal report.&#8221;
Biden&#8217;s campaign responded to Johnson&#8217;s statement about the Democratic frontrunner on Wednesday, telling Politico that the committee chair just did them &#8220;an enormous favor.&#8221;
&#8220;Senator Johnson just accidentally did us an enormous favor by explicitly admitting that he is abusing congressional authority in a manner that would make the founding fathers spin in their graves,&#8221; said campaign spokesman Andrew Bates.
But Trump sees things differently. In an appearance on Fox News Wednesday night, the president called Burisma &#8220;a major issue&#8221; for Biden&#8217;s campaign and promised to &#8220;bring that up all the time because I don&#8217;t see any way out&#8221; for Biden.
As Biden has openly touted, when he was heading up U.S.-Ukraine relations, he threatened to withhold a billion dollars of aid to Ukraine if Shokin was not removed. The gambit worked and Shokin was ousted in March 2016. Shokin claims he was removed specifically because he was working to investigate Hunter Biden&#8217;s lucrative Burisma deal, which started in 2014 and lasted over four years. The issue was at the heart of the Democrats&#8217; impeachment of Trump, as the president asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the famous July 25 call to &#8220;look into&#8221; the question of potential corruption involving Burisma and the Bidens.

Hunter Biden and Joe Biden

Senator Gives Updates On Biden-Burisma Investigation; Biden, Trump Respond

Donald Trump

In an interview Thursday, President Trump, who has been enjoying a victory lap after being acquitted on both articles of impeachment by the Senate last week, openly acknowledged that he sent Rudy Giuliani to Ukraine to pursue corruption investigations and explained his rationale for choosing to use his personal lawyer rather than intelligence officials.
The transcript of Trump&#8217;s famous July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — which Trump released to the public in September along with the whistleblower complaint that sparked the impeachment inquiry — contains Trump stating that Giuliani would be involved in follow-up conversations about corruption investigations. Though Trump clearly states that Giuliani will be involved, he later denied in a November interview having &#8220;directed&#8221; Giuliani to &#8220;do anything&#8221; in Ukraine.
On Thursday, the recently acquitted Trump felt free to openly discuss Giuliani&#8217;s role in Ukraine and the reason he feels more comfortable turning to the former trial lawyer than intelligence officials.
&#8220;Was it strange to send Rudy Giuliani to Ukraine, your personal lawyer? Are you sorry you did that?&#8221; Geraldo Rivera asked Trump in an interview for the &#8220;<a href="https://www.spreaker.com/user/9809239/roadkill-potus">Roadkill with Geraldo Rivera</a>&#8221; podcast Thursday, as reported by <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/13/politics/trump-rudy-giuliani-ukraine-interview/index.html">CNN</a>.
&#8220;No, not at all,&#8221; said Trump, describing Giuliani, as he has multiple times in the past, as a strong &#8220;crime fighter.&#8221;
Trump then offered a succinct explanation of his rationale for turning to Giuliani for such a task. &#8220;Here&#8217;s my choice: I deal with the [Former FBI Director James] Comeys of the world, or I deal with Rudy,&#8221; he said, citing his &#8220;very bad taste&#8221; for the intelligence community, with which Trump has been in a longtime public feud over how they&#8217;ve handled his 2016 campaign and the early stages of his presidency.
&#8220;So when you tell me, why did I use Rudy, and one of the things about Rudy, number one, he was the best prosecutor, you know, one of the best prosecutors, and the best mayor,&#8221; the president told Rivera. &#8220;But also, other presidents had them. FDR had a lawyer who was practically, you know, was totally involved with government. Eisenhower had a lawyer. They all had lawyers.&#8221;
The open acknowledgment of having sent Giuliani to Ukraine is the first by Trump since he told former Fox News host Bill O&#8217;Reilly in a late-November interview, in the midst of the Democrats&#8217; impeachment campaign, that he didn&#8217;t &#8220;direct&#8221; Giuliani to do anything in Ukraine.
&#8220;So you didn&#8217;t direct him to go to Ukraine to do anything or put any heat on them?&#8221; asked O&#8217;Reilly, as <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/27/politics/donald-trump-rudy-giuliani-ukraine/index.html">CNN</a> reported at the time.
&#8220;No, I didn&#8217;t direct him, but he&#8217;s a warrior, Rudy&#8217;s a warrior,&#8221; said Trump. &#8220;Rudy went, he possibly saw something. But you have to understand, Rudy (has) other people that he represents,&#8221; said Trump, who noted that the former New York City mayor has &#8220;done work in Ukraine for years.&#8221;
Giuliani&#8217;s actions in Ukraine became a major focus of the Democrats&#8217; impeachment inquiry. In late September, Democratic impeachment leaders <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/read-it-house-subpoenas-rudy-giuliani-heres-the-letter">subpoenaed</a> Giuliani, who <a href="https://www.lawfareblog.com/giuliani-cannot-rely-attorney-client-privilege-avoid-congressional-testimony">argued</a> that he was protected by attorney-client privilege.
&#8220;Our inquiry includes an investigation of credible allegations that you acted as an agent of the President in a scheme to advance his personal political interests by abusing the power of the Office of the President,&#8221; read the letter, signed by multiple Democrat-led committee chairmen. &#8220;A growing public record, including your own statements, indicate that the President, you, and others appear to have pressed the Ukrainian government to pursue two politically -motivated investigations. The first is a prosecution of Ukrainians who provided evidence against Mr. Trump’s convicted campaign chairman, Paul Manafort. The second relates to former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who is challenging President Trump for the presidency in 2020.&#8221;
&#8220;For example, on September 19, 2019, you admitted on national television that you personally asked the government of Ukraine to target Vice President Biden,&#8221; the letter continued. &#8220;During an interview on CNN, Chris Cuomo asked you, ‘Sir, you did ask Ukraine to look into Joe Biden?’ You responded, ‘Of course I did.’ In addition to this stark admission, you stated more recently that you are in possession of evidence — in the form of text messages, phone records, and other communications—indicating that you were not acting along and that other Trump Administration officials may have been involved in this scheme.&#8221;
Rather than waiting on the courts to rule on whether some Trump administration officials would be required to testify, the Democrats fast-tracked the impeachment inquiry, resulting in some key figures, particularly former national security adviser John Bolton, never testifying — an issue that Senate Democrats unsuccessfully attempted to use slow down the Senate trial. Trump was ultimately acquitted on both impeachment articles, abuse of power failing 48-52 and obstruction of justice 47-53.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/report-justice-department-has-been-quietly-reviewing-ukraine-materials-for-several-weeks-separate-from-durham-probe">Report: Justice Department Has Been ‘Quietly’ Reviewing Ukraine Materials For Several Weeks, Separate From Durham Probe</a>

Rudy Giuliani

Trump Explains Why He Sent Giuliani To Ukraine Instead Of Intelligence Officials

James Comey

Volodymyr Zelensky

United States Attorney General William Barr confirmed on Monday that the Department of Justice (DOJ) has established an intake process to review information on 2020 Democratic Party presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, regarding their dealings in Ukraine.
&#8220;General Barr, Senator Graham says that Rudy Giuliani will be providing the Department information related to the Ukraine and the Bidens,&#8221; a reporter said to Barr during a news conference. &#8220;What is the process for receiving this information? Who will evaluate it? And is this something that you feel you need to recuse yourself from?&#8221;
“As I’ve previously said, the DOJ has the obligation to have an open door to anybody who wishes to provide us information that they think is relevant, but as I did say to Senator Graham, we have to be very careful with respect to any information coming from Ukraine,&#8221; Barr responded. &#8220;There are a lot of agendas in Ukraine, there are a lot of cross currents, and we can’t take anything we receive from Ukraine at face value.&#8221;
Barr added, &#8220;And for that reason, we had established an intake process in the field so that any information coming in about Ukraine could be carefully scrutinized by the department and its intelligence community partners so that we could asses its provenance and its credibility and that is true for all information that comes to the department relating to Ukraine, including anything Mr. Giuliani might provide.&#8221;
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Attorney General Bill Barr confirms to <a href="https://twitter.com/PierreTABC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@PierreTABC</a> that the Justice Department is reviewing documents about Joe Biden provided by Rudy Giuliani from Ukraine, but offers a note of caution about the origin of the materials: &quot;We have to be very careful.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/UYkHEiZq8F">https://t.co/UYkHEiZq8F</a> <a href="https://t.co/iYHSDwnaM7">pic.twitter.com/iYHSDwnaM7</a>
&mdash; ABC News (@ABC) <a href="https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1226921165886820355?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 10, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The reporter&#8217;s question was based on remarks that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) made on Sunday during an interview with CBS host Margaret Brennan.
&#8220;Has the Department of Justice been ordered to investigate the Bidens?&#8221; Brennan asked.
&#8220;No,&#8221; Graham responded. &#8220;The Department of Justice is receiving information coming out of the Ukraine from Rudy. &#8230; He told me that they&#8217;ve created a process that Rudy could give information and they would see if it&#8217;s verified. Rudy Giuliani is a well-known man. He&#8217;s a crime fighter. He&#8217;s loyal to the president. He&#8217;s a good lawyer.&#8221;
&#8220;But what I&#8217;m trying to say — to the president and anybody else, that the Russians are still up to it,&#8221; Graham continued. &#8220;Deterrence is not working. So, let&#8217;s look at Hunter Biden&#8217;s conflict. Let&#8217;s look at Joe Biden. Vice President Biden, what did you do when they told you your son was on Burisma&#8217;s board? It undercuts your ability to fight corruption. Did you take it seriously? Obviously he didn&#8217;t.&#8221;
The news comes after Yahoo News reported last week that the U.S. Senate has received “highly sensitive” financial records on Hunter Biden from the U.S. Treasury Department.
“Sens. Charles Grassley, chairman of the Finance Committee; Ron Johnson, chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee; and Lindsey Graham, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, have focused their efforts in Washington, seeking to extract politically useful information from agencies of the U.S. government,” Yahoo News <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/treasury-department-sent-information-on-hunter-biden-to-expanding-gop-senate-inquiry-161846826.html">reported</a>. “They’ve issued letters requesting records from Cabinet departments and agencies, including the State Department, the Treasury, the Justice Department, the FBI, the National Archives and the Secret Service.”
“Grassley and Johnson have sought to obtain some of the most sensitive and closely held documents in all of federal law enforcement — highly confidential suspicious activity reports (SARs) filed by financial institutions with FinCEN, an agency of the Treasury that helps to police money laundering,” Yahoo News added. “A source familiar with the matter said the Treasury began turning over materials less than two months after Grassley and Johnson wrote to FinCEN on Nov. 15, 2019, requesting any SARs and related documents filed by financial institutions regarding Hunter Biden, his associates, their businesses and clients.”

