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The Trump-Ukraine Whistleblower Worked for a 2020 Democratic Candidate

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Well, this is rather interesting. And by interesting, I mean the whole Trump impeachment circus looks like more of a joke with every passing day. We all know what got us here. President Trump had a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in July. There was supposedly some quid pro quo nonsense, with Trump threatening to withhold military aid unless Ukraine opened a corruption probe into Hunter Biden’s position at an energy company; Biden has zero experience in the energy sector. He’s also the son of former Vice President and 2020 candidate Joe Biden. The allegation is that Hunter sat on the board selling access. Is there truth to it? All we know is that Joe gets very, very upset when people talk about it.

The White House released a transcript of the call. There was no quid pro quo. There was nothing illegal. This came about because some whistleblower, who is reportedly a CIA agent, heard some other people say that this call was felonious in nature. It isn’t. It’s based on second-hand accounts. It’s fraught with errors. And this person was cited for political bias against Trump. This person is also a registered Democrat, but beyond that, we now know that this person worked with a 2020 Democrat (via Washington Examiner):

In an Aug. 26 letter, the Intelligence Community’s inspector general, Michael Atkinson, wrote that the anonymous whistleblower who set off the Trump-Ukraine impeachment fight showed “some indicia of an arguable political bias … in favor of a rival political candidate.”

A few weeks later, news reports said the whistleblower’s possible bias was that he is a registered Democrat. That was all. Incredulous commentary suggested that Republicans who were pushing the bias talking point were so blinded by their own partisanship that they saw simple registration with the Democratic Party as evidence of wrongdoing. . .

Now, however, there is word of more evidence of possible bias on the whistleblower’s part. Under questioning from Republicans during last Friday’s impeachment inquiry interview with Atkinson, the inspector general revealed that the whistleblower’s possible bias was not that he was simply a registered Democrat. It was that he had a significant tie to one of the Democratic presidential candidates currently vying to challenge President Trump in next year’s election.

(Read more from “The Trump-Ukraine Whistleblower Worked for a 2020 Democratic Candidate” HERE)

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House Dems Subpoena Pentagon and White House Budget Office

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The chairmen of three Democrat-led House committees have sent out a new batch of subpoenas to Trump administration officials as part of the ongoing impeachment investigation against President Donald Trump.

Monday’s subpoenas went out to the Department of Defense’s recently confirmed Secretary Mark Esper as well as White House Office of Management and Budget acting Director Russell Vought and are for documents related to Ukraine military aid. The legal demands were sent by the Democratic chairmen of the House Intelligence, Oversight, and Foreign Affairs Committees — Reps. Adam Schiff, Calif., Elijah Cummings, Md., and Elliot Engel, N.Y., respectively.

“Pursuant to the House of Representatives’ impeachment inquiry, we are hereby transmitting a subpoena that compels you to produce the documents set forth in the accompanying schedule by October 15, 2019,” the chairmen wrote in letters to Esper and Vought.

The news release from the three top Democrats explains that the documents are necessary to evaluate “the extent to which President Trump jeopardized national security” by withholding foreign aid and asking Ukrainian officials to look into the matter of a since-scuttled investigation of a company that employed former Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter.

The release cites one story from the Washington Post and another from the New York Times that the funds were halted ahead of President Trump’s July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

According to the Times story, Trump “personally ordered his staff to freeze more than $391 million in aid to Ukraine” ahead of the phone call” and “issued his directive to Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, who conveyed it through the budget office to the Pentagon and the State Department, which were told only that the administration was looking at whether the spending was necessary,” according to two administration officials.

“The enclosed subpoena demands documents that are necessary for the Committees to examine this sequence of these events,” the chairmen wrote, “and the reasons behind the White House’s decision to withhold critical military assistance to Ukraine that was appropriated by Congress to counter Russian aggression.”

The subpoena schedule for Vought and Esper includes documents, meetings, and communications going back to Jan. 1, 2019.

In prepared congressional testimony given last week, former U.S. envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker told Hill investigators that he became aware of a hold on financial assistance to the country about a week before the phone call “and immediately tried to weigh in to reverse that position.”

However, he also testified, “As I was confident the position would not stand, I did not discuss the hold with my Ukrainian counterparts until the matter became public in late August.”

“The issue of a hold placed on security assistance to Ukraine also came up during this same time I was connecting [a Zelensky aide] and [Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy] Giuliani,” the former envoy said elsewhere in the statement. “I did not perceive these issues to be linked in any way.” (For more from the author of “House Dems Subpoena Pentagon and White House Budget Office” please click HERE)

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Report: Biden Advisers Knew His 2018 Ukraine Comments Would Cause Problems

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Advisers to former Vice President Joe Biden reportedly said they knew his 2018 comments on Ukraine would be problematic.

The 2020 Democratic presidential candidate spoke on corruption at a 2018 Council on Foreign Relations event in Washington, D.C., where he recounted a trip he made to Kyiv, Ukraine, in 2015, BuzzFeed reported.

Biden described telling former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko that Ukraine’s prosecutor general must be fired or the U.S. would withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees — a story which three former Biden officials knew would be problematic, they told BuzzFeed on condition of anonymity. . .

