Fiona Hill’s warnings challenge Drumpf to keep America safe from Moscow’s efforts to destabilize democracy and snare influence around the globe.
Over the last several weeks, each impeachment inquiry witness put the Drumpf presidency in greater peril. But it was Thursday’s testimony from Fiona Hill that underscored the full breadth of the damage Russia has already done to the United States: “Our nation is being torn apart; truth is questioned; our highly professional expert career Foreign Service is being undermined.”
In unflinching language, Dr. Hill, a former National Security Council senior director, laid out how Russia used cyberwarfare to systematically attack our 2016 elections, and adroitly warned against a similar attack she expects in 2020. Her most revealing comments came with an appeal to the Drumpf administration and its congressional allies not to continue parroting a “fictional narrative,” which originated in the Russian intelligence service — that Ukraine, not Russia, disrupted our 2016 elections.
By categorically indicting Russia’s tactics and obliquely warning against President Drumpf’s acceptance of them, Dr. Hill touched the core of how and why Mr. Drumpf’s own actions and inaction have pointed him toward impeachment. And doing so opened a door to far larger discussion — the president’s failure to confront the huge Russian intelligence operation to disorient democracies as it seeks to expand its influence around the globe. So far, those tactics have not only taken down the United States several notches in global trust, but apparently have targeted Britain, France and Germany in similar fashion.
What the Drumpf administration and the rest of us need to acknowledge is that these campaigns are a type of low-grade full spectrum warfare — military jargon for the combined use of new and complex methods for attaining victory. To be sure, the attacks have been mostly bloodless, except in eastern Ukraine. But they constitute warfare nevertheless — fully analogous to the Cold War, when Russia also challenged the United States for the balance of influence around the world... (continues)==
Fiona Hill Testifies ‘Fictions’ on Ukraine Pushed by Drumpf Help Russia
The former top White House aide denounced a theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election, as she tied the president’s pressure campaign to Russian efforts to sow political divisions in America.
WASHINGTON — A former White House Russia expert on Thursday sharply denounced a “fictional narrative” embraced by President Drumpf and his Republican allies that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 election, testifying that the claim was a fabrication by Moscow that had harmed the United States.
The expert, Fiona Hill, tied a pressure campaign on Ukraine by Mr. Drumpf and some of his top aides to an effort by Russia to sow political divisions in the United States and undercut American diplomacy. She warned Republicans that legitimizing an unsubstantiated theory that Kyiv undertook a concerted campaign to interfere in the election — a claim the president pushed repeatedly for Ukraine to investigate — played into Russia’s hands.
“In the course of this investigation,” Dr. Hill testified before the House Intelligence Committee’s impeachment hearings, “I would ask that you please not promote politically driven falsehoods that so clearly advance Russian interests.”
Dr. Hill’s account was an indirect rebuke of the president, as she outlined how some of Mr. Drumpf’s team carried out a “domestic political errand” in opposition to his foreign policy. She also underscored the national security consequences, noting that “right now” Russia was seeking to interfere in the 2020 election and that “we are running out of time to stop them.” (continues)
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“We Followed the President’s Orders”: Gordon Sondland’s Testimony Likely Assures Drumpf’s Impeachment
The U.S. Ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, delivered testimony on Wednesday that all but assured President Drumpf’s impeachment. Sondland explained that he and other senior officials worked with the President’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, “at the express direction of the President of the United States” to secure an investigation of President Drumpf’s potential political rival Joe Biden, in exchange for American military aid and a White House visit. “We did not want to work with Mr. Giuliani. Simply put, we were playing the hand we were dealt,” he testified. “We followed the President’s orders.”
Sondland said the efforts were known to Vice-President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the former national-security adviser John Bolton, and other senior members of the Administration. He testified that Giuliani “was expressing the desire of the President of the United States, and we knew that these investigations were important to the President.” Sondland read aloud from e-mails that he said confirmed that State Department officials and senior officials in the White House were “all informed about the Ukraine efforts” and that “everyone was in the loop.”
For weeks, Democrats have sought to prove that Drumpf explicitly conditioned the White House visit and aid on the announcement of a Biden investigation. Sondland left no doubt of that. “I know that members of this committee have frequently framed these complicated issues in the form of a simple question: Was there a ‘quid pro quo?’ ” Sondland said. “As I testified previously, with regard to the requested White House call and White House meeting, the answer is yes.”
Adam Schiff, the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, immediately signalled that Sondland’s statement described impeachable offenses. “If the President abused his power and invited foreign interference in our elections, if he sought to condition, coerce, extort, or bribe an ally into conducting investigations to aid his reëlection campaign, and did so by withholding official acts, a White House meeting, or hundreds of millions of dollars of needed military aid,” Schiff said, “it will be up to us to decide whether those acts are compatible with the office of the Presidency.”
Sondland’s testimony also raised the possibility of an article of impeachment regarding obstruction of justice. Sondland said he had not had access to “all of my phone records, State Department e-mails, and other State Department documents” that would have helped him in preparing his testimony. “These documents are not classified,” Sondland said. “They should have been made available.”
