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:
Trump,
without evidence,
claimed Intelligence Committee Head, Adam Schiff helped write the
whistleblower complaint.
Giuliani,
who has no government position, and is the President's private
lawyer, said
the United States' former ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch,
was an obstacle to his attempt to investigate the Bidens.
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
CIA's top lawyer, appointed by Trump, called the DOJ and told the top
lawyer there that the allegations against Trump deserved a
investigation.
The DOJ rejected the appeal because it was not made as a written
request.
Trump
blamed Rick Perry for his the dialogue of his call with Zelensky,
and Rick
Perry denied it. Also, he was not resigning.
Giuliani's
associates, Lev
Parnas and Igor Fruman, who were Trump donors, refused to comply with
subpoenas from the House Intelligence committee.
The
White House indicated its intent to never comply with the impeachment
investigation.
No officials would testify, and no documents would be turned over.
Giuliani's
associates, Lev
Parnas, and Igor Fruman (I feel like I just wrote this), were
arrested for campaign fiance crimes when they purchased one way
tickets to flee the country.
Parnas
and Fruman attended Trump's invite-only 2016 election night party.
Parnas posted a photo of himself with Trump at the White House from
2018,
while another showed him with Donald Jr.
The
White
House told former Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanvitch not to
testify, but she did anyways,
revealing a concerted
effort to smear her from Giuliani and others, which led to her
removal.
Former
National
Security Adviser, John Bolton, told the United States top aide on
Russia, Fiona Hill to speak with White House lawyers.
She
had two meetings with the National Security Council about Giuliani's
scheming in Ukraine.
Gordon
Sondland said that President Trump told him, Perry and Volker, among
others, to work with Giuliani in Ukraine.
Sondland
testified in spite of the White House telling him not to.
Acting
Chief of State, Mick
Mulvaney said live, that the White House withheld aid to Ukraine to
get it to investigate the debunked conspiracy about Ukraine's
interference in the 2016 election.
Mulvaney admitted that there was a direct quid pro quo, of aid for
investigation. Mulvaney
tried to walk back the claim the same day.
Two
weeks after denying he would resign, Rick Perry resigned.
He
will not cooperate with the impeachment inquiry.
Bill
Taylor, the top US diplomat to Ukraine, testified
that there
was a quid pro quo of aid for an investigation into Biden,
and
that Trump ordered it.
Trump
defended himself in the Ukraine investigation by claiming he wasn't
pressuring Ukraine, because they didn't know the aid was being
withheld.
Other reports say
that Zelensky knew as early as May, and at least by August.
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.
Lt.
Col. Alexander Vindman, who witnessed the telephone call with
Zelensky, testified that he was at a meeting where Sondland told the
Ukrainians they needed to begin an investigation about Biden to
secure a meeting with the President.
Vindman also said that after the phone call with Zelensky he
reported his concerns to top National Security Council lawyer John
Eisenberg. Vindman also testified that
crucial words and phrases were omitted from the released White House
transcript of the Ukraine call.
In response, Trump's
allies smeared Vindman as a foreign agent and traitor, since he was
born in Ukraine.
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.
The
top White House aide for Europe and Russia, Tim
Morrison, confirmed a quid pro quo, saying Sondland told Ukraine's
official, Andrey Yermak, that Ukraine needed to open an investigation
into Burisma.
November:
Gates
told Mueller that
Manafort encouraged the idea that Ukraine was the source of the hack
on the Democratic Party's servers.
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.
The
House released
the transcript of its interview with former special representative to
Ukraine, Kurt Volker.
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 State Department official George Kent.
Kent claimed that Gordon
Sondland told him Trump wanted Volodymyr Zelensky to announce an
investigation with the words Biden and Clinton.
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.
In
the first public hearing Bill
Taylor and George Kent claimed Mr. Giuliani was searching for
political dirt on Joe Biden.
Bill
Taylor added
new testimony,
that a member of his
staff in Ukraine heard Sondland talking to Trump on the phone about
the investigation into the Bidens.
Federal
prosecutors opened an investigation into Giuliani related to campaign
finance
and failure to register as a foreign agent.
In
the second
day of public hearings,
Marie
Yovanovitch testified that she was smeared by Giuliani and his
allies, and removed by Trump, without support from Pompeo.
During her
testimony, Trump live tweeted, attacking and smearing her
on Twitter.
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
attacked Jennifer Williams, an aide to Mike Pence,
for her testimony.
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.
The
popular new website, The
Hill, began a review of reporting by John Solomon, who wrote articles
critical of Marie Yovanovitch:
claims she denied in public testimony.
David
Holmes explained that the
Russian government could have spied on the phone call he witnessed
between Sondland and Trump.
Pompeo
again refused to publicly support State Department employees,
or criticize Trump's tweets against Marie Yovanovitch.
In
another day of public hearings, Lt.
Col. Vindman expressed concern about the President's July call with
Zelensky,
because the President demanded a political favor for the release of
military aid. Republicans
tried to paint Vindman, a Purple Heart recipient and twenty year
veteran as a secret Ukraine sympathizer.
Jennifer
Williams testified that the July call “involved discussion of what
appeared to be a domestic political matter,”
rather than U.S. Policy.
Later,
two witnesses (Kurt Volker and Tim Morrison), called by House
Republicans, said allegations
against Biden were “self-serving and not credible,”
the condition
for Ukraine aid gave him a “sinking feeling,”
and “that
the Ukrainians would have to have the prosecutor general make a
statement with respect to the investigations as a condition of having
the aid lifted.”
Volker
was forced to concede that whether he was honest during his closed
testimony,
it was now clear that the
corruption inquiry was really a political investigation of the
Bidens,
and that a
proposed investigation of Burisma was only about the Bidens.
In
response, the
President tweeted a lie, hacking a line from Speaker Pelosi's memo to
the House about impeachment.
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.
Laura
Cooper testified that as
early as July 25th,
the day of the phone call, Ukraine was aware of the hold on military
aid. The Ukraine embassy sent an email asking about security
assistance.
On
the final
day of public testimony
Fiona
Hill testified that Republican's were aiding Russia by spreading the
rumor that Ukraine had interfered in the 2016 election.
She also said that Sondland was working a secret channel on an
unofficial policy.
She and David Holmes agreed that Trump was pushing for an
investigation into the Bidens.
Holmes explained that
Trump released the aid not because he always intended to, or because
he got caught, but because Zelensky had committed to the press
conference, and that the trade of aid for an investigation had been
completed.
After
Fiona Hill's testimony, Trump
pushed a debunked conspiracy on Fox and Friends,
while intelligence
officials briefed senators on the Russian created conspiracy that
Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election.
A
federal judge ordered
the Department of Defense and the White House Office of Management
and Budget to send records relating to Trump's block on aid to
Ukraine
to the nonprofit Center for Public Integrity.
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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