Breaking: Trump Told Bolton to Help His Ukraine Pressure Campaign, Book Says

[Dennis Donovan]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/31/us/politics/trump-bolton-ukraine.html

The president asked his national security adviser last spring in front of other senior advisers to pave the way for a meeting between Rudolph Giuliani and Ukraine’s new leader.

By Maggie Haberman and Michael S. Schmidt
Jan. 31, 2020, 12:00 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON — More than two months before he asked Ukraine’s president to investigate his political opponents, President Trump directed John R. Bolton, then his national security adviser, to help with his pressure campaign to extract damaging information on Democrats from Ukrainian officials, according to an unpublished manuscript by Mr. Bolton.

Mr. Trump gave the instruction, Mr. Bolton wrote, during an Oval Office conversation in early May that included the acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, the president’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani and the White House counsel, Pat A. Cipollone, who is now leading the president’s impeachment defense.

Mr. Trump told Mr. Bolton to call Volodymyr Zelensky, who had recently won election as president of Ukraine, to ensure Mr. Zelensky would meet with Mr. Giuliani, who was planning a trip to Ukraine to discuss the investigations that the president sought, in Mr. Bolton’s account. Mr. Bolton never made the call, he wrote.

The previously undisclosed directive that Mr. Bolton describes would be the earliest known instance of Mr. Trump seeking to harness the power of the United States government to advance his pressure campaign against Ukraine, as he later did on the July call with Mr. Zelensky that triggered a whistle-blower complaint and impeachment proceedings. House Democrats have accused him of abusing his authority and are arguing their case before senators in the impeachment trial of Mr. Trump, whose lawyers have said he did nothing wrong.

</snip>

THERE'S the shoe we've been waiting for!

[Blaukraut]

1. The drips are beginning! n/t

[NewJeffCT]

2. wasn't Cipollone designated as a potential witness

by House managers?

[Dennis Donovan]

6. They referred to him as a material witness at one point:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-trump-impeachment-lawyer/trump-lawyer-cipollone-a-material-witness-in-impeachment-trial-democrats-idUSKBN1ZK1RJ

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats who will argue the case to remove President Donald Trump from office demanded on Tuesday that Trump’s personal lawyer Pat Cipollone disclose any first-hand knowledge he has of evidence he will present in the Senate’s impeachment trial, calling him a material witness.

“You must disclose all facts and information as to which you have first-hand knowledge that will be at issue in connection with evidence you present or arguments you make in your role as the President’s legal advocate so that the Senate and Chief Justice can be apprised of any potential ethical issues, conflicts, or biases,” the House of Representatives managers wrote in a letter to Cipollone.

I don't recall if they ever got an answer to their letter?

[FBaggins]

8. Yes and no

I don't think he was on an official list... but they did respond to republican claims that Schiff was a fact witness and shouldn't be a manager... by pointing out that Cipollone was also a fact witness.

[Pachamama]

3. Motherfuckers

They all really were in the loop and being directed by Trump himself....

[dalton99a]

4. Kick

Mr. Bolton described the roughly 10-minute conversation in drafts of his book, a memoir of his time as national security adviser that is to go on sale in March. Over several pages, Mr. Bolton laid out Mr. Trump’s fixation on Ukraine and the president’s belief, based on a mix of scattershot events, assertions and outright conspiracy theories, that Ukraine tried to undermine his chances of winning the presidency in 2016.

As he began to realize the extent and aims of the pressure campaign, Mr. Bolton began to object, he wrote in the book, affirming the testimony of a former National Security Council aide, Fiona Hill, who had said that Mr. Bolton warned that Mr. Giuliani was “a hand grenade who’s going to blow everybody up.”

The Oval Office conversation that Mr. Bolton described came as the president and Mr. Giuliani were increasingly focusing on pushing the Ukrainian government to commit to investigations that could help Mr. Trump politically. At various points, Mr. Trump, Mr. Giuliani and their associates pressed Ukrainian officials under Mr. Zelensky and his predecessor to provide potentially damaging information on the president’s rivals, including Mr. Biden and Ukrainians who Mr. Trump’s allies believed tried to help Hillary Clinton in 2016.

At the time of the Oval Office conversation Mr. Bolton wrote about, Mr. Giuliani was planning a trip to Kyiv to push the incoming government to commit to the investigations. Mr. Giuliani asserted that the president had been wronged by the Justice Department’s Russia investigation and told associates that the inquiry could be partly discredited by proving that parts of it originated with suspect documents produced and disseminated in Ukraine to undermine his onetime campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, whose work in Ukraine became a central focus of the Russia inquiry.

[JaneQPublic]

5. No wonder #RIPGOP is now trending on Twitter. (nt)

[Mike 03]

7. By god. And Cipollone was sitting right there.

He's a fact witness disguised as Trump's defense attorney!

[Mike 03]

9. Seth Abramson on this:

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[dalton99a]

10. Absolutely.

[ScratchCat]

11. I agree

There's no way Cipollone can avoid disbarment. He should also be held in contempt on Congress.

[jayfish]

12. This Narrative Needs To Be Changed. NOW!

President Trump directed John R. Bolton, then his national security adviser, to help with his pressure campaign to [s]extract[/s] fabricate damaging information on Democrats from Ukrainian officials. ...darned Liberal media.

[ScratchCat]

13. I know

Every time I read of hear "potentially damaging information" or the word "dirt" I cringe because it lends credence to the notion that Biden is somehow guilty of something. Something can't be "potentially damaging" if its fabricated and "dirt" is a term that refers to negative things that are actually true rather than false.

[jayfish]

14. Perfectly Read And Perfectly Said.

Thank you!

[2naSalit]

15. Needs to be widely known!!! ASAP!

[Stuart G]

16. It will be....the key word....is ......MAY..!!!!! It started in MAY!!!!

[2naSalit]

17. Hooo boy!

[democrattotheend]

18. What state(s) is he admitted in?

I looked to see if he's admitted in NY but couldn't find him in the attorney directory. Does anyone know where he is admitted to practice?