The Presidential Events Bonus Edition: Ukraine in October and November

The House Judiciary Committee voted 23 to 17 to approve two articles of impeachment against President Donald John Trump, in December. But lets not get ahead of ourselves. Let's look back and see how we got here.

While the exact dates for each event won't be written into the articles, these events are written in the order that the public learned about them. Clicking on articles will of course provide more information.

Awkward Mixture already published the Ukraine Events of September. This article will collect all the major events from the ever accelerating process of October and November.

Below is a list of all the people with at least a semi-significant role in the Ukraine investigation. They are generally ordered with the most important people at the top, and the least at the bottom, but only casually. This list is not exhaustive.

(R) Donald Trump – President of the United States
Volodymyr Zelensky – President of Ukraine
(R) Rudy Giuliani – Personal Lawyer to Trump
Gordon Sondland – US Ambassador to the European Union
Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman – Business Associates of Rudy Giuliani
(R) Mike Pompeo – Secretary of State
Viktor Shokin – Former Prosecutor General of Ukraine: ousted by an international coalition for corruption.
(D) Joe Biden – Former Vice President and Democratic Candidate for President
Hunter Biden – Son of Joe Biden, worked for Burisma
(D) Adam Schiff – Head of House Intelligence Committee
(R) Rick Perry – Secretary of Energy
(R) Mike Pence – Vice President
(R) Mick Mulvaney – The Acting Chief of Staff
Bill Taylor – Acting Ambassador to Ukraine
Marie Yavonovitch – Former Ambassador to Ukraine
David Holmes – Diplomat at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine
Alexander Vindman - The Director for European Affairs for the United States National Security Council
Fiona Hill – Former official at the U.S. National Security Council in Russian and European affairs
Tim Morrison – Former U.S. adviser on Russia and Europe for the National Security Council
Andriy Yermak – A top adviser to Zelensky
Kurt Volker – Former Special Representative to Ukraine
George Kent – Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs
Michael Atkinson - Inspector General of the Intelligence Community
John Solomon – Conservative political commentator
Jennifer Williams - Special adviser to U.S. vice president Mike Pence on European and Russian affairs
Laura Cooper - Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russian, Ukrainian, and Eurasian affairs
(R) Mitch McConnell – Senate Majority Leader
(R) Ron Johnson – Senator from Wisconsin.
Yuriy Lutsenko – Former Prosecutor General of Ukraine
Burisma Holdings Limited - A natural gas company based in Kyiv. Employed Hunter Biden

October:










Text messages between State Officials and staff working in alternate channels for Trump revealed coordination between everyone (Volker, Sondland, Taylor) with Giuliani to compel the Ukrainians to investigate Joe Biden.

Republican Senator Ron Johnson revealed that Sondland had told him, that the White House was holding up military aid until Ukraine investigated 2016. Johnson also said, after an initial denial, Trump admitted he was withholding aid until he discovered what had happened in 2016.





The White House indicated its intent to never comply with the impeachment investigation. No officials would testify, and no documents would be turned over.




















Laura Cooper, a Pentagon official, testified about the White House's blockage of aid to Ukraine. Her testimony was delayed when dozens of House Republicans illegally walked into a secure facility on the Capitol. Republicans complained that they did not have access to the closed door hearings, even though over forty-five of them sit on one of the three committees overseeing the investigation.








A Republican House member, Gohmert, invoked civil war after the House voted 232-196 to open an impeachment inquiry, with one Republican joining Democrats, and two Democrats joining Republicans.


November:




The House released the transcript of its interview with former senior adviser Michael McKinley to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. He resigned because the State Department was no longer supporting employees, and was using ambassadors to impact domestic politics.

The House released the transcript of its interview with former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, where she alleged that Giuliani led a plan to have her fired, that she was told to tweet in support of the President, and that Giuliani's associates wanted her removed.





The US Ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland, submitted an additional document to his prior testimony, saying that he remembered new facts, implying that the testimony of others had forced him to admit to details he had previously misremembered.



Former Ambassador to Ukraine, Bill Taylor, told the House that there was a clear understanding of a quid pro quo and that Giuliani was messing with Ukrainian policy to the political advantage of Trump. His testimony, said that the President made $400 million in aid contingent on a public probe into the Bidens. He further said that Trump wanted Zelensky to go to a microphone and say he was opening an investigation into the Bidens.






President Zelensky planned to announce an investigation into the Bidens on September 13th. The announcement was canceled because the whistleblower made his complaint on August 12th, the inspector general approved the complain on August 26th, the Senate learned aid was held up on August 29th, the inspector general informed the House Intelligence Committee of the whistleblower on September 9th, and the White House released the aid on September 11th.




The House released the testimony of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, where he claimed that Zelensky would only receive a White House meeting if he opened an investigation into the Bidens. Vindman also said that the word Burisma was omitted from the official transcript of the call between Zelesnky and Trump.










A State Department aide in Ukraine, David Holmes, testified in closed hearings that he overheard a July call between Trump and Sondland, where they discussed the required Ukrainian investigation into Joe Biden.


Trump claimed he doesn't know most of his critics in the impeachment inquiry. One, he has met a number of them quite a few times. Second, in most cases it doesn't matter if he has met them before or not.





Pompeo again refused to publicly support State Department employees, or criticize Trump's tweets against Marie Yovanovitch.






The next day of public testimony included two witnesses, Gordon Sondland and Laura Cooper. Before Sondland's testimony the President called him a great American, but afterwards claimed he didn't know him. This may be because of all the people who testified, Sondland was closest to the President. He had given one million dollars to the President's inauguration, and had spoken repeatedly with the President. During his testimony Sondland implicated Pompeo, Perry, Pence, and Bolton as knowing about the quid pro quo. He said clearly that there was a quid pro quo. He explained that the President was the driving force behind the push for an investigation into the Bidens. Pence claimed Sondland lied during his testimony.







Mike Pompeo claimed the U.S. had a duty to investigate the Ukraine conspiracy. Which is not true, because one doesn't investigate an event for which there is no evidence.

Another possible reason for the release of the aid without the corresponding public investigation was that Trump learned of the whistleblower complaint in late August. The aid was released on September 11th.




That's it for the past two months. But with the full House voting to impeach the President tomorrow, there will certainly be more in the future.

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