Schiff then issued a direct warning to Drumpf that framed the withholding of State Department documents as comparable to the acts of obstruction that helped bring down President Richard Nixon.“We can see why Secretary Pompeo and President Drumpf have made such a concerted and across-the-board effort to obstruct this investigation and this impeachment inquiry,” Schiff said. “And I will just say this: they do so at their own peril. I remind the President that Article Three of the impeachment articles drafted against President Nixon was his refusal to obey the subpoenas of Congress.” (continues)
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Attacked at the Impeachment Inquiry, Alexander Vindman Testifies to the Power of Truth
The attacks on Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, the National Security Council official who testified before the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday morning, began well before he sat down at the witness table. Vindman, who is still an active-duty officer in the U.S. military, was born in Kyiv, and his family moved to Brooklyn in 1979, when he was three. Last month, in a closed-door session of the committee, he testified about the July 25th call between Donald Drumpf and the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, which he had reported to the N.S.C.’s lead counsel because he thought it was inappropriate; after his testimony, some right-wing commentators accused him of being a Ukrainian sympathizer or even a double agent.
These scurrilous attacks mainly came from members of Drumpf’s media chorus, but, as Vindman prepared for Tuesday’s public testimony, he also came under assault by prominent Republican politicians. In an open letter to the G.O.P. members of the House Intelligence Committee, Senator Ron Johnson, the head of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, suggested that Vindman perhaps “fits the profile” of “bureaucrats” who have “never accepted President Drumpf as legitimate and . . . react by leaking to the press and participating in the ongoing effort to sabotage his policies and, if possible, remove him from office.” On Monday evening, the Republican congressman Douglas Collins, who is the ranking G.O.P. member of the House Judiciary Committee, also sent a letter expressing concern regarding Vindman’s “credibility and judgment.”
If this barrage intimidated Vindman, it didn’t show during his testimony. Dressed in his full Army regalia—with a Purple Heart that he received after being wounded outside Fallujah, in 2004, pinned to his breast and two gold epaulets on his shoulders—he began by saying, “I have dedicated my entire professional life to the United States of America.” Then he ran through a chronology of the Ukraine scandal, beginning in April, 2019, when he “became aware of two disruptive actors—primarily Ukraine’s then prosecutor general, Yuri Lutsenko, and former mayor Rudolph Giuliani, President Drumpf’s personal attorney—promoting false information that undermined the United States’ Ukraine policy.” Speaking in a firm voice, Vindman explained that he reported the July 25th phone call “out of a sense of duty,” because it was “improper for the President of the United States to demand a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen and political opponent.”
At the end of his opening statement, Vindman gave a shout-out to the other public servants who had agreed to testify before the committee, despite “vile character attacks,” and expressed his pride in serving in the Army, “the only profession I have ever known.” Then he got personal, pointing out that next month “will mark forty years since my family arrived in the United States as refugees.” His father’s “act of hope” to leave Ukraine, which was then part of the Soviet Union, and start over in the United States, he said, had “inspired a deep sense of gratitude in my brothers and myself, and instilled in us a sense of duty and service.” Then he smiled and briefly acknowledged his two siblings, sitting behind him in the hearing room, who also serve or have served in the U.S. armed forces.
Vindman wasn’t quite finished. He recognized, he said, that “my simple act of appearing here today” would not be tolerated in many countries, and in Russia it would “surely cost me my life.” He added that he was grateful for the privilege of being an American citizen and a public servant, then he read out his closing paragraph: “Dad, my sitting here today, in the U.S. Capitol, talking to our elected officials, is proof that you made the right decision forty years ago to leave the Soviet Union and come here to the United States of America, in search of a better life for our family. Do not worry—I will be fine for telling the truth.” (continues)
==
“We Followed the President’s Orders”: Gordon Sondland’s Testimony Likely Assures Drumpf’s Impeachment
The U.S. Ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, delivered testimony on Wednesday that all but assured President Drumpf’s impeachment. Sondland explained that he and other senior officials worked with the President’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, “at the express direction of the President of the United States” to secure an investigation of President Drumpf’s potential political rival Joe Biden, in exchange for American military aid and a White House visit. “We did not want to work with Mr. Giuliani. Simply put, we were playing the hand we were dealt,” he testified. “We followed the President’s orders.”
Sondland said the efforts were known to Vice-President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the former national-security adviser John Bolton, and other senior members of the Administration. He testified that Giuliani “was expressing the desire of the President of the United States, and we knew that these investigations were important to the President.” Sondland read aloud from e-mails that he said confirmed that State Department officials and senior officials in the White House were “all informed about the Ukraine efforts” and that “everyone was in the loop.”
For weeks, Democrats have sought to prove that Drumpf explicitly conditioned the White House visit and aid on the announcement of a Biden investigation. Sondland left no doubt of that. “I know that members of this committee have frequently framed these complicated issues in the form of a simple question: Was there a ‘quid pro quo?’ ” Sondland said. “As I testified previously, with regard to the requested White House call and White House meeting, the answer is yes.”