One of the former officials added that when Poroshenko fired former Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin in 2016, “it had nothing to do with Burisma,” the company on whose board Hunter Biden sat. The former vice president’s son joined the board of Burisma Holdings in 2014.

“I obviously believed that there was nothing improper, but, especially because there is so much scrutiny you never want there to be anything that appears in any way inappropriate,” one former official told BuzzFeed. “At no point did anyone think or believe that Shokin was investigating Burisma, so it wasn’t that. It was more, the appearance of him getting that job not because of his own achievements but because of his connection.” (Read more from “Report: Biden Advisers Knew His 2018 Ukraine Comments Would Cause Problems” HERE)

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Revealed: Bombshell Audio From Ukraine That Repudiates Impeachment Narrative; ‘Whistleblower’ Never Disclosed Contact With House Intel Panel to Inspector General (VIDEO)

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By The Blaze. BlazeTV host Glenn Beck revealed explosive new evidence that unravels the official story behind the accusations that led to the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump. . .

Beck relayed how Ukrainian National Anti-Corruption Bureau Chief Artem Sytnik appeared to be caught on audio bragging that he had helped Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.

A quote from former Ukrainian state prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko explains the importance of the Sytnik recording.

“I don’t know how, but the Americans got an audio recording of Mr. Sytnik’s conversation,” Lutsenko says. “He is resting with his family and friends and discussing how he would like to help Hillary.” . . .

“Yep. I helped him, too. Not him, but Hillary. I helped her,” Sytnik says, according to a translation.

(Read more from “Revealed: Bombshell Audio From Ukraine That Repudiates Impeachment Narrative” HERE)

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‘Whistleblower’ Never Disclosed Contact With House Intel Panel to Inspector General

By Breitbart. The partisan CIA officer behind a so-called “whistleblower” complaint about President Donald Trump’s telephone call with the leader of Ukraine reportedly did not disclose his communications with a House Intelligence Committee staffer to the Intelligence Community inspector general.

According to Fox News reporter Catherine Herridge, inspector general Michael Atkinson told lawmakers that he had “no knowledge” of the officer’s contacts with the House Intel panel aide. This week, a New York Times report revealed that the officer and staff member first discussed the allegations against the president before the inspector general received the complaint.

The Times reported that the staffer shared several of the officer’s claims with House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA). The California Democrat is under fire for erroneously claiming in a recent interview that “we have not spoken directly with the whistleblower.”

“We have not spoken directly with the whistleblower. We would like to,” Schiff told MSNBC contributor Sam Stein when asked if the two had ever spoken. “But I am sure the whistleblower has concerns that he has not been advised, as the law requires, by the inspector general or the director of national Intelligence just how he is supposed to communicate with Congress, and so the risk to the whistleblower is retaliation.” (Read more from “‘Whistleblower’ Never Disclosed Contact With House Intel Panel to Inspector General” HERE)

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Giuliani: ‘Pretty Close to Overwhelming Evidence’ That Obama Ordered Hillary, Democrats to Dig up Dirt in Ukraine on Trump; Ukrainian President Says He’s Never Met Rudy Giuliani (VIDEO)

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By Daily Wire. Trump lawyer and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani suggested on Monday night that there was serious evidence that the Obama White House directed Democrats to work with Ukraine to dig up dirt on then-candidate Donald Trump.

Giuliani joined Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Monday night where he detailed the latest developments into the situation regarding Ukraine, which stems from a 2017 Politico investigation that found that Ukraine was working with operatives for the Democratic National Committee to sabotage Trump.

“The reason why the president of the United States had an obligation to ask the president of Ukraine to follow up on these allegations because there is substantial — I don’t want to exaggerate it but pretty close to overwhelming evidence, including a finding by a Ukrainian court that Hillary Clinton and the Democrats cooperated with Ukrainians with the order coming directly from the White House … to dig up dirt on her political opponent, and they did,” Giuliani said.

Giuliani then shifted his comments to focus on then-Vice President and now current Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden and the allegations surrounding his Ukraine corruption scandal.

“In this case, Biden sold his office for millions,” Giuliani said. “Is there anybody that believes that Ukraine or China were paying for Hunter Biden’s expertise? Or do you have the common sense to realize they were buying Joe Biden’s office? And that is very damaging to the United States. Joe Biden was sent to Ukraine to, in part, deal with corruption, and he helped to corrupt the Ukraine. He is a laughingstock.” (Read more from “Giuliani: ‘Pretty Close to Overwhelming Evidence’ That Obama Ordered Hillary, Democrats to Dig up Dirt in Ukraine on Trump” HERE)

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Zelensky Says He’s Never Met Rudy Giuliani

By The Daily Caller. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday that he’s never met President Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani.

Zelensky’s comments contradict the anonymous whistleblower who claimed that the president had pressured Zelensky to speak with the former New York City mayor.

“I’ve never met Rudy Giuliani,” Zelensky said. “Never. And never had any phone calls with him.”

