Breaking: More Alarm Bells on that Ukraine Call – Update w Reporter Interview
WaPo is just out with a new story about how fast WH officials raised alarms:
At least four national security officials were so alarmed by the Trump administration’s attempts to pressure Ukraine for political purposes that they raised concerns with a White House lawyer both before and immediately after President Trump’s July 25 call with that country’s president, according to U.S. officials and other people familiar with the matter.The nature and timing of the previously undisclosed discussions with National Security Council legal adviser John Eisenberg indicate that officials were delivering warnings through official White House channels earlier than previously understood — including before the call that precipitated a whistleblower complaint and the impeachment inquiry of the president. [emphasis added]
These concerns go back at least to May, when Trump got Amb. Yovanovich pulled from Kyiv — and gives new urgency to her testimony. Which she apparently is going to give:
Although the White House has indicated it will not comply with Democrats’ impeachment inquiry and blocked the testimony of another ambassador on Tuesday, the House Intelligence Committee believes Yovanovitch will appear to answer questions in closed-door hearing on Friday, an official working on the impeachment inquiry told Hearst Connecticut Media. www.ctinsider.com/…
Earlier today, WaPo had this story up: Ousted Ukraine envoy expected to testify in impeachment probe despite White House vow not to cooperate, congressional aides say
A comment (which unfortunately I can’t locate right now) on a WaPo column by a retired Foreign Service Officer said that the Ambassador could, if she wanted to, resign right now and State would have no authority to tell her what to do after that. She has worked for State for 30 years, and her pension is safe. Plus it’s very clear she will never get another decent State posting after the right wing hit job that was done on her this spring.
More from the WaPo story:
Within minutes, senior officials including national security adviser John Bolton were being pinged by subordinates about problems with what the president had said to his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky. Bolton and others scrambled to obtain a rough transcript that was already being “locked down” on a highly classified computer network.
Bolton, too, hmmm? Now, John Bolton is a warmonger and a right-wing fanatic, but he is loyal to his principles, however detestable. He favored Ukraine over Russia and got in trouble with Trump for it:
so maybe this is why Bolton quit while Trump said he was fired, and also why Bolton has been speaking out about Trump more than some other ex-aides. Time for the House to call Bolton in for some questions.
Meantime the NSC “legal adviser” Eisenberg may the latest one in trouble:
Eisenberg likely would also have played a leading role in the White House efforts to prevent the nation’s intelligence director from turning over a whistleblower complaint about Trump’s Ukraine call to lawmakers.Officials who have worked with Eisenberg described him as conscientious and cautious, but said he has an expansive view of executive-branch authorities. One former Justice Department colleague said he is an “honest broker” but has a “disdain” for Congress.
Could he be the White House lawyer who ordered the transcript moved to the super secure server?
And how, by the way, did WaPo find all this out? More leaks springing from the sinking ship, it seems.