Attorney General William Barr Makes Announcement On Cyber-Related Law Enforcement Action

DOJ Has ‘Established An Intake Process’ To Review Biden-Ukraine Info From Giuliani

Democratic Party

Department of Justice

William Barr

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani says there are three witnesses who are ready to &#8220;name names&#8221; in an investigation into Hunter Biden and corruption in Ukraine, where the former vice president&#8217;s son once held a lucrative job on the board of national energy company, Burisma.
In an interview with Jesse Watters on Fox News&#8217; &#8220;Watters&#8217; World,&#8221; President Trump&#8217;s personal lawyer said he&#8217;s found &#8220;the smoking gun.&#8221;
Giuliani said he wants to make sure Trump &#8212; who was impeached by the Democrat-controlled House and charged with abuse of power and obstruction of justice &#8212; is &#8220;totally vindicated.&#8221; Trump was acquitted on those charges by the Senate last week
&#8220;I want to prove what happened,&#8221; Giuliani said, &#8220;because I believe if we prove what happened, he will be totally vindicated.&#8221;
Watters asked Giuliani &#8220;if he had any documentation regarding Hunter Biden&#8217;s business dealings in Ukraine&#8221; before adding that Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) &#8220;will be investigating that,&#8221; <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/rudy-giuliani-tells-sen-graham-to-get-started-on-the-hunter-biden-investigation">Fox</a> reported.
&#8220;Lindsey, get started,&#8221; Giuliani said, laughing, before declaring he had &#8220;what I used to call when I was U.S. attorney, the smoking gun.&#8221;
&#8220;We&#8217;ve got the documents, Lindsey,&#8221; Giuliani declared. “This is a money laundering transaction. &#8230; It’s about $14.6 million. It’s a notice from the Latvian government to the Ukrainian government that Hunter Biden is under investigation for corruption.”
&#8220;I’ll simplify it. $14.8 million goes from Ukraine to a company in Latvia, disguised as a loan. Then it goes from Latvia to another company disguised as another loan, in Cyprus. And then it goes to the U.S. where we lose track of it because when [former Ukraine prosecutor Viktor] Shokin gets it, just about the day he’s fired, there’s no money in here for Devon Archer and Hunter Biden. Everybody else, their money is listed,&#8221; Giuliani said.
Hunter Biden was paid more than $80,000 a month to serve as a “ceremonial figure” by the Ukrainian company Burisma, which hired him “as a helpful non-executive director with a powerful name,” according to a report published in October.
<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hunter-biden-ukraine-idUSKBN1WX1P7">Reuters News Agency</a> interviewed more than a dozen people for the report, including executives and former prosecutors in Ukraine, to “paint a picture of a director who provided advice on legal issues, corporate finance and strategy during a five-year term on the board, which ended in April of this year.”
Burisma Holdings is one of Ukraine’s largest natural gas companies. By the end of Biden’s term, the company had paid $3.4 million to Rosemont Seneca Bohai LLC, a company headed by Hunter Biden’s business partner Devon Archer. From Reuters:
<blockquote>Specifically, the records show 18 months in which two payments of $83,333 per month were paid to Rosemont Seneca Bohai for &#8216;consulting services.&#8217; The two sources said that one of those monthly payments was intended for Biden and one for Archer. Reuters was not able to independently verify the authenticity of the documents or how much money Hunter Biden received.</blockquote>
Giuliani said he also has information on former Trump campaign head Paul Manafort.
“I could take it back to January of 2016,” Giuliani said. “A possibility the whistle-blower was there, NSC meeting – NSC, Obama, and Biden representatives tell Ukrainian officials, ‘Get me dirt on [former Trump campaign head Paul] Manafort.’ I have three witnesses there.”
Giuliani named three people: “Andrei Teleschenko, Constantine Kulyuk, Nazar Kholodnitskiy … three witnesses are willing to get on the witness stand and say that in January 2016, members of Obama’s NSC violated the law Mueller was investigating Trump for violating. They asked foreigners for dirty information on an American citizen who was going to be involved in a political campaign.”
&#8220;There’s no doubt who was at that meeting,” Giuliani said, adding, “The ‘Manafort black book’ was intended to blow the Trump campaign up.”
&nbsp;

Houston Astros v New York Yankees

Rudy Giuliani Claims He’s Found ‘Smoking Gun’ On Hunter Biden

corruption

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) says the Senate Intelligence Committee will call the whistleblower, who alerted an inspector general about comments made between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on a phone call last July, to appear and testify in front of a Congressional panel.
The Senate Intelligence Committee will reportedly investigate how the whistleblower, reportedly a CIA analyst, came in contact with information about the call, and why the analyst approached the intelligence community&#8217;s inspector general. They&#8217;ll then move on to how the whistleblower got into contact with Rep. Adam Schiff&#8217;s (D-CA) office and whether Schiff or his staff had advance knowledge of the whistleblower&#8217;s claims.
Graham made the comments on Fox News Channel&#8217;s &#8220;Sunday Morning Futures.&#8221;
&#8220;The Senate Intel Committee under Richard Burr (R-NC) has told us that they will call the whistleblower,&#8221; Graham told host Maria Bartiromo. &#8220;I want to understand how all this crap started.&#8221;
Some Republicans theorize that Schiff&#8217;s office had a special line to the whistleblower because at least two of Schiff&#8217;s staffers &#8220;worked alongside the CIA official some believe to be the whistleblower at the NSC in the Obama and Trump administrations,&#8221; according to the <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/lindsey-graham-senate-intelligence-committee-will-call-ukraine-whistleblower">Washington Examiner</a>.
Schiff initially claimed that his office had no contact with the whistleblower before the whistleblower filed a complaint with the inspector general alleging that Trump offered to authorize an influx of foreign aid for the Ukraine if Ukrainian officials agreed to investigate whether former Vice President Joe Biden abused his power during the Obama years, waving Ukrainian prosecutors off oil and gas company, Burisma, which employed his son, Hunter.
The House Intelligence Committee chair was later forced to clarify his comments, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/03/politics/adam-schiff-whistleblower-timeline/index.html">per CNN</a>, after The New York Times and others reported &#8220;that the whistleblower had reached out to a House Intelligence Committee aide before filing the whistleblower complaint. The committee directed the whistleblower to report it to the intelligence community inspector general, which is standard committee protocol when intelligence community officials bring concerns to the committee.&#8221; The whistleblower also reportedly <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/ukraine-whistleblower-did-not-inform-inspector-general-of-contact-with-adam-schiffs-panel">failed to tell the inspector general</a> that he met with Schiff&#8217;s staff.
Schiff, who had been focusing on Trump&#8217;s tax records and his alleged ties to Russian financiers, suddenly pivoted to an investigation into whether Trump inked a &#8220;quid pro quo&#8221; agreement with Ukraine without explanation last fall and the timing, Republicans say, is suspect.
Graham also told Bartiromo that he and Burr are interested in whether the whistleblower has ties to the Biden family.
&#8220;If the whistleblower is a former employee of — associate of Joe Biden, I think that would be important. If the whistleblower was working with people on Schiff’s staff that wanted to take Trump down a year-and-a-half ago, I think that would be important. If the Schiff staff people helped write the complaint, that would be important. We’re going to get to the bottom of all of this to make sure this never happens again,&#8221; he said.
Republicans were reticent to call the whistleblower to testify in front of either the Senate Intelligence or Judiciary Committee during the House impeachment inquiry. With the impeachment trial likely concluding on Wednesday, Graham and Burr now feel free to proceed with investigations &#8212; and Graham says there will be investigations.
&#8220;Let me tell Republicans out there. You should expect us to do this. If we don’t do it, we’re letting you down. I guarantee you: if [the] shoe were on the other foot, Democrats would be eating us alive if Republicans had done any of these things,&#8221; Graham concluded Sunday.

Lindsey Graham

Senate Intelligence Committee Will Call Ukraine Whistleblower To Testify, Lindsey Graham Reveals

whistleblower

A leaked audio recording from January 8, the day that Iran shot down a Ukrainian passenger plane, reportedly shows that Iran immediately knew that it had shot down the plane.
The revelation was made on a Ukrainian television station on Sunday night when an audio recording of a &#8220;pilot of another plane can be heard saying he saw &#8216;the light of a missile&#8217; in the sky before Ukrainian International Airways flight 752 crashed in an explosion,&#8221; Reuters reported.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that the audio proved &#8220;that the Iranian side knew from the start that our plane had been hit by a missile.&#8221;
Reuters added that Iran, which falsely denied responsibility for three days, blamed Ukraine for the release of the audio file which it reportedly described as &#8220;confidential evidence.&#8221;
Iran also indicated that it would no longer share evidence with Ukraine regarding the crash.
Reuters also noted that Ukraine International Airways said in a statement that the recording provided “yet more proof that the UIA airplane was shot down with a missile, and there were no restrictions or warnings from dispatchers of any risk to flights of civilian aircraft in the vicinity of the airport.”
Suspicions around what led to the crash went mainstream after photographs from the crash site showed bulldozers destroying the scene of the crash.
&#8220;Iran has used bulldozers to clear away debris at the site of Ukrainian airliner crash, potentially destroying evidence as Tehran continues to deny Western allegations that one of its own missiles downed the jet, killing all 176 people on board,&#8221; The Times of Israel reported. &#8220;Photos from the site show at least one bulldozer clearing away wreckage and Giancarlo Fiorella of Bellingcat, a journalism website that focuses on fact-finding, said the group had verified pictures of other bulldozers at work at the scene, calling it &#8216;distressing.'&#8221;
Fiorella told a British news station: “It’s distressing, this is a potential crime scene, if this was a shoot down you don’t want to disturb the crash site before a thorough investigation has taken place. The presence of heavy machinery, the bulldozing of the wreckage is very distressing.”
Immediately following the crash, Iran <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/passenger-plane-crashes-in-iran-now-iran-wont-turn-over-black-box-to-boeing">said</a> that it would not turn over the black box from the plane to Boeing, but instead would give it to one of its allies.
Several days after falsely denying responsibility, Iran admitted that it shot down the plane but blamed the United States for its actions.
“It is unfortunate that the psychological operation of the US government and those supporting it are adding insult to the injury of the bereaved families and victimising them for certain goals by propagating such fallacies,” Iranian Government spokesman Ali Rabiei <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7872337/Iran-accuses-big-lie-missile-claims.html">said</a>. “No one will assume responsibility for such a big lie once it is known that the claim had been fraudulent.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif wrote on Twitter: “A sad day. Preliminary conclusions of internal investigation by Armed Forces: Human error at time of crisis caused by US adventurism led to disaster. Our profound regrets, apologies and condolences to our people, to the families of all victims, and to other affected nations.”
Iran&#8217;s talking points on the crash closely aligned with the talking points of some Democrats.
Democrat presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/just-despicable-democrat-pete-buttigieg-blasted-for-blaming-u-s-for-iran-shooting-passenger-plane">responded</a> by saying, “Innocent civilians are now dead because they were caught in the middle of an unnecessary and unwanted military tit for tat. My thoughts are with the families and loved ones of all 176 souls lost aboard this flight.”
Democrat Rep. Jackie Speier (CA) <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-iran-admits-it-shot-down-passenger-plane-killing-176-people">said</a>, “This is yet another example of collateral damage from the actions that have been taken in a provocative way by the president of the United States.”