The former New York City mayor has been making the rounds defending the president since the transcript of Trump’s call with Zelensky was released. (Read more from “Zelensky Says He’s Never Met Rudy Giuliani” HERE)

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State Department IG to Congress: We Need an ‘Urgent’ Ukraine Briefing

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State Department Inspector General Steve Linick is expected to provide an “urgent” briefing on Wednesday to staffers from various House and Senate Committees, ABC News reported. The briefing will be “about documents obtained from the department’s Office of the Legal Adviser related to the State Department and Ukraine.”

Linick reportedly requested the meeting. Although the reason for the briefing remains unknown, ABC News reported it may be related to a whistleblower complaint filed against President Donald Trump over a July call he made with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. During the call Trump asked Zelensky to investigate corruption. At the time, then-Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, was sitting on the board of directors of a Ukrainian gas company. The vice president was overseeing foreign relations with the Ukrainians.

Specifically, ABC News reported that the briefing will detail “the State Department’s role in coordinating interactions between Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal attorney, and Ukrainian officials.”

According to CNN, a congressional staffer said the IG’s request was “highly unusual and cryptically worded.” (Read more from “State Department IG to Congress: We Need an ‘Urgent’ Ukraine Briefing” HERE)

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Report: Whistleblower Seeking Federal Protection, Lawyers Allege ‘Certain Individuals’ Have Offered Bounty

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By Mediaite. CBS reported a new update on the anonymous whistleblower: they are seeking further federal protection “because he or she fears for their safety.”

60 Minutes reported Sunday night that a letter from the whistleblower’s attorney Andrew Bakaj alleges “certain individuals have issued a $50,000 ‘bounty’ for ‘any information’ relating to our client’s identity.” The letter includes Trump’s leaked comments from earlier this week, saying they indicated a threat of violence against the whistleblower.

“I want to know who’s the person, who’s the person who gave the whistleblower the information? Because that’s close to a spy,” Trump said earlier this week. “You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart? Right? The spies and treason, we used to handle it a little differently than we do now.”

Scott Pelley also spoke with Rep. Adam Schiff, Rep. Kevin McCarthy and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi about the ongoing impeachment inquiry. The inquiry was launched following the release of a transcript that appeared to show Trump asking the Ukrainian president for political favors in exchange for military aid.

(Read more from “Report: Whistleblower Seeking Federal Protection, Lawyers Allege ‘Certain Individuals’ Have Offered Bounty” HERE)

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Intel Community: ‘First-Hand Information Required’ for Whistleblowers — Until Second-Hand Complaint on President Trump, That Is

By The Blaze. The Office of the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community (ICIG) has quietly removed its requirement that whistleblowers report only “first-hand information,” according to a report in The Federalist.

Coincidentally, the whistleblower who recently filed a complaint against President Donald Trump admitted that he or she was “not a direct witness” to the alleged wrongdoings, a stipulation that would have disqualified the complaint under previous versions of the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act (ICWPA) disclosure process.

A screenshot provided by The Federalist’s Sean Davis shows the former version of the whistleblower complaint form, or “Disclosure of Urgent Concern” form, with the following listed under a bold, underlined heading that read, “FIRST-HAND INFORMATION REQUIRED.”

In order to find an urgent concern “credible,” the [Intelligence Community Inspector General] must be in possession of reliable, first-hand information. The IC IG cannot transmit information via the ICPWA based on an employee’s second-hand knowledge of wrongdoing. This includes information received from another person, such as when an employee informs you that he/she witnessed some type of wrongdoing.

However, a new version of the form only requires would-be whistleblowers to check a box saying, “I heard about it from others.” (Read more from “Intel Community: ‘First-Hand Information Required’ for Whistleblowers — Until Second-Hand Complaint on President Trump, That Is” HERE)

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Was Biden Aware? Joe, Hunter Seen Golfing With Ukraine Gas Company Exec in Unearthed Photo

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A photo obtained by Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight” shows former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter golfing in the Hamptons with Devon Archer, who served on the board of the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings with Hunter.

Earlier this month, Joe Biden told Fox News in Iowa that he never discussed his son’s foreign business dealings with him.

“I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings,” Biden said, pointing the finger at President Trump. “I know Trump deserves to be investigated. He is violating every basic norm of a president. You should be asking him why is he on the phone with a foreign leader, trying to intimidate a foreign leader. You should be looking at Trump.” . . .

Earlier this month, Trump suggested that despite his claims, Joe Biden seemingly discussed Ukraine matters with his son. The White House has sought to point to possible corruption by the Bidens, amid the House Democrats’ formal impeachment inquiry against the president. . .

Biden has acknowledged on camera that in spring 2016, when he was vice president, he successfully pressured Ukraine to fire top prosecutor Viktor Shokin. At the time, Shokin was investigating Burisma Holdings — where Hunter had a lucrative role on the board despite limited relevant expertise.

(Read more from “Was Biden Aware? Joe, Hunter Biden Seen Golfing With Ukraine Gas Company Exec in Unearthed Photo” HERE)

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WATCH: Pelosi-Losing The House Worth Impeaching Trump; Dems Now Eyeