U.S. Ambassador Roped Into Rudy's Quest to Smear Biden

[highplainsdem]

Source: Daily Beast

Rudy Giuliani’s contacts with officials at the State Department as part of his controversial efforts to dig up dirt on Joe Biden in Ukraine are more extensive than have been publicly reported. And they raise additional questions about the degree to which senior officials throughout the Trump administration were involved in—or privy to—attempts by the president to muddy a top potential political opponent.

Over the course of the past year, Giuliani has participated in a far-flung campaign by Trump allies to unearth damaging information about Biden and his son Hunter. As part of that effort, Giuliani pressed the Ukrainian government to investigate so-far unfounded allegations of corruption in the country involving the Bidens. At the time, Hunter Biden was accused of using his father’s political standing to secure lucrative business opportunities abroad. Ukraine’s prosecutor general would subsequently say he had no evidence of any wrongdoing.

This summer, Giuliani briefed U.S. diplomats, including special representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker, on his work in Ukraine and his efforts to convince the administration of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the Bidens. But Giuliani confirmed to The Daily Beast that he also briefed another diplomat: U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland. President Trump’s lawyer said that he briefed both Volker (who he referred to as the “main one” in terms of his State contacts) and Sondland on multiple conference calls earlier this year about his progress in pursuing a Ukraine investigation.

It wasn’t exactly an unknown topic for Sondland. The ambassador was also closely involved with the Trump phone call to Zelensky in which Trump repeatedly pressured the Ukrainian president to investigate the Bidens.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/impeachment-inquiry-us-ambassador-roped-into-rudy-giulianis-quest-to-smear-biden

[volstork]

1. Everything trump touches dies.

People are fools not to see that.

[NurseJackie]

14. Yes they are.

[volstork]

15. Had no idea

that there was a book. Will have to read that one.

[tonekat]

2. He's a disgusting lout

When the day arrives when the National Portrait Gallery is befouled by the addition of his dyspeptic grimace in a frame, they will have to put it in a Plexiglass Shield, fencing the other portraits from his.

His "Portrait" will be a cheap reproduction printed on glossy paper on a roll of 500, because it will be smeared by unspeakable substances every day, and we have to protect the other portraits from the spatter.

His portrait will be like a toilet paper roll, one gets ruined by the public, and they rip it on the dotted line (wearing gloves), drop it into the lined waste can beneath, and pull a new one down from the roll, all ready to take the next barrage.

[Stonepounder]

8. Better yes, his official portrait in a gold frame

and in large rubber stamp letters across the portrait:

IMPEACHED
REMOVED FROM OFFICE

So that we never forget!

[bucolic_frolic]

3. Dirty little deals done outside regular channels

am I seeing a pattern here?

[JohnnyLib2]

4. Has the ambassador been recalled or some such?

Drudge has a one line statement that it will be reported in the Washington Post tomorrow.

[riversedge]

6. He needs to just RESIGN!

[JohnnyLib2]

7. Correction.

The recall was a year or more ago. She (ambassador) had come under criticism from …...Rudy Giuliani!

[riversedge]

5. Mick Mulvaney needs to RESIGN ALSO...............

..........They weren’t the only senior members of the Trump administration brought into the president’s efforts to use a foreign government to squeeze a political foe. According to the Washington Post, Trump ordered Mick Mulvaney, his acting chief of staff and director of the Office of Management and Budget, to hit pause on hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid for Ukraine—just days before a now-infamous July phone call between Trump and Zelensky. Mulvaney’s OMB deputies then directed officials Departments of Defense and State not to distribute the military aid.

Giuliani’s work on Ukraine began months earlier. The Trump attorney’s work, done with the president’s explicit blessing, involved chasing leads on possible origins of the Mueller investigation. It eventually led to his attempts to dig up dirt on the Biden family. This was all happening as Trump was preparing to head into a presidential election year, with Trump and his advisers viewing Biden, the 2020 Democratic frontrunner, as a prominent political enemy.

Giuliani was planning to travel to Ukraine in May to look into allegations of corruption involving the Bidens there. The trip was pulled. But the president’s lawyer met up with Andrei Yermak, a close adviser to Zelensky, in Spain last month. It was before that meeting that Giuliani said the department reached out to him and requested that he take a call with Yermak. And after the meeting, Giuliani told The Daily Beast he briefed Volker and Sondland.

While Volker is known in diplomatic circles as the U.S. special representative for Ukraine, Ambassador Sondland has—until recently—maintained a lower-profile. The founder and chairman of Provenance Hotels, Sondland appeared to be uncomfortable with his status as a Trump supporter during the 2016 campaign. ....................................................


Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/impeachment-inquiry-us-ambassador-roped-into-rudy-giulianis-quest-to-smear-biden

[Marcuse]

9. Co conspirators could also include Secretaries of State and Defense

What did they know. When did they know it.

[NBachers]

11. Okay, who's paying for all Giuliani's travel, lodging, and expenses?

[safeinOhio]

10. Seems the "cover up" always trumps the crime...

[Scarsdale]

12. When will enquiries begin on

Ivanka tRump's multiple trademark deals worldwide? Turn the spotlight on those, plus the $100 million she got to promote women's businesses worldwide. What is that money spent on, since apparently WE pay all her expenses. tRump treats the office of the president just like he treated his personal business. Hiring relatives, even when they are clueless as to what they are doing. Why are people who were denied security clearances flying all over the world, doing business for the US government?

[Maxheader]

13. Smearing high profile liberals..

Like hillary...bill
Obama..his wife..This is what turns the heads of the country wingers..
Its a soap opera to them..no regards to substance or facts. It's dirt
about the baby killing , tree huggin , global warming whining, pacifist freak left..