Iran plane crash

Leaked Audio Shows Iran Immediately Knew It Shot Down Passenger Plane

Iran

Iraq

Famed Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz, a key part of President Donald Trump&#8217;s impeachment legal defense team, is under fire for a line of argumentation he has advanced this week on the Senate floor.
“Every public official that I know believes that his election is in the public interest,” Dershowitz said on the floor, as <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/29/impeachment-q-and-a-moments-that-mattered-109272">reported</a> by Politico. “And if a president did something that he believes will help him get elected — in the public interest — that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment.”
According to Politico (which, incidentally, uses the term &#8220;unitary executive theory&#8221; while clearly <a href="https://twitter.com/josh_hammer/status/1222991659417448448">not understanding what it means</a>), Dershowitz&#8217;s contention is &#8220;well outside the mainstream of legal scholars.&#8221; The National Law Journal, which is widely read within the legal profession, also has a paywalled <a href="https://www.law.com/nationallawjournal/2020/01/30/complete-nonsense-scholars-denounce-dershowitzs-trump-trial-arguments">piece today</a> entitled, &#8220;&#8216;Complete Nonsense&#8217;: Scholars Denounce Dershowitz&#8217;s Trump Trial Arguments.&#8221;
But it is those &#8220;scholars&#8221; who are, in fact, the ones peddling nonsense. Alan Dershowitz is emphatically correct. A president&#8217;s <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-corrupt-motives-doctrine-11580343258?mod=e2two">subjective motives</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/opinion/trump-impeachment-defense.html">nebulous fusion</a> of political and national interests cannot transform <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/01/17/trumps-ukraine-money-holdup-doesnt-make-for-an-impeachable-breach-of-the-law/">constitutionally lawful conduct</a>, such as a president engaging in a core foreign policy function, into an impeachable offense.
What&#8217;s more, a &#8220;quid pro quo,&#8221; if conducted within the context of a political actor carrying out his constitutional authority, amounts to constitutionally protected free speech. I made this argument in November both here at <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-there-is-one-terrific-impeachment-defense-that-the-white-house-is-not-making">The Daily Wire</a> and at the <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/11/26/why-trumps-ukraine-demands-werent-remotely-illegal/">New York Post</a>.
&#8220;In 2014, a Texas grand jury indicted then-Gov. Rick Perry for supposedly abusing his official capacity when he threatened to withhold $7.5 million in funding for the Travis County district attorney’s public integrity unit unless the troubled DA ­resigned her post,&#8221; I wrote at the Post. This was clearly a &#8220;quid pro quo,&#8221; but it was one executed in the context of Gov. Perry exercising his authority clearly vested in him by the Texas Constitution. Therefore, I noted that &#8220;an illustrious and ideologically diverse group of legal scholars &#8230; argued that the First Amendment protects a governmental official’s right to threaten taking a lawful action to attain a preferred political outcome.&#8221; They were vindicated:
<blockquote>The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which is the Lone Star State’s highest court for criminal cases, agreed. “Public servants have a First Amendment right to engage in expression, even threats, regarding their official duties,” the court held. “Many threats that … public servants make as part of the normal functioning of government” would be criminalized under the special prosecutor’s legal theory, the court continued.</blockquote>
Returning to the current impeachment of President Trump, Democrats would be hard-pressed to argue that constitutionally protected free speech can somehow fit the &#8220;high crimes and misdemeanors&#8221; impeachment criterion of Article II. After all, political exchanges for political value are utterly commonplace in our politics: Every high school civics student learns about the congressional practice of <a href="https://www.dictionary.com/browse/logrolling">logrolling</a>.
And it is simply implausible to argue that a political actor&#8217;s exercising his constitutional authority and engaging in constitutionally protected free speech could somehow become impeachable due to the &#8220;corrupt&#8221; or &#8220;mixed&#8221; nature of that political actor&#8217;s subjective motives. A couple of hypothetical examples should suffice.
In our first hypothetical, a president running for re-election has become particularly interested in prosecuting and deporting Nazis — not &#8220;alt-right&#8221; dolts, but actual, living Nazis. This is something that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/08/21/us-deports-former-nazi-guard-germany-says-many-more-are-under-investigation/">still happens</a> in America today. In our hypothetical, the president who has suddenly deemed the prosecution and deportation of Nazis a compelling national interest is fighting hard to win Florida, where he is polling neck-and-neck with his rival. He is set to campaign next week in Florida, and is hoping to make inroads with Florida&#8217;s large Jewish community. At the same time, it turns out that the particular high-profile Nazi the president wants to prosecute and deport is elusive, but a certain European country — let&#8217;s call it Ukraine — has highly pertinent information about that Nazi&#8217;s whereabouts. Is it modern Democrats&#8217; contention that the president cannot here delay foreign aid disbursement to Ukraine and only release the aid on the condition that Ukraine pledges to assist the president hunt down the specific Nazi of his ire?
In our simpler second hypothetical, the facts on the ground are the precise same as they are in real life, but for one tiny difference: Joe Biden is not seeking the 2020 Democratic Party presidential nomination. Is it really modern Democrats&#8217; contention that Biden&#8217;s mere presence in the 2020 Democratic field (1) outright immunizes him and his son from public scrutiny about past activities, (2) ties the president&#8217;s hands with respect to ferreting out corruption in Ukraine, and (3) turns constitutionally protected free speech into activity so nefarious so as to be impeachable?
The Democrats&#8217; theory of impeachment is implausible. Worse, it would set an exceedingly dangerous precedent for future partisan impeachments. In our messy system of American politics, there is no such thing as a fine line distinguishing the personal from the national. A political actor, while engaging in constitutionally permissible conduct, is fully within his right to pursue a policy that he simultaneously believes to be in both the national and his personal interest.

Alan Dershowitz at Senate impeachment trial

HAMMER: Alan Dershowitz Is Right. ‘Mixed Motive’ Presidential Quid Pro Quos Are Not Impeachable.

Alan Dershowitz

Constitution

Foreign Policy

Impeachment

Judicial Branch

Judiciary

Lawsuit

U.S. Senate

After the unveiling of President Donald Trump’s proposed peace plan in the Middle East, numerous Senate Democrats took time out of their busy schedule to lecture him about Middle East politics. <a href="https://www.vanhollen.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Van%20Hollen%20Letter%20MidEast%20Peace%20Plan.pdf">The letter they wrote</a> is historically ignorant and dangerous, which is compounded by the fact that it was signed by three leading current presidential candidates; Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN).
“Dear President Trump,” the letter begins, “We write to express our profound concern regarding your decision to release a one-sided Israeli-Palestinian plan forged without any Palestinian involvement or support.”
Right off the bat, Senate Democrats ignore the fact that the Palestinians have been invited to the negotiations on numerous occasions. The most prominent one was June 2019, when there was a U.S.-led peace conference in Bahrain that was boycotted by the Palestinians. They thought that a boycott would stop the conference, but Jared Kushner, the point-man for the Trump administration in this process, pushed forward.
Trump&#8217;s peace plan would ultimately give the Palestinians a state, as well as funds to help get that state up and running. The 1947 U.N. partition plan, which the Arab world outright rejected in choosing instead to declare all-out war on the nascent Jewish state, did not include $50 billion. In fact, the world mostly stood by and watched while the Jewish state was attacked from every direction.
Senate Democrats&#8217; letter espouses significant falsehoods, claiming that this plan “paves the way for full or partial Israeli annexation of the West Bank.” But there has never been much support for a call to fully annex Judea and Samaria, as that would include giving citizenship to millions of Palestinian-Arabs — many of whom call for the destruction of the state of Israel.
Senate Democrats also, un-ironically, claim that this plan “undermine[s] existing U.S. policy regarding the unilateral annexation of Crimea, eastern Ukraine.” In case the Democrats forgot, Russia invaded Crimea when the Obama administration withheld crucial military aid to the Ukranians. That was not a defensive war; it was an attack by Russia. Comparing that act with Israel winning territory in the 1967 Six-Day War, which was a defensive war, is patently insane. Additionally, Russia immediately annexed Crimea, whereas Israel limited its annexation to the city of Jerusalem — the eternal capital of the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hill-the-jewish-nation">Jewish nation</a>. Contrast that to 1948, when Jordan took over that same territory, annexed it, and left the Palestinian people in refugee camps to linger and suffer until Israel militarily defeated Jordan in 1967&#8217;s defensive conflict.
Senate Democrats also conveniently ignore the last 73 years of history when they claim that “this proposal violates the Palestinians’ right to self-determination.” The Palestinians could have asserted their right to self-determination any time from 1947 through today. They can declare a state and nobody will mind. In fact, many Israelis would welcome it. In 2000, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered to Yasser Arafat the Gaza Strip, 95% of the West Bank, 5% of Israel, half of Jerusalem (including the Temple Mount), and Israeli citizenship for 50,000 Palestinians. Arafat walked away without a counteroffer and instead <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hammer-vox-lies-about-israel-again">launched the Second Intifada</a>. Democrats ignore that the Palestinians could have exercised their “right to self-determination.” Instead, they are choosing to stay as they are.
The Democrats complain about the proposed borders, referring to it as a “disconnected series of Palestinian islets.&#8221; They claim that this “would betray the vision of a sovereign Palestinian state.” Again, Palestinians could have had a say in this process. They chose not to. Additionally, the only “vision” that the Palestinians have of a Palestinian state is one that encompasses all of Israel and does not include any Jews.
The Democrats then have the audacity to accuse President Trump of interfering in the upcoming Israeli election, claiming that the timing “raises disturbing questions about [Trump&#8217;s] intention to intervene in the Israeli election process.” This accusation is audacious for multiple reasons. First, the Democratic Party at-large is currently in the middle of an impeachment of President Trump that <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/democrat-impeachment-manager-admits-that-impeachment-is-about-2020-election">Democrats themselves claim</a> is intended to prevent him from winning re-election. Second, this is the third Israeli election in the last year, so this wouldn’t affect much of anything. Third, Benny Gantz, Netanyahu’s chief political rival, endorsed this plan and <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/gantz-says-hell-bring-trump-peace-plan-before-knesset-for-vote-next-week/">is bringing it up for a parliamentary vote</a>. Finally, it is ironic that Senate Democrats are accusing Trump of interfering with Israeli elections when <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/international/236565-netanyahu-pollster-obama-role-in-election-larger-than-reported">Obama did that</a> in 2015 — and nobody cared.
Democrats continue their letter with their old and tiresome “President Trump isn’t a normal president” routine. “Your administration has already reversed decades of bipartisan U.S. policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” it reads. “Previous presidents of both parties successfully maintained the respect of both Israelis and Palestinians for the United States’ role as a credible player in difficult negotiations.” But policies that haven’t worked for 50 years should be changed. Democrats think that if they try the same thing over and over — that &#8220;thing&#8221; being caving to terrorists — there will be different results. That is the definition of insanity. Trump’s only change from the standard “two-state solution” is that it recognizes the fact that Israel is the only actor that actually wants peace.
The Democrats are making the same mistakes with the Palestinians that they did with the Iranians: The assumption that everyone wants the same thing. They do not. Palestinian leadership wants to destroy Israel. Democrats either don’t know that, or simply don’t care.
 
Moshe Hill is a political analyst and a Chovevei Zion Fellow. His work can be found on <a href="https://www.ahillwithaview.com">aHillwithaView.com</a>, <a href="https://facebook.com/aHillwithaView">facebook.com/aHillwithaView</a>, and on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/TheMoHill">@TheMoHill</a>.

President Trump Meets With Israeli PM Netanyahu At The White House

HILL: Senate Democrats’ Response To Trump’s Peace Plan Is Historically Ignorant

Amy Klobuchar

Benjamin Netanyahu

Bernie Sanders

Elizabeth Warren

Israel

Jared Kushner

Middle East

With the Senate moving closer to a decision on whether to call additional impeachment witnesses — among them former national security adviser John Bolton, who Democrats are demanding testify — President Trump tweeted out a video of an interview with Bolton from August 2019 in which he praises the president&#8217;s July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and cites the administration&#8217;s concerns about &#8220;corruption&#8221; in Ukraine.
&#8220;I will be meeting President Zelensky. He and President Trump have already spoken twice,&#8221; Bolton told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty shortly after the July 25 call that sparked the impeachment inquiry. &#8220;President called to congratulate President Zelensky on his election and then on his success in the parliamentary election. They were very warm and cordial calls. We&#8217;re hoping that they will be able to meet in Warsaw and have a few minutes together.&#8221;
&#8220;Because the success of Ukraine maintaining its freedom, its system of representative government, a free market economy — free of corruption — and dealing with the problems of the Donbass and the Crimea are high priorities here, obviously, but also high priorities for the United States, as well,&#8221; Bolton added.
&#8220;GAME OVER!&#8221; Trump captioned the video.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
GAME OVER! <a href="https://t.co/yvMa6bPqfy">pic.twitter.com/yvMa6bPqfy</a>
&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1222655839573565440?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 29, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Trump&#8217;s tweet comes amid a furious battle in the Senate over forcing a testimony from Bolton, who is shielded by executive privilege.
The leaked manuscript of Bolton&#8217;s upcoming book has thrown fuel on the fire after reports it claims that Trump told Bolton in August &#8220;that he wanted to continue freezing $391 million in security assistance to Ukraine until officials there helped with investigations into Democrats including the Bidens,&#8221; as reported by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/26/us/politics/trump-bolton-book-ukraine.html">The New York Times</a> on Sunday (formatting adjusted):
<blockquote>
President Trump told his national security adviser in August that he wanted to continue freezing $391 million in security assistance to Ukraine until officials there helped with investigations into Democrats including the Bidens, according to an unpublished manuscript by the former adviser, John R. Bolton. …
Mr. Bolton’s explosive account of the matter at the center of Mr. Trump’s impeachment trial, the third in American history, was included in drafts of a manuscript he has circulated in recent weeks to close associates. He also sent a draft to the White House for a standard review process for some current and former administration officials who write books.
Multiple people described Mr. Bolton’s account of the Ukraine affair. The book presents an outline of what Mr. Bolton might testify to if he is called as a witness in the Senate impeachment trial, the people said. The White House could use the pre-publication review process, which has no set time frame, to delay or even kill the book’s publication or omit key passages.
</blockquote>
Trump responded to the reports by forcefully denying ever telling Bolton the aid was connected to investigations into the Bidens and accusing his former national security adviser of just trying to &#8220;sell a book.&#8221;
&#8220;I NEVER told John Bolton that the aid to Ukraine was tied to investigations into Democrats, including the Bidens,&#8221; Trump tweeted. &#8220;In fact, he never complained about this at the time of his very public termination. If John Bolton said this, it was only to sell a book.&#8221;
&#8220;With that being said, the transcripts of my calls with President Zelensky are all the proof that is needed, in addition to the fact that President Zelensky &amp; the Foreign Minister of Ukraine said there was no pressure and no problems,&#8221; Trump added. &#8220;Additionally, I met with President Zelensky at the United Nations (Democrats said I never met) and released the military aid to Ukraine without any conditions or investigations – and far ahead of schedule. I also allowed Ukraine to purchase Javelin anti-tank missiles. My Administration has done far more than the previous Administration.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
I NEVER told John Bolton that the aid to Ukraine was tied to investigations into Democrats, including the Bidens. In fact, he never complained about this at the time of his very public termination. If John Bolton said this, it was only to sell a book. With that being said, the&#8230;
&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1221663763138588672?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 27, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
&#8230;(Democrats said I never met) and released the military aid to Ukraine without any conditions or investigations &#8211; and far ahead of schedule. I also allowed Ukraine to purchase Javelin anti-tank missiles. My Administration has done far more than the previous Administration.
&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1221663764971491329?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 27, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-trump-lawyer-lays-out-crucial-questions-dems-blocked-on-ukraine-whistleblower-including-biden-burisma-issue">WATCH: Trump Lawyer Lays Out Crucial Questions Dems Blocked On Ukraine Whistleblower, Including Biden-Burisma Issue</a>

Donald Trump John Bolton

‘GAME OVER’: Trump Posts Video Of Bolton Ukraine Interview, Declares Victory

John Bolton

During the impeachment trial in the Senate Wednesday, President Trump&#8217;s deputy counsel Patrick Philbin laid out a series of unanswered questions about the origins of the whistleblower complaint that sparked the Democrats&#8217; impeachment effort, including the role House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff&#8217;s (D-CA) office played and the possible motives of the whistleblower, questions about which the Democrats consistently shut down during the Schiff-led House inquiry.
One key question that has never been answered, said Philbin, is if the whistleblower, who allegedly worked with former Vice President Joe Biden — about whom the impeachment inquiry revolves — was involved in any way to the Obama administration&#8217;s handling of the potential conflict of interest with Biden and Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company that was paying Biden&#8217;s son tens of thousands a month and who Ukraine&#8217;s top prosecutor was investigating. It was this same prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, then-Vice President Biden demanded be fired, issuing his own self-admitted quid pro quo by threatening to withhold a billion dollars in aid. After then-Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko removed Shokin, the investigation into alleged corruption involving Burisma was dropped, a point <a href="https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/1221911941968465920?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1221911941968465920&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpjmedia.com%2Ftrending%2Fpam-bondi-rakes-hunter-biden-over-the-coals-exposing-burisma-corruption%2F">Trump&#8217;s impeachment lawyers have stressed in the trial</a>.
In a moment highlighted by PJ Media&#8217;s <a href="https://pjmedia.com/trending/impeachment-whistleblower-may-be-implicated-in-biden-burisma-caper-trump-lawyer-says/">Tyler O&#8217;Neil</a>, Philbin&#8217;s questions centered around due process issues in the Schiff-led impeachment inquiry stemming from the Democrats&#8217; refusal to allow Republicans to call their own witnesses and the Democrats&#8217; blocking of questions related to the whistleblower, who consulted with Schiff&#8217;s staff before submitting the complaint that started the impeachment campaign.
Philbin was called by Chief Justice John Robert to address the defense&#8217;s question: &#8220;As a fact witness who was coordinating with the whistleblower, did Manager Schiff&#8217;s handling of the impeachment inquiry create material due process issues with the President to have a fair trial?&#8221;
After arguing that we still do not know &#8220;the extent to which there was some consultation&#8221; between Schiff&#8217;s staff and the whistleblower because all the questions asked by Republicans were &#8220;shut down&#8221; by the Democrats heading up the inquiry, Philbin underscores that &#8220;as a result, any questions into determining who the whistleblower was, and what his motivations and his biases were, were also shut down.&#8221; These questions, he maintains, must be answered for there to be true due process in the case.
&#8220;If the whistleblower, as is alleged in some public reports, actually did work for then-Vice President Biden on Ukraine issues, exactly what was his role?&#8221; asked Philbin (partial transcript via O&#8217;Neil). &#8220;What was his involvement when issues were raised — we know from testimony that questions were raised — about the potential conflict of interest that the vice president then had when his son was sitting on the board of Burisma. Was the alleged whistleblower involved in any of that and in making decisions to not do anything related to that?&#8221;
&#8220;Did he have some reason to want to put the deep-six on any question raising any issue about what went on with the Bidens and Burisma and firing Shokin and withholding a billion dollars in loan guarantees and enforcing a very explicit quid pro quo — you won’t get this billion dollars until you fire him? We don’t know,&#8221; Philbin continued. &#8220;And because Manager Schiff was guiding this whole process, because he was the chairman in charge of directing the inquiry and directing it away from any of those questions, that creates a real due process defect in the record that has been presented here.&#8221;
&#8220;That is a major problem, a major defect in the way the House proceeding occurred that infects this record and means that it is not a record that could be relied upon to reach any conclusion other than an acquittal for the president,&#8221; Philbin concluded.
Video of Philbin&#8217;s questions was tweeted out by Arizona Republican Rep. Andy Biggs, who wrote, &#8220;We can&#8217;t trust the integrity of the Democrats&#8217; impeachment case. Adam Schiff misled Americans about his committee&#8217;s interactions [with] the &#8216;whistleblower.&#8217; He held secret depositions to manufacture a pro-impeachment narrative. And he blocked POTUS&#8217;s team for most of the process.&#8221;
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We can&#39;t trust the integrity of the Democrats&#39; impeachment case.
Adam Schiff misled Americans about his committee&#39;s interactions w/ the &quot;whistleblower.&quot;
He held secret depositions to manufacture a pro-impeachment narrative.
And he blocked POTUS&#39;s team for most of the process. <a href="https://t.co/Nxyn7yJee1">pic.twitter.com/Nxyn7yJee1</a>
&mdash; Rep Andy Biggs (@RepAndyBiggsAZ) <a href="https://twitter.com/RepAndyBiggsAZ/status/1222721800628514816?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 30, 2020</a></blockquote>
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&nbsp;

Patrick Philbin

WATCH: Trump Lawyer Lays Out Crucial Questions Dems Blocked On Ukraine Whistleblower, Including Biden-Burisma Issue

Adam Schiff

Shortly before a White House briefing call for the press on President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial on Saturday, Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley laid out the rules for media participants.
“The ground rules are as follows: Information on the call is on background and can be attributable to ‘sources on the president’s legal team.’ ‘Sources on the president’s legal team.’ And the call is also embargoed — the content on the call, rather — is embargoed until the conclusion of the call.”
Then he added: “As a reminder, you — by participating, you are agreeing to the ground rules. And with that, I’ll turn the call over to [sources on the president’s legal team].”
That’s how things work in Washington.
Reporters and the people they report on often — almost always — set out the terms of their interviews and phone calls beforehand. Big players like, say, a secretary of state, will insist on having some control over what’s for publication and what’s not. Usually, being able to move freely between on-the-record and off-the-record makes for a more open conversation.
That agreement is ironclad. Breaking the pact — for a reporter — means they’ve violated their word and their sources can no longer trust them. It’s the worst transgression a reporter can commit, and those who do it don’t stay in the business long. Word gets around quickly in Washington, D.C.
Which brings us to the bizarre tale of reporter Mary Louise Kelly, who works for the publicly funded National Public Radio.
Kelly sat down on Friday with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Before their interview, the reporter and her subject discussed the ground rules.
In a post-interview conversation, which garnered much press coverage, Kelly claimed, “I was taken to the secretary’s private living room, where he was waiting and where he shouted at me for about the same amount of time as the interview itself. He was not happy to have been questioned about Ukraine. He asked, ‘Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?’ He used the F-word in that sentence and many others. He asked if I could find Ukraine on a map. I said yes, and he called out for aides to bring us a map of the world with no writing. I pointed to Ukraine. He put the map away. He said, ‘People will hear about this.’”
But that’s not what happened, at least according to Pompeo.
In his own statement the next day, Pompeo said Kelly repeatedly lied to him about the parameters for the interview, and, by the way, wrongly identified Ukraine, instead pointing to Bangladesh on the map in question.
“NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly lied to me, twice,” Pompeo said. “First, last month, in setting up our interview and, then again yesterday, in agreeing to have our post-interview conversation off the record. It is shameful that this reporter chose to violate the basic rules of journalism and decency.&#8221;
“This is another example of how unhinged the media has become in its quest to hurt President Trump and this administration. It is no wonder that the American people distrust many in the media when they so consistently demonstrate their agenda and their absence of integrity,” he wrote.
It’s worth noting, he added, that “Bangladesh is NOT Ukraine.”
A transcript showed Kelly insisting on asking about Ukraine and former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, who was fired by Trump. In terms agreed to before the interview, the subject was to be solely Iran, Pompeo said.
“Change of subject. Ukraine. Do you owe Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch an apology?” Kelly said in the interview.
“You know, I agreed to come on your show today to talk about Iran. That’s what I intend to do,” Pompeo said.
The two then had a contentious exchange. Kelly claimed “people who work for you in your department” say Pompeo has not defended his staff.
“I don’t know who these unnamed sources are you’re referring to. I can tell you this. When I talked to my team here — ” Pompeo began.
“These are not unnamed sources,” Kelly interrupted.
It all went downhill from there.
Jason Rezaian, an opinion writer for The Washington Post and a CNN contributor, blasted Pompeo.
“The statement released this morning by [Secretary Pompeo] attacking [Kelly] is a shameful assault on #PressFreedom. Americans deserve a secretary of state, that is diplomatic, can answer foreign policy questions honestly, upholds our values and respects the press. This one doesn’t,” he tweeted.
But Andrew Surabian, a former special assistant to Trump turned political strategist, laid out a completely different view, and got it exactly right.
“In what universe is complaining about a reporter breaking an off the record agreement an ‘assault on press freedom?’ If [Kelly] did indeed break an off the record agreement, she should be fired [and] her colleagues should be condemning her, not holding her up as a resistance hero,” he tweeted.
Today’s journalists don’t even know the No. 1 rule of journalism: Honor your oaths. And they won&#8217;t last long in this town if they keep violating it.
&nbsp;
*Joseph Curl ran the Drudge Report from 2010 to 2014 and covered the White House for a dozen years. He can be reached at josephcurl@gmail.com and on Twitter at @JosephCurl. A version of this article ran previously in The Washington Times.

President Trump Departs White House For Florida

CURL: Today’s ‘Journalists’ Don’t Even Know The No. 1 Rule Of Journalism

Journalism

Marie Yovanovitch

Media

Media Bias

Mike Pompeo

National Public Radio (NPR)

Trump Administration

Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, a member of President Donald Trump&#8217;s legal defense team, tore into the Democrats&#8217; case for removing the president from office by highlighting the allegations of corruption that surround former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, regarding their work in Ukraine.
Joe Biden has claimed that no one has ever alleged any wrongdoing, while other Democrats have claimed that involving the Bidens in the impeachment trial is nothing more than a distraction.
Bondi pushed back on those claims by highlighting the allegations of corruption surrounding Hunter Biden&#8217;s work for Burisma, an allegedly corrupt Ukrainian gas company, while his father was serving as vice president and was largely responsible for overseeing U.S. matters in Ukraine. Joe Biden previously bragged on camera that he got a Ukrainian prosecutor who was investigating corruption at Burisma fired by threatening to withhold $1 billion in aid from the country.
Former White House Special Assistant Steven Cheung highlighted Bondi’s most notable remarks on the matter in a series of tweets.
&#8220;In fact, every witness who was asked about Hunter Biden’s involvement with Burisma agreed there was a potential appearance of a conflict of interest,&#8221; Bondi said. &#8220;Multiple House Democrat witnesses, including those from the Department of State, the National Security Council, and other unanimously testified there was a potential appearance of a conflict of interest. These were their witnesses.&#8221;
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
1/6<a href="https://twitter.com/PamBondi?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@PamBondi</a> with the masterclass in laying out the argument on Hunter Biden&#39;s corruption in Ukraine.
&quot;House managers didn&#39;t tell you that.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/3GyGJvg0EG">pic.twitter.com/3GyGJvg0EG</a>
&mdash; Steven Cheung (@CaliforniaPanda) <a href="https://twitter.com/CaliforniaPanda/status/1221939144269729793?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 27, 2020</a></blockquote>
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“In March 2014, the United Kingdom Serious Fraud Office opens a money laundering operation investigation into the oligarch Zlochevsky and his company Burisma,&#8221; Bondi continued. &#8220;The very next month, April 2014, according to a public report, Hunter Biden quietly joins the board of Burisma. Remember, early 2014 is when Vice President Biden began leading Ukraine policy.”
“Here’s how Hunter Biden came to join Burisma’s board in 2014: He was brought on the board by Devon Archer, his business partner. Devon Archer was college roommates with Chris Heinz, stepson of Secretary of State John Kerry,&#8221; Bondi continued. &#8220;All three men, Hunter Biden, Devon Archer, and Chris Heinz had all started an investment firm together. Public records show that April 16th, 2014, Devon Archer meets with Vice President Biden at the White House. Just two days later, on April 18th, 2014, is when Hunter Biden quietly joins Burisma, according to public reporting. Remember this is just one month after the United Kingdom Serious Fraud Office opened a money laundering case into Burisma, Hunter Biden joins the board.”
WATCH:
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2/6 
After the UK fraud office opened a money laundering investigation against Burisma, Hunter Biden is hired a month later.
It&#8217;s also at this time that <a href="https://twitter.com/JoeBiden?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@JoeBiden</a> as VP is in charge of Ukraine policy. <a href="https://t.co/TiwrTNiOVR">pic.twitter.com/TiwrTNiOVR</a>
— Steven Cheung (@CaliforniaPanda) <a href="https://twitter.com/CaliforniaPanda/status/1221939401544142849?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 27, 2020</a></blockquote>
“And not only 10 days after Hunter Biden joins the board, British authorities seize $23 million in British bank accounts connected to the oligarch Zlochevsky, the owner of Burisma,” Bondi continued. “Did Hunter Biden leave the board then? No. The British authorities also announced that it had started a criminal investigation into potential money laundering. Did Hunter Biden leave the board? No.”
“What happened was then, only then, did the company choose to announce that Hunter Biden had joined the board, after the assets of Burisma and its oligarch owner Zlochevsky were frozen in and a criminal investigation had begun,” Bondi continued. “Hunter Biden’s decision to join Burisma raised flags almost immediately.”
“One article from May 2014, stated, ‘the appointment of Joe Biden’s son to the board Ukrainian gas firm Burisma has raised eyebrows the world over,’” Bondi added. “Even an outlet with bias for Democrats pointed Hunter Biden’s activities created a conflict of interest for Joe Biden.”
WATCH:
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3/6 
After Burisma&#8217;s assests were frozen, they choose to announce Hunter joining the board, signaling influence over the Vice President&#8217;s son.
News outlets reported it &#8220;raised eyebrows the world over&#8221; and &#8220;raises questions about a potential conflict of interest for Joe Biden.&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/c92q5mOIbo">pic.twitter.com/c92q5mOIbo</a>
— Steven Cheung (@CaliforniaPanda) <a href="https://twitter.com/CaliforniaPanda/status/1221939629269618690?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 27, 2020</a></blockquote>
“Even Chris Heinz, Hunter Biden’s own business partner, had grave concerns,” Bondi pointed out. “He thought that working with Burisma was unacceptable, this is Chris Heinz. He was worried about the corruption, the geopolitical risk, and how bad it would look, so he wisely distances himself from Hunter Biden and Devon Archer’s appointments to Bursima.”
“He didn’t simply call his stepfather, secretary of state, and say, ‘I have a problem with this,’ he didn’t tell his friends, ‘hey guy, I’m not getting on the board, I want nothing to do with this,’ he went so far as to send an email to senior State Department officials about this issue, this is Chris Heinz,” Bondi continued. “He wrote, ‘apparently Devon and Hunter have joined the board of Burisma and a press release went out today. I can’t speak to why they decided to, but there is no investment by our firm in their company.’”
“What did Hunter Biden do? He stayed on the board,” Bondi continued. “What did Chris Heinz do? He subsequently stopped doing business with his college roommate Devon Archer and his friend Hunter Biden. Chris Heinz spokesperson said, ‘the lack of judgement in this matter was a major catalyst for Mr. Heinz ending his business relationship with Mr. Archer and Mr. Biden.’”
WATCH:
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4/6 
Hunter Biden&#8217;s close friend and business partner Chris Heinz was so concerned that he ceased all business with Hunter.
Heinz&#8217; spokesperson reiterated that the &#8220;lack of judgement&#8221; ended their business relationship. <a href="https://t.co/QWx1aWUL1m">pic.twitter.com/QWx1aWUL1m</a>
— Steven Cheung (@CaliforniaPanda) <a href="https://twitter.com/CaliforniaPanda/status/1221939924204761096?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 27, 2020</a></blockquote>
Bondi continued by noting that ABC News, The Washington Post, and Good Morning America, all raised serious concerns about Hunter Biden&#8217;s role on Burisma&#8217;s board and about his involvement in countries where his father was conducting business on behalf of the United States.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en">
5/6 
News reports even covered the Biden/Burisma scandal closely.
Yet, House impeachment managers have conveniently left that out of their arguments. <a href="https://t.co/bahy6SgiIE">pic.twitter.com/bahy6SgiIE</a>
— Steven Cheung (@CaliforniaPanda) <a href="https://twitter.com/CaliforniaPanda/status/1221940305580187648?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 27, 2020</a></blockquote>
This report has been updated to include additional information.

President Trump Meets With State And Local Officials On School Safety

WATCH: Pam Bondi Nukes Democrats’ Case, Highlights Alleged Biden Ukraine Corruption

Pam Bondi

In response to The New York Times reporting on the leaked manuscript from former National Security Advisor John Bolton&#8217;s upcoming book about his time working for President Trump, Bolton&#8217;s former chief of staff wrote a <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/ambassador-bolton-withdraw-your-book-fred-fleitz">scathing op-ed for Fox News</a> that denounced the book for setting a &#8220;dangerous precedent&#8221; while demanding he withdraw it from publication until after the 2020 election.
&#8220;It was crushing to read weekend press reports that my friend and former boss John Bolton plans to publish a tell-all book on his time as President Trump’s National Security Advisor,&#8221; Fred Fleitz begins in the lengthy op-ed. &#8220;The book reportedly will be published in March 2020. Given the importance of protecting a president’s confidential discussions with his senior advisers, I strongly disagree with Bolton’s decision to release the book before the November presidential election and call on him to withdraw it from the publisher immediately.&#8221;
As <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/critics-hammer-bolton-after-book-pre-order-goes-live-following-leaked-manuscript-published-by-nyt">reported</a> by The Daily Wire&#8217;s Ryan Saavedra on Sunday, the Times wrote that Bolton alleges in his book that President Trump told him to freeze the $391 million in military aid to Ukraine until officials agreed to investigate Joe Biden&#8217;s corruption and 2016 election meddling.
Though Fleitz commends John Bolton for his service after knowing him for 30 years, praising his work in the State Department and in the Trump administration, he ultimately feels that Bolton&#8217;s book undermines executive privilege and will ultimately discourage future presidents from discussing important matters of foreign policy in confidence.
&#8220;Presidents must be able to candidly consult with their advisers without worrying they will leak these discussions to the press or obtain high-dollar book contracts to publish them,&#8221; Fleitz says in the op-ed. &#8220;A book by a former national security advisor ahead of a president’s reelection bid may set a dangerous precedent since it could discourage future presidents from seeking advice from expert advisers on sensitive national security matters.&#8221;
&#8220;This is why executive privilege exists: To allow the president and other senior officials to keep certain communications and internal deliberations private if disclosing them would disrupt the functions or decision-making processes of the executive branch,&#8221; he continues.
Not only does Fleitz slam Bolton for seeking to publish the book in the first place, he also takes issue with Bolton&#8217;s decision to submit it for review with the National Security Council (NSC) despite knowing how prone the agency is for leaks.
&#8220;It also is inexplicable how such a sensitive manuscript could be sent to the NSC in the middle of the impeachment process,&#8221; he argues. &#8220;Under such circumstances, a leak of the manuscript was all but certain. If a manuscript of this sensitivity was to be published at all, this should happen after the election, not in the spring of 2020,  I don’t understand the need for a former national security advisor to publish a tell-all book critical of a president he served, especially during a presidential reelection campaign that will determine the fate of the country.&#8221;
Fleitz concludes his op-ed by referencing former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who chose to publish his book “Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War&#8221; that was critical of the Obama administration only after the 2012 election. In fact, Gates waited until January of 2014 to publish it.
&#8220;Gates established a principled precedent on how senior advisers to presidents should write about their experiences,&#8221; concludes Fleitz. &#8220;Given Ambassador Bolton’s long and distinguished record of government service, I believe it is vital that he follow this precedent.&#8221;

Former National Security Advisor John Bolton Delivers Keynote Address At CSIS Forum

John Bolton’s Former Chief Of Staff Slams Him: ‘Withdraw Your Book,’ ‘Sets A Dangerous Precedent’

2016 election

New York Times

Obama Administration

Robert Gates

State Department

President Trump issued a fiery statement Sunday responding to a report on an unpublished manuscript of John Bolton&#8217;s upcoming book, in which the former national security reportedly claims that the president told him specifically that the withholding of Ukraine aid was connected to investigations he sought into corruption allegations involving the Ukrainian energy company that paid then-Vice President Joe Biden&#8217;s son tens of thousands of dollars a month.
The alleged &#8220;explosive&#8221; claims by Bolton— who Democrats are demanding be subpoenaed by the Senate after choosing not to in the House — were first reported by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/26/us/politics/trump-bolton-book-ukraine.html">The New York Times</a> on Sunday (formatting adjusted):
<blockquote>
President Trump told his national security adviser in August that he wanted to continue freezing $391 million in security assistance to Ukraine until officials there helped with investigations into Democrats including the Bidens, according to an unpublished manuscript by the former adviser, John R. Bolton. &#8230;
Mr. Bolton’s explosive account of the matter at the center of Mr. Trump’s impeachment trial, the third in American history, was included in drafts of a manuscript he has circulated in recent weeks to close associates. He also sent a draft to the White House for a standard review process for some current and former administration officials who write books.
Multiple people described Mr. Bolton’s account of the Ukraine affair. The book presents an outline of what Mr. Bolton might testify to if he is called as a witness in the Senate impeachment trial, the people said. The White House could use the pre-publication review process, which has no set time frame, to delay or even kill the book’s publication or omit key passages.
</blockquote>
In response, Trump blasted out a series of tweets Sunday denying that he told Bolton that the freeze on aid was connected to investigations into the Bidens and suggesting that if the Times&#8217; report is accurate, Bolton is lying in order to &#8220;sell a book.&#8221;
&#8220;I NEVER told John Bolton that the aid to Ukraine was tied to investigations into Democrats, including the Bidens. In fact, he never complained about this at the time of his very public termination. If John Bolton said this, it was only to sell a book,&#8221; Trump wrote (tweets below).
&#8220;With that being said, the transcripts of my calls with President Zelensky are all the proof that is needed, in addition to the fact that President Zelensky &amp; the Foreign Minister of Ukraine said there was no pressure and no problems,&#8221; Trump continued, arguments he&#8217;s repeatedly hammered over the last few months.
&#8220;Additionally, I met with President Zelensky at the United Nations (Democrats said I never met) and released the military aid to Ukraine without any conditions or investigations &#8211; and far ahead of schedule,&#8221; Trump added. &#8220;I also allowed Ukraine to purchase Javelin anti-tank missiles. My Administration has done far more than the previous Administration.&#8221;
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I NEVER told John Bolton that the aid to Ukraine was tied to investigations into Democrats, including the Bidens. In fact, he never complained about this at the time of his very public termination. If John Bolton said this, it was only to sell a book. With that being said, the&#8230;
&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1221663763138588672?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 27, 2020</a></blockquote>
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&#8230;(Democrats said I never met) and released the military aid to Ukraine without any conditions or investigations &#8211; and far ahead of schedule. I also allowed Ukraine to purchase Javelin anti-tank missiles. My Administration has done far more than the previous Administration.
&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1221663764971491329?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 27, 2020</a></blockquote>
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In a statement to the Times on Sunday, Bolton’s lawyer, Charles J. Cooper, blamed the White House for the leaking of the book’s contents. &#8220;It is clear, regrettably, from the New York Times article published today that the pre-publication review process has been corrupted and that information has been disclosed by persons other than those properly involved in reviewing the manuscript,” said Cooper.
As <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/critics-hammer-bolton-after-book-pre-order-goes-live-following-leaked-manuscript-published-by-nyt">The Daily Wire</a> reported Sunday, Bolton has come under intense fire by critics after pre-orders for his book went live following the Times report.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/critics-hammer-bolton-after-book-pre-order-goes-live-following-leaked-manuscript-published-by-nyt">Critics Hammer Bolton After Book Pre-Order Goes Live Following Leaked Manuscript Published By NYT</a>

President Donald Trump

Trump Unloads On Bolton Over New Ukraine Claims

Former national security adviser John Bolton came under fire on Sunday over a report that was published in The New York Times that claimed that Bolton said in his upcoming book that President Donald Trump directly tied financial assistance to Ukraine with Ukraine announcing an investigation into Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden.
&#8220;President Trump told his national security adviser in August that he wanted to continue freezing $391 million in security assistance to Ukraine until officials there helped with investigations into Democrats including the Bidens, according to an unpublished manuscript by the former adviser, John R. Bolton,&#8221; The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/26/us/politics/trump-bolton-book-ukraine.html">reported</a>. &#8220;In recent days, some White House officials have described Mr. Bolton as a disgruntled former employee, and have said he took notes that he should have left behind when he departed the administration.&#8221;
The Times added that one of the reasons that Bolton now wants to testify is that he is afraid that &#8220;he will be accused of holding back to increase his book sales.&#8221;
Immediately following the publication of the Times&#8217; report, Democrats and the media began to call on Republicans in the Senate to allow new witnesses to be brought into Trump&#8217;s impeachment trial.
Shortly after the Times&#8217; report was published, CNN media reporter Brian Stelter reported that a page for Bolton&#8217;s book just went live on Amazon for people to pre-order.
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What an amazing coincidence! <a href="https://t.co/G6KeFoOzan">pic.twitter.com/G6KeFoOzan</a>
&mdash; Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) <a href="https://twitter.com/redsteeze/status/1221647166122295296?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 27, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Fox News political analyst Brit Hume wrote: &#8220;This came along right about on schedule.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
This came along right about on schedule. <a href="https://t.co/cSXZDVKpNB">https://t.co/cSXZDVKpNB</a>
&mdash; Brit Hume (@brithume) <a href="https://twitter.com/brithume/status/1221644943342567424?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 27, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Fox News contributor Mollie Hemingway wrote: &#8220;This is obviously book promo coordinated with compliant media, yes. But an additional word of skepticism: these *particular* folks have a pattern of overpromising and underachieving with their &#8216;bombshell&#8217; anti-Trump book roll outs.&#8221;
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This is obviously book promo coordinated with compliant media, yes. But an additional word of skepticism: these *particular* folks have a pattern of overpromising and underachieving with their &quot;bombshell&quot; anti-Trump book roll outs. <a href="https://t.co/xid14bUvmG">https://t.co/xid14bUvmG</a>
&mdash; Mollie (@MZHemingway) <a href="https://twitter.com/MZHemingway/status/1221645444926836736?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 27, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Political commentator Stephen Miller wrote that &#8220;launching a book on Amazon with the assistance of the NYT as you’re being pressured to testify is going to be hilariously exploited by the WH team.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
I don’t know but launching a book on Amazon with the assistance of the NYT as you’re being pressured to testify is going to be hilariously exploited by the WH team. <a href="https://t.co/ABf89TfIPk">https://t.co/ABf89TfIPk</a>
&mdash; Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) <a href="https://twitter.com/redsteeze/status/1221654222795489281?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 27, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Federalist co-founder Sean Davis wrote: &#8220;Just like James Comey, John Bolton is trying to get rich off of a lie- and leak-fueled campaign to overturn the 2016 election results. I suspect it will work out as well as all of Bolton’s other wars.&#8221;
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Just like James Comey, John Bolton is trying to get rich off of a lie- and leak-fueled campaign to overturn the 2016 election results. I suspect it will work out as well as all of Bolton’s other wars. <a href="https://t.co/z0fe2aMMFn">https://t.co/z0fe2aMMFn</a>
&mdash; Sean Davis (@seanmdav) <a href="https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/1221641874483687424?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 27, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Davis added, &#8220;John Bolton is running the exact same revenge playbook against Trump that James Comey used. He’s even using the same agent and leaking to the same reporters. All because he’s mad Trump fired him for leaking and trying to start new wars. It’s so boring and predictable.&#8221;
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John Bolton is running the exact same revenge playbook against Trump that James Comey used. He’s even using the same agent and leaking to the same reporters. All because he’s mad Trump fired him for leaking and trying to start new wars. It’s so boring and predictable.
&mdash; Sean Davis (@seanmdav) <a href="https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/1221637940184567810?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 27, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Liberal political commentator Dave Rubin responded by writing, &#8220;I’m a simple man so maybe I’m not understanding. It seems Bolton is agreeing that Trump wanted to investigate corruption in Ukraine otherwise we’d withhold aid. So are we supposed to give aid to corrupt countries now? Is that now a good thing?&#8221;
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I’m a simple man so maybe I’m not understanding. It seems Bolton is agreeing that Trump wanted to investigate corruption in Ukraine otherwise we’d withhold aid. So are we supposed to give aid to corrupt countries now? Is that now a good thing?
&mdash; Dave Rubin (@RubinReport) <a href="https://twitter.com/RubinReport/status/1221649868575387654?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 27, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Political commentator Buck Sexton wrote: &#8220;Given the obvious timing of this, wondering if they will let Michael Avenatti out of prison to help Julie Swetnick claim she was on the phone call with Trump too, so the media can breathlessly print her insane and fact free allegations in a last desperate act to rig the trial.&#8221;
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Given the obvious timing of this, wondering if they will let Michael Avenatti out of prison to help Julie Swetnick claim she was on the phone call with Trump too, so the media can breathlessly print her insane and fact free allegations in a last desperate act to rig the trial <a href="https://t.co/RYLgPKwbNs">https://t.co/RYLgPKwbNs</a>
&mdash; Buck Sexton (@BuckSexton) <a href="https://twitter.com/BuckSexton/status/1221647548143804416?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 27, 2020</a></blockquote>
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National security reporter Jordan Schachtel wrote: &#8220;Team John Bolton is attempting to convince you, the potential buyer of his memoir, that he had nothing to do w/ leaks to the press. &amp; oh by the way it was just a shocking coincidence his book&#8217;s Amazon pg went live simultaneously. TBH it doesn&#8217;t seem like he respects you at all.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Team John Bolton is attempting to convince you, the potential buyer of his memoir, that he had nothing to do w/ leaks to the press. &amp; oh by the way it was just a shocking coincidence his book&#39;s Amazon pg went live simultaneously.
TBH it doesn&#39;t seem like he respects you at all.
&mdash; Jordan Schachtel (@JordanSchachtel) <a href="https://twitter.com/JordanSchachtel/status/1221645524555784192?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 27, 2020</a></blockquote>
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This is a developing news story, refresh the page for updates.

Critics Hammer Bolton After Book Pre-Order Goes Live Following Leaked Manuscript Published By NYT

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told Fox News on Sunday that President Donald Trump has been concerned about corruption in Ukraine for a long time and even spoke to Ukraine&#8217;s last president about his concerns.
&#8220;So, on substance, [Democrats] told us that the president was unconcerned about burden-sharing, that he wasn&#8217;t concerned about corruption, that the only reason he wanted the Ukrainians to look at the Bidens and look into 2016 election interference was for personal gain,&#8221; Graham told Fox News&#8217; Maria Bartiromo. &#8220;They read the transcript for 21 hours selectively. In the transcript that the House managers never read to the Senate was an exchange between President Trump and the Ukrainian president, Zelensky, where President Trump was complaining about the Europeans not doing enough, and the president of the Ukraine agreed.&#8221;
&#8220;So, the transcript was devastating to their case. Then the witnesses that they called in their case – they took snippets of hour-long testimony. And one thing for a young lawyer, if you want to use a piece of evidence from a deposition or a tape, make sure that other parts of the tape do not destroy the parts that you used,&#8221; Graham continued. &#8220;They were able to prove that the witnesses that were called on behalf of the government, when you look at other things they said, completely destroyed their case, that the president had been concerned about corruption in the Ukraine.&#8221;
&#8220;He raised it with the past president of the Ukraine, raised it with this president,&#8221; Graham continued. &#8220;And when it comes to the meeting, the managers said that the president was telling the Ukrainian president, you will never meet with me in the White House or any place else unless you give into my demands. In the transcript, the president of the Ukraine suggested that the – President Trump meet him in Poland September the 1st. The president agreed to that meeting. And the only reason he didn&#8217;t go was because of hurricanes, and he sent the vice president in his place.&#8221;
WATCH:
<iframe title="Sen. Graham: Trump&#039;s team &#039;devastated&#039; Dems&#039; impeachment arguments" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GpajS8F-35A?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
TRANSCRIPT:
<blockquote>MARIA BARTIROMO, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: And we begin with the impeachment trial resuming tomorrow morning.
After three long days of opening statements from Democratic House managers presenting their case to impeach President Trump, senators finally heard from President Trump&#8217;s defense team yesterday.
What do they make of the trial so far? Where does it go tomorrow? We now turn to one of the jurors. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham joins me in this exclusive interview.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): Thank you.
BARTIROMO: Senator, it&#8217;s good to see you this morning. Thank you so much for being here.
GRAHAM: It&#8217;s good to have a day off. Thank you.
BARTIROMO: OK. I bet. What have you heard from the House prosecutors and from the president&#8217;s defense team? Tell us how it played out, from your standpoint.
GRAHAM: Well, I said early on that I thought the first day, the House managers were articulate. They were prepared. They created a compelling narrative, a tapestry regarding process and substance.
And I asked then publicly, will it withstand scrutiny? When it came to removing the president, their arguments became very political, very shrill.
And while Adam Schiff did a good job of presenting the facts, and at times the law, when it came to removing the president, he has got to go right now, it was more of an audition for a future Senate run than it was compelling.
But what happened yesterday, in two hours, the Senate &#8212; the president&#8217;s defense team destroyed the narrative created in 21 hours regarding process and substance.
BARTIROMO: Let&#8217;s talk about process and substance. Why the process? Tell me that.
GRAHAM: Well, so, the House managers told us on the floor of the United States Senate that President Trump got a better deal from the House than Nixon or Clinton.
And here&#8217;s what the response was. Not so. They impeached president in 78 days, President Trump. Imagine 78 days to remove the president of the United States from office, nullify the 2016 election, take him off the ballot in 2020.
Do you think 78 days is proper consideration of something this grave? Seventy-one of the 78 days, the president was denied the ability to call witnesses on his behalf, cross-examine witnesses, present evidence.
So the Nixon impeachment lasted for years. He went to the Supreme Court. The Clinton investigation lasted for four-and-a-half years. So the defense was able to tell the Senate that all the due process given Nixon and Clinton didn&#8217;t exist with Trump.
And then they &#8212; the most stunning of all arguments, they impeached the president of the United States in 78 days. Why? Because they wanted to get it over by Christmas. Why didn&#8217;t they pursue witness in the House? That would require court action. That would delay their goal of impeaching him before the election. I think that is devastating to the House managers.
BARTIROMO: OK. That process was also scrutinized and criticized during the House hearings, let&#8217;s not forget&#8230;
GRAHAM: Right.
BARTIROMO: &#8230; because the president didn&#8217;t get a chance to have due process and make his own case at that time. Let&#8217;s talk substance. What was your issue?
GRAHAM: OK.
Well, back to process, one last thing, if you contested a parking ticket it would probably take more than 78 days.
So, on substance, they told us that the president was unconcerned about burden-sharing, that he wasn&#8217;t concerned about corruption, that the only reason he wanted the Ukrainians to look at the Bidens and look into 2016 election interference was for personal gain.
They read the transcript for 21 hours selectively. In the transcript that the House managers never read to the Senate was an exchange between President Trump and the Ukrainian president, Zelensky, where President Trump was complaining about the Europeans not doing enough, and the president of the Ukraine agreed.
The president in the transcript from the Ukraine said to the president, Trump, you&#8217;re doing more than the Europeans. It shouldn&#8217;t be that way.
I&#8217;m paraphrasing.
So the transcript was devastating to their case. Then the witnesses that they called in their case &#8212; they took snippets of hour-long testimony. And one thing for a young lawyer, if you want to use a piece of evidence from a deposition or a tape, make sure that other parts of the tape do not destroy the parts that you used.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
GRAHAM: They were able to prove that the witnesses that were called on behalf of the government, when you look at other things they said, completely destroyed their case, that the president had been concerned about corruption in the Ukraine.
He raised it with the past president of the Ukraine, raised it with this president.
And when it comes to the meeting, the managers said that the president was telling the Ukrainian president, you will never meet with me in the White House or any place else unless you give into my demands.
In the transcript, the president of the Ukraine suggested that the &#8212; President Trump meet him in Poland September the 1st. The president agreed to that meeting. And the only reason he didn&#8217;t go was because of hurricanes, and he sent the vice president in his place.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
GRAHAM: Within two hours, they devastated the process and substance argument.
BARTIROMO: And I know that there is still evidence that the president&#8217;s team and the American people have yet to see. There were 18 witnesses in the House hearings. We have only seen 17 transcripts. We are going to talk about that coming up with Congressman John Ratcliffe and Doug Collins and Mark Meadows&#8230;
GRAHAM: Right.
BARTIROMO: &#8230; because I want to get their take why we actually haven&#8217;t even seen all of the evidence.
OK, so, we have a new FOX News poll that I want to bring your attention to. And what we have seen from this poll, 48 percent of the American people who have been spoken with say there is enough info at this point to make a judgment.
After we hear the rest of the president&#8217;s legal team tomorrow and perhaps part of Tuesday, you&#8217;re going to &#8212; you will have the opportunity, you and your colleagues in the Senate, to ask questions. And, then, ultimately, the question becomes, will there be a vote on witnesses? Do you have enough information, or do you want more information, based on what you know today?
GRAHAM: I have more than enough to make my decision.
But here &#8212; here&#8217;s what I have never seen before. I&#8217;m not Perry Mason, but I have done my fair share of trials in the military and civilian world. Never in my life have I started the trial asking the following of the judge or the jury: Do you mind calling witnesses now that I chose not to call before? Do you mind seeking evidence that I chose not to seek?
Because I want you to do it, because if I had called Bolton and Mulvaney in the House, the president would have gone to court to exercise executive privilege. And I didn&#8217;t want him to do that, because I couldn&#8217;t impeach him before Christmas if we had to deal with this thing called the court.
So, I am stunned to hear from the House managers that they want the Senate to call witnesses now they could have called before.
And they&#8217;re putting us in the box of destroying executive privilege or delaying the trial.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
GRAHAM: The reason they didn&#8217;t pursue Bolton or Mulvaney or anybody else is because any president would say, this is the core of my national security team. I&#8217;m going to go to court, like Nixon and like Clinton did.
They decided not to give the president a chance to go to court. And they&#8217;re warning us now to call these witnesses. What do we do? Delay the trial, so the president can go to court? Or do we, as the Senate, destroy the president&#8217;s ability to go to court? A bad spot to be in, in the Senate.
BARTIROMO: Yes, real quick. I have two questions for you, real quick. Number one is on Hunter Biden.
GRAHAM: Right.
BARTIROMO: If you do not call Hunter Biden as a witness this time around&#8230;
BARTIROMO: &#8230; if you don&#8217;t get to witnesses, what are going to you do? You have talked about an independent counsel before.
GRAHAM: Yes. Right. Well, so what &#8212; why Senator Biden, if he is not relevant now, then you&#8217;re just blind by partisanship. They have said there is not one scintilla of evidence that the Bidens did anything wrong in the Ukraine. They said it has been debunked. By who?
Nobody has looked at this. The president has had his life surveyed from top to bottom by Mueller. Not one person has looked into what Joe Biden and Hunter Biden did in the Ukraine.
And if you can find one scintilla of evidence, not a herd of scintillas, just one, their whole [case] collapses. So, I think you&#8217;re going to see the defense present evidence that there are real legitimate concerns.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
GRAHAM: And when this trial is over &#8212; I don&#8217;t want to call Hunter Biden now &#8212; we will do oversight of the Bidens to give the vice president the scrutiny that the president has had regarding the Ukraine that has yet to be had.
BARTIROMO: All right, we will watch that. Final question here. Do you believe the president will get acquitted? Could that happen this week?
GRAHAM: Well, if we seek witnesses, then we are going to throw the country into chaos. We either stop the trial to go to court to allow the president to litigate executive privilege, or we destroy it ourselves.
Here is what I think. I think he is going to get acquitted. Mueller came after him for two years. There was no there there. He was stronger after Mueller. He is going to get acquitted because this has been a railroad job by the House.
He is going to be stronger after impeachment than he was after Mueller. He is now the prohibitive favorite, in my view, to get reelected. And this is the boomerang party. Every time they go after Trump, it hurts them. They throw rocks at Trump, they get hit.
Mueller investigates Trump. What happens? The FBI and the Department of Justice falls apart. They try to accuse Trump of corruption in the Ukraine, and we find out that conflicts of interests by Joe Biden really stink.
BARTIROMO: Yes. Well, we got news this week from the Department of Justice on unlawful surveillance of Carter Page. We are going to talk about that, because this is all connected, as we all know. Senator, it&#8217;s very good to see you this morning. Thank you, sir.
GRAHAM: Thank you.</blockquote>

Sen. Lindsey Graham Introduces Senate Resolution Condemning Impeachment Inquiry

Lindsey Graham: Trump Talked To Ukraine’s Last President About Corruption Concerns

On the latest episode of “Verdict with Ted Cruz,” the senator’s new podcast, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) carefully broke down the timeline of the Hunter Biden/Burisma scandal with co-host Michael Knowles of The Daily Wire, and spoke of the opposition to questions regarding said scandal.
The following bullet points are all quotes from Cruz:
<ul>
<li>It starts early 2014. Joe Biden is the point person for President Obama on Ukraine.</li>
<li>April 13, 2014, Devon Archer – Hunter Biden&#8217;s business partner – joins the board of Burisma.</li>
<li>April 28, Britain&#8217;s Serious Fraud [Office] freezes $23 million for money-laundering from the oligarch who founded Burisma.</li>
<li>May 12 – just a couple of weeks later – Hunter Biden is named to the board of Burisma.</li>
<li>December 8th [2015], The New York Times article says that the prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin, is investigating Burisma holdings and the oligarch in charge. [Knowles clarified that Shokin was the prosecutor that then-Vice President Joe Biden would end up “getting fired.”]</li>
<li>February 2, 2016, the oligarch’s home is raided and his assets are seized.</li>
<li>Joe Biden calls the president of Ukraine on February 11, February 18, and February 19. So, three calls a little over a week after the oligarch’s home is raided and his assets are seized.</li>
<li>February 21, Burisma’s lobbyist contacts the State Department and says, “Hey, we want a meeting with the Deputy Secretary of State, and by the way, did I mention Hunter Biden&#8217;s on our board?” This is in writing.</li>
<li>March 2, a week later, Devon Archer [the other board member] sits down and meets with John Kerry, the Secretary of State.</li>
<li>On March 15, the Assistant Secretary of State calls for the prosecutor to be fired.</li>
<li>On March 22, during a call with President Poroshenko, Vice President Biden calls for the prosecutor to be fired.</li>
<li>On March 31, [Joe] Biden arrives in Ukraine – he&#8217;s there personally – and he releases $1 billion in loan guarantees because the week earlier they had fired the prosecutor as he demanded.</li>
</ul>
Cruz later <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1221102768913600514">tweeted</a> out a graphic of the timeline.
Knowles then summed up part of Cruz’s timeline, saying:
<blockquote>So, you&#8217;ve got &#8230; two guys on the board making millions of dollars. They then meet with the Obama administration and then all of a sudden, you get people in the administration calling for the prosecutor who&#8217;s investigating Burisma to be fired.</blockquote>
“Who is Hunter Biden? So, he has zero expertise in oil and gas. He’s not a geologist; he’s not a geophysicist,” Cruz stated. “He has no background that anyone knows of in Ukraine.”
According to Cruz, Burisma paid Hunter Biden “anywhere from – some of the reporting has said $50,000 a month &#8230; the baseline that we think they started him at was $600,000 a year &#8230; it went up to $83,333 a month, which is a million bucks a year.”
Cruz and Knowles then played a clip from a recent interview with Hunter Biden in which he says that if his name wasn’t “Biden,” it’s unlikely he would have been asked to work with Burisma.
Knowles and Cruz went on to criticize the way in which the House Democrats and the media are portraying the Biden corruption scandal as “debunked.”
“You had two and a half years of the Mueller investigation into Russia based on very, very flimsy evidence that fell apart day by day,” Knowles said. “Then you had the impeachment inquiry into Ukraine corruption by the Trump administration because President Trump suggested that Ukraine investigate the corruption of the last administration that we’ve just been talking about for fifteen minutes.”
“Yet the government has dedicated virtually no resources to investigating the actual corruption that is at the heart of this whole sham,” he concluded.
Cruz replied that “it’s worse than that” because “House Democrats blocked investigating it,” specifically during the House impeachment inquiry when they reportedly wouldn’t allow Republican witnesses.
Cruz added:
<blockquote>In the opening statement yesterday, Jerry Nadler – [he’s] one of the House managers, who leads the House managers – he said, “There are hundreds of thousands of companies in Ukraine. Why was Trump focused on this one?” Well, because it was the only company that we know of that had the son of the U.S. vice president make it a million dollars and impacting, potentially, U.S. policy. Look, Trump wasn&#8217;t interested in the abstract in every form of corruption in Ukraine – it wasn&#8217;t like he was worried about someone sticking up a 7-Eleven – this is corruption in the United States; this is potential corruption of the Vice President of the United States, and it is always legitimate, and in fact it&#8217;s the responsibility of the president, to ensure you investigate serious corruption like this.</blockquote>
In conclusion, Knowles stated that the Democrats appear to be “accusing the president of doing what they themselves did.”
Cruz agreed, saying that the while the Democrats are accusing Trump of withholding aid from Ukraine, former Vice President Biden actually “threatened to withhold” aid from Ukraine.
There’s much more to this episode, which you can watch in it’s entirety below: 
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RWbg1C2R0MA" width="720" height="385" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)

WATCH: Ted Cruz Walks Through The Hunter Biden/Joe Biden Ukraine Scandal Timeline In Detail

Ted Cruz

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo fired back at NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly on Saturday after Kelly claimed without evidence on Friday that Pompeo yelled and swore at her after an interview he gave during which she repeatedly ignored the alleged parameters of what was going to be discussed during the interview.
NPR published a selectively edited portion of the interview on Twitter in which Pompeo was calm in answering Kelly&#8217;s aggressive line of questioning about U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Mike Pompeo — who refused a House subpoena — would be a top witness for Democrats in the impeachment trial.
He is not set to testify, but he spoke to <a href="https://twitter.com/NPRKelly?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NPRKelly</a>. She asked the secretary of state if he would defend Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch: <a href="https://t.co/1YoGWOSdqb">pic.twitter.com/1YoGWOSdqb</a>
&mdash; Morning Edition (@MorningEdition) <a href="https://twitter.com/MorningEdition/status/1220746152980766721?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 24, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
After the interview, Kelly <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20200124225755/https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1220837170484797445">claimed</a>, &#8220;I was taken to the Secretary&#8217;s private living room where he was waiting and where he shouted at me for about the same amount of time as the interview itself. He was not happy to have been questioned about Ukraine. He asked, &#8216;Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?&#8217; He used the F-word in that sentence and many others. He asked if I could find Ukraine on a map. I said yes, and he called out for aides to bring us a map of the world with no writing. I pointed to Ukraine. He put the map away. He said, &#8216;people will hear about this.’”
Pompeo fired back in a <a href="https://www.state.gov/statement-by-secretary-michael-r-pompeo/">statement</a> on Saturday, noting that Kelly repeatedly lied to him about the interview, and that when she was presented with the map that she falsely identified Bangladesh as being Ukraine:
<blockquote>NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly lied to me, twice. First, last month, in setting up our interview and, then again yesterday, in agreeing to have our post-interview conversation off the record. It is shameful that this reporter chose to violate the basic rules of journalism and decency. This is another example of how unhinged the media has become in its quest to hurt President Trump and this Administration. It is no wonder that the American people distrust many in the media when they so consistently demonstrate their agenda and their absence of integrity.
It is worth noting that Bangladesh is NOT Ukraine.</blockquote>
It is also worth highlighting the relevant portion of the transcript where Pompeo repeatedly told Kelly, both before and after the portion published in NPR&#8217;s tweet, that he agreed to the interview to talk about Iran, which Kelly ignored.
Below is the relevant <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/01/24/798579754/transcript-nprs-full-interview-with-secretary-of-state-mike-pompeo">transcript</a> with everything in bold representing what was included in NPR&#8217;s selectively edited clip:
<blockquote>KELLY: Change of subject. Ukraine. Do you owe Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch an apology?
POMPEO: You know, I agreed to come on your show today to talk about Iran. That&#8217;s what I intend to do. I know what our Ukraine policy has been now for the three years of this administration. I&#8217;m proud of the work we&#8217;ve done. This administration delivered the capability for the Ukrainians to defend themselves. President Obama showed up with MREs (meals ready to eat.) We showed up with Javelin missiles. The previous administration did nothing to take down corruption in Ukraine. We&#8217;re working hard on that. We&#8217;re going to continue to do it.
KELLY: I confirmed with your staff [crosstalk] last night that I would talk about Iran and Ukraine.
POMPEO: I just don&#8217;t have anything else to say about that this morning.
KELLY: I just want to give you another opportunity to answer this, because as you know, people who work for you in your department, people who have resigned from this department under your leadership, saying you should stand up for the diplomats who work here. [crosstalk]
POMPEO: I don&#8217;t know who these unnamed sources are you&#8217;re referring to. I can tell you this. When I talked to my team here –
KELLY: These are not unnamed sources. [crosstalk] This is your senior adviser Michael McKinley, a career foreign service officer with four decades experience, who testified under oath that he resigned in part due to the failure of the State Department to offer support to Foreign Service employees caught up in the impeachment inquiry on Ukraine.
POMPEO: I&#8217;m not going to comment on things that Mr. McKinley may have said. I&#8217;ll say only this. I have defended every State Department official. We&#8217;ve built a great team. The team that works here is doing amazing work around the world.
KELLY: Sir, respectfully [crosstalk] where have you defended Marie Yovanovitch?
POMPEO: I&#8217;ve defended every single person on this team. I&#8217;ve done what&#8217;s right for every single person on this team. [crosstalk]
KELLY: Can you point me toward your remarks where you have defended Marie Yovanovitch?
POMPEO: I&#8217;ve said all I&#8217;m going to say today. Thank you. Thanks for the repeated opportunity to do so. I appreciate that.
KELLY: One further question on this.
POMPEO: I&#8217;m not going to – I appreciate that. I appreciate that you want to continue to talk about this. I agreed to come on your show today to talk about Iran.
KELLY: And you appreciate [crosstalk] that the American public wants to know as a shadow foreign policy, as a back channel policy on Ukraine was being developed, did you try to block it?
POMPEO: The Ukraine policy has been run from the Department of State for the entire time that I have been here, and our policy was very clear.
KELLY: Marie Yovanovitch [crosstalk] testified under oath that Ukraine policy was hijacked.
POMPEO: I&#8217;ve been clear about that. I know exactly what we were doing. I know precisely what the direction that the State Department gave to our officials around the world about how to manage our Ukraine policy.
KELLY: Secretary, thank you.</blockquote>
Political strategist and communications specialist Andrew Surabian responded to the political Left calling Pompeo&#8217;s statement an &#8220;assault on press freedom,&#8221; writing: &#8220;In what universe is complaining about a reporter breaking an off the record agreement an &#8216;assault on press freedom?&#8217; If @NPRKelly did indeed break an off the record agreement, she should be fired &amp; her colleagues should be condemning her, not holding her up as a resistance hero.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
In what universe is complaining about a reporter breaking an off the record agreement an &quot;assault on press freedom?&quot; 
If <a href="https://twitter.com/NPRKelly?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NPRKelly</a> did indeed break an off the record agreement, she should be fired &amp; her colleagues should be condemning her, not holding her up as a resistance hero <a href="https://t.co/f9fC0pW5rm">https://t.co/f9fC0pW5rm</a>
&mdash; Andrew Surabian (@Surabees) <a href="https://twitter.com/Surabees/status/1221110246187335689?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 25, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
This report has been updated to clarify the fact that the line &#8220;NPR published a selectively edited portion of the interview&#8221; was referring to the tweet that NPR published, which went viral, and not the transcript.

Mary Louise Kelly Mike Pompeo

NPR Reporter Claims Pompeo Yelled At Her. Pompeo Fires Back With Scathing Statement.

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