BREAKING: As President Trump urged Ukraine's leaders to investigate his political rival Joe Biden, a

[MelissaB]

BREAKING: As President Trump urged Ukraine’s leaders to investigate his political rival Joe Biden, associates of his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani were looking to profit from the country’s state-run natural gas company, AP sources say.

Link to tweet

AP sources: Trump allies pressed Ukraine over gas firm

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — As Rudy Giuliani was pushing Ukrainian officials last spring to investigate one of Donald Trump’s main political rivals, a group of individuals with ties to the president and his personal lawyer were also active in the former Soviet republic.

Their aims were profit, not politics. This circle of businessmen and Republican donors touted connections to Giuliani and Trump while trying to install new management at the top of Ukraine’s massive state gas company. Their plan was to then steer lucrative contracts to companies controlled by Trump allies, according to two people with knowledge of their plans.

Their plan hit a snag after Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko lost his reelection bid to Volodymyr Zelenskiy, whose conversation with Trump about former Vice President Joe Biden is now at the center of the House impeachment inquiry of Trump.

But the effort to install a friendlier management team at the helm of the gas company, Naftogaz, would soon be taken up with Ukraine’s new president by U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry, whose slate of candidates included a fellow Texan who is one of Perry’s past political donors.

More: https://apnews.com/d7440cffba4940f5b85cd3dfa3500fb2?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_medium=AP&utm_source=Twitter

[SunSeeker]

1. K & R for exposure.

[rurallib]

2. Kick - what a bunch thieves

[mtngirl47]

3. Just impeach him already! n/t

[UniteFightBack]

4. Follow the money. nt

[Poiuyt]

5. Isn't trump on a corruption crusade all of a sudden?

I know where he can start

[Blue_playwright]

6. So not surprised... nt

[Thunderbeast]

7. SO many fossil fuels found in the swamp...

[NewJeffCT]

8. of course

it's a collection of crooks, conmen and grifters

[Johnny2X2X]

9. This is how corrupt governments work

Eventually there is so much corruption that the only people who make any money are those in the corrupt ruling party.

[dalton99a]

10. What Rick Perry did for the gang:

In May, Rick Perry traveled to Kyiv to serve as the senior U.S. government representative at the inauguration of the county’s new president.

In a private meeting with Zelenskiy, Perry pressed the Ukrainian president to fire members of the Naftogaz advisory board. Attendees left the meeting with the impression that Perry wanted to replace the American representative, Amos Hochstein, a former diplomat and energy representative who served in the Obama administration, with someone “reputable in Republican circles,” according to someone who was in the room.

A second meeting during the trip, at a Kyiv hotel, included Ukrainian officials and energy sector people. There, Perry made clear that the Trump administration wanted to see the entire Naftogaz supervisory board replaced, according to a person who attended both meetings. Perry again referenced the list of advisers that he had given Zelenskiy, and it was widely interpreted that he wanted Michael Bleyzer, a Ukrainian-American businessman from Texas, to join the newly formed board, the person said. Also on the list was Robert Bensh, another Texan who frequently works in Ukraine, the Energy Department confirmed.

Gordon D. Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, and Kurt D. Volker, then the State Department’s special envoy to Ukraine, were also in the room, according to photographs reviewed by AP. The person, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation, said he was floored by the American requests because the person had always viewed the U.S. government “as having a higher ethical standard.”

The Naftogaz supervisory board is supposed to be selected by the Ukrainian president’s Cabinet in consultation with international institutions, including the International Monetary Fund, the United States and the European Union. It must be approved by the Ukrainian Cabinet. Ukrainian officials perceived Perry’s push to swap out the board as circumventing that established process, according to the person in the room.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

11. they believe the best use of U.S. reputation and power is personal profit

The TrumPutin regime sets new records of corruption every day.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

12. ₽epublican Jesu$

₽epublican$ are all about unfettered freedoms for the wealthy and chains for the rest of us.....

Republican Jesus: "Suffer the little rubles and dollars to come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven."......

[Me.]

13. KR

[TeamPooka]

14. Now we know who was paying Rudy since Trump isn't

[nolabear]

15. Of course he did.

Grifters gonna grift. 🤷🏼?♀️

[SCVDem]

16. No prison!

Hang them in front of their co-conspirators!

Too rough? Maybe another nasty letter?

They are traitors to our republic and should be treated as our founders dictated.

They so like to voice what the founders would do.

Go full Nike and just do it!


Every veteran took an oath!

We kept ours! Semper Fi

[triron]

21. All in.

[renate]

17. It is literally impossible to keep up with this barrage of bullshit

I just can’t believe what has happened to our country and how 37-40% of the population is devoted to the guy at the center of all this complete and utter corruption.

[ArcticFox]

18. So Trump proclaimed others corrupt when it was actually his people?

I never would've guessed.

I've said it a thousand times, but one more can't hurt. Trump is the king of two things: corruption and projection.

[58Sunliner]

19. Where does Putin come in?

[ffr]

20. Ah, the money connection. I get it now. Putin gave him the roadmap

to exploiting Ukraine's wealth as he and other oligarchs did.

[MFGsunny]

22. Getting power and bucks via grifting and corruption equals MF45 cabal's legacy.

Let the law burn the whole bunch of them.

I'd like to believe that the more corrupted grifters are unmasked, the more patriots will step up.