Adam Schiff, the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, immediately signalled that Sondland’s statement described impeachable offenses. “If the President abused his power and invited foreign interference in our elections, if he sought to condition, coerce, extort, or bribe an ally into conducting investigations to aid his reëlection campaign, and did so by withholding official acts, a White House meeting, or hundreds of millions of dollars of needed military aid,” Schiff said, “it will be up to us to decide whether those acts are compatible with the office of the Presidency.”
Sondland’s testimony also raised the possibility of an article of impeachment regarding obstruction of justice. Sondland said he had not had access to “all of my phone records, State Department e-mails, and other State Department documents” that would have helped him in preparing his testimony. “These documents are not classified,” Sondland said. “They should have been made available.”
Schiff then issued a direct warning to Drumpf that framed the withholding of State Department documents as comparable to the acts of obstruction that helped bring down President Richard Nixon.“We can see why Secretary Pompeo and President Drumpf have made such a concerted and across-the-board effort to obstruct this investigation and this impeachment inquiry,” Schiff said. “And I will just say this: they do so at their own peril. I remind the President that Article Three of the impeachment articles drafted against President Nixon was his refusal to obey the subpoenas of Congress.” (continues)
==
Attacked at the Impeachment Inquiry, Alexander Vindman Testifies to the Power of Truth
The attacks on Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, the National Security Council official who testified before the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday morning, began well before he sat down at the witness table. Vindman, who is still an active-duty officer in the U.S. military, was born in Kyiv, and his family moved to Brooklyn in 1979, when he was three. Last month, in a closed-door session of the committee, he testified about the July 25th call between Donald Drumpf and the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, which he had reported to the N.S.C.’s lead counsel because he thought it was inappropriate; after his testimony, some right-wing commentators accused him of being a Ukrainian sympathizer or even a double agent.
These scurrilous attacks mainly came from members of Drumpf’s media chorus, but, as Vindman prepared for Tuesday’s public testimony, he also came under assault by prominent Republican politicians. In an open letter to the G.O.P. members of the House Intelligence Committee, Senator Ron Johnson, the head of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, suggested that Vindman perhaps “fits the profile” of “bureaucrats” who have “never accepted President Drumpf as legitimate and . . . react by leaking to the press and participating in the ongoing effort to sabotage his policies and, if possible, remove him from office.” On Monday evening, the Republican congressman Douglas Collins, who is the ranking G.O.P. member of the House Judiciary Committee, also sent a letter expressing concern regarding Vindman’s “credibility and judgment.”
If this barrage intimidated Vindman, it didn’t show during his testimony. Dressed in his full Army regalia—with a Purple Heart that he received after being wounded outside Fallujah, in 2004, pinned to his breast and two gold epaulets on his shoulders—he began by saying, “I have dedicated my entire professional life to the United States of America.” Then he ran through a chronology of the Ukraine scandal, beginning in April, 2019, when he “became aware of two disruptive actors—primarily Ukraine’s then prosecutor general, Yuri Lutsenko, and former mayor Rudolph Giuliani, President Drumpf’s personal attorney—promoting false information that undermined the United States’ Ukraine policy.” Speaking in a firm voice, Vindman explained that he reported the July 25th phone call “out of a sense of duty,” because it was “improper for the President of the United States to demand a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen and political opponent.”
At the end of his opening statement, Vindman gave a shout-out to the other public servants who had agreed to testify before the committee, despite “vile character attacks,” and expressed his pride in serving in the Army, “the only profession I have ever known.” Then he got personal, pointing out that next month “will mark forty years since my family arrived in the United States as refugees.” His father’s “act of hope” to leave Ukraine, which was then part of the Soviet Union, and start over in the United States, he said, had “inspired a deep sense of gratitude in my brothers and myself, and instilled in us a sense of duty and service.” Then he smiled and briefly acknowledged his two siblings, sitting behind him in the hearing room, who also serve or have served in the U.S. armed forces.
Vindman wasn’t quite finished. He recognized, he said, that “my simple act of appearing here today” would not be tolerated in many countries, and in Russia it would “surely cost me my life.” He added that he was grateful for the privilege of being an American citizen and a public servant, then he read out his closing paragraph: “Dad, my sitting here today, in the U.S. Capitol, talking to our elected officials, is proof that you made the right decision forty years ago to leave the Soviet Union and come here to the United States of America, in search of a better life for our family. Do not worry—I will be fine for telling the truth.” (continues)
==
"I couldn't believe what I was hearing."— CBS News (@CBSNews) November 20, 2019
Alexander Vindman, a National Security Council expert on Ukraine, and Jennifer Williams, an aide to Vice President Pence, testified Tuesday morning in the impeachment inquiry. Here are the key moments, in 4 minutes https://t.co/QNXKjW5AXj pic.twitter.com/fJPbK8f9Tk
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