UPDATE: A "Memorandum of Telephone Conversation" -- not a verbatim transcript -- of the call between Trump and the Ukrainian president has been released. Here's the link. Joe and Hunter Biden come up directly and are inferred at other times. (We'll have another post up on this soon.) Once again, the whistleblower complaint is the missing piece that Congress and we all want to see.
We have several good reads on power mad, frothing Trump consigliere Rudy "Ghouliani" Giuliani's involvement in the effort to involve Ukraine in the 2020 election.
First, in a must- read, the Washington Post details how career professionals were sidelined in order for Ghouliani to operate freely:
President Trump’s attempt to pressure the leader of Ukraine followed a months-long fight inside the administration that sidelined national security officials and empowered political loyalists — including the president’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani — to exploit the U.S. relationship with Kiev, current and former U.S. officials said.
The sequence, which began early this year, involved the abrupt removal of the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, the circumvention of senior officials on the National Security Council, and the suspension of hundreds of millions of dollars of aid administered by the Defense and State departments — all as key officials from these agencies struggled to piece together Giuliani’s activities from news reports.
Several officials described tense meetings on Ukraine among national security officials at the White House leading up to the president’s phone call on July 25, sessions that led some participants to fear that Trump and those close to him appeared prepared to use U.S. leverage with the new leader of Ukraine for Trump’s political gain.
As those worries intensified, some senior officials worked behind the scenes to hold off a Trump meeting or call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky out of concern that Trump would use the conversation to press Kiev for damaging information on Trump’s potential rival in the 2020 race, former vice president Joe Biden, and Biden’s son Hunter.The Post's Greg Sargent has a timeline of the Trump-Ukraine scandal, in which you'll note Ghouliani operates as Trump's alter ego.
Former U.S. Attorney Mimi Rocah describes under what laws Ghouliani could be prosecuted, though she is realistic in her appraisal that the Justice Department under William "Low" Barr isn't going to pursue charges:
There are several different federal laws that might apply to Giuliani’s conduct here. Most obviously, Giuliani appears to be in violation of the Logan Act, which makes it a crime for private citizens who attempt to intervene without authorization in disputes or controversies between the United States and foreign governments. He is Trump’s personal lawyer, not a government official, and so his involvement is clearly a complicating, detrimental element for U.S. diplomatic interests. Ukraine officials need to know who is speaking for the president and, as Ukrainian journalist Serhiy Leshchenko wrote this week, who is trying to “drag” Ukraine into a U.S. presidential election.
More significant, Giuliani and Trump’s reported actions raise the real specter of a federal criminal bribery and extortion conspiracy. While Attorney General William Barr has made it clear that he will not prosecute Trump due to current DOJ policy, Giuliani enjoys no such privilege or immunity. And, while the factual record is not fully developed, federal investigations are opened every day against people with far less known and incriminating information. Any objective prosecutor, I believe, would agree with that.
As explained by my colleague, former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade, in the Daily Beast, it is a crime under the federal bribery statute for a public official to demand anything of value in exchange for performing an official act. Additionally, the Hobbs Act defines extortion as "obtaining property from another, with his consent, under color of official right." [snip]
And, if Giuliani assisted or agreed to assist this scheme — even if he did not fully adopt the entire plan — may have aided and abetted or conspired to commit those same crimes. In addition, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act makes it illegal for a U.S. citizen to corruptly offer “anything of value” to a foreign official to retain business or influence an official decision.Cleaning out the traitors and crooks from our government and allowing the rule of law to proceed should mean that Ghouliani rightly has as much to fear about the future as the odious mob boss he works for.
BONUS: Let's not forget AG William "Low" Barr in all of this. May need a double- wide cell --
it seems possible that bill barr is the most corrupt attorney general in american history and is up to his forehead in criminal conduct https://t.co/tqsDUjgien— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) September 25, 2019
Here it is, the moment Bill Barr couldn't quite answer whether anyone at the White House had asked Bill Barr to open an investigation. This was in May, right around the time Rudy was kicking the Ukraine scheme into high gear.— Jennifer Hayden (@Scout_Finch) September 25, 2019
Bill Barr was under oath here. https://t.co/ItUFrOvnGc
(Image: screenshot of Ghouliani sweating it out on Fox "News" last night.)
