Also, I heard this morning that Gordon Sondland, who this week was blocked by the State Dept. from testifying about Ukraine, will testify next week. If that occurs I'm sure he will spin it, since Republicans close to Trump believe Sondland's testimony may help them to take control of the story.
Thanks for the heads up about this. I’m adding a link to the Washington Post story that broke this news. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/senior-adviser-to-pompeo-resigns/2019/10/10/0d771aa2-ebb5-11e9-85c0-85a098e47b37_story.html%3foutputType=amp
HI All, I hope it's ok to post this here but this was shared with me and I've watched it 3 times because it was so creative and funny. It's a montage/mini movie of what we'd like to see (Trump hauled away by the FBI) to Matt Monro's "To Russia with Love" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEG41O5Y9-k
Made me laugh!
I turned on the trump rally for a couple of minutes, the the news man said trump had 40,000 there with a few protesters outside, but this morning I read it was 20,000 and thousands protesters. Why lie that was still a large group? Also don trump jr. got $50,000 for a speech in Florida, while saying $50,000 a month for Hunter Biden is wrong.
Thank I had forgotten to add the link. Another story: Ousted ambassador Marie Yovanovitch tells Congress Trump pressured State Dept. to remove her
The former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine whose abrupt ouster in May has become a topic of interest for House impeachment investigators said Friday that her departure came as a direct result of pressure President Trump placed on the State Department to remove her, according to her prepared remarks before Congress obtained by The Washington Post.
Marie Yovanovitch told lawmakers that she was forced to leave Kiev on “the next plane” this spring and subsequently removed from her post, with the State Department’s No. 2 official telling her that, though she had done nothing wrong, the president had lost confidence in her and the State Department had been under significant pressure to remove her since the summer of 2018.
In explaining her departure, she acknowledged months of criticisms by Trump’s personal attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani, who had accused her of privately badmouthing the president and seeking to protect the interests of former vice president Joe Biden and his son who served on the board of a Ukrainian energy company.
Yovanovitch denied those allegations and said she was “incredulous” that her superiors decided to remove her based on “unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives.” She also took direct aim at Giuliani's associates whom she said could've been financially threatened by her anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine.
“Contacts of Mr. Giuliani may well have believed that their personal financial ambitions were stymied by our anti-corruption policy in Ukraine,” she said.
I love this part: She arrived on Capitol Hill on Friday despite the White House’s stated objections and refusal to cooperate with the Democrat-led proceedings.
Regarding the indictments:
According to an indictment that federal prosecutors in New York unsealed Thursday, a Soviet-born associate of Giuliani’s met in the spring of 2018 with a U.S. congressman, who public campaign records indicate is former was Texas Republican Rep. Pete Sessions, to seek “assistance in causing the U.S. government to remove or recall the then-U. S. Ambassador to Ukraine.” The indictment says continues that Giuliani’s associate, Lev Parnas, pushed for Yovanovitch’s ouster “at least in part, at the request of one or more Ukrainian government officials.”
Sessions, who lost his reelection bid in November 2018, said Thursday that he did not know if he was the congressman mentioned in the indictment and denied any wrongdoing.
But they have his text messages. He is part of the Volker text.
But to date, the panels have recorded only one deposition — with former special U.S. special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker, who quit his post hours after he was requested to appear for a deposition. At his session earlier this month, Volker turned over a series of text messages he exchanged with Giuliani, a top aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and senior U.S. diplomats including Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union.
I am sure there is more to those text messages then the public know. Let’s wait and see. No one is doing Trump a favor by standing up for him. They are actually doing a crappy job. Especially Guiliani. Where is Kelly Conway I have not seen her?
@lawrence, when you read him, are you affected in any way by his darkness? I'm asking because a number of months ago, I was doing a loving-kindness meditation, under the light of a beautiful, full moon. I had never prayed for T., and believed my anger was getting in the way. I wanted to get past that and pray for his healing and divine guidance. So I tried that, and ... yikes! I saw nothing but darkness. Then I was met by this huge, steel door. DO NOT ENTER. Then I got goosebumps (not the good kind). It felt awful. Haven't gone back there since.
Anyway, perhaps my prayers were really intended to change him, and that's not my call. I'm trying to figure that one out. The most I can pray for now is that he be removed from office asap.
For those who might be interested, here is the full text of Marie Yovanovitch's opening statement during her deposition this morning. Reading it, I felt a chill go down my spine. What a wonderful American. We should all be proud that people like her remain true to their oath to protect our Constitution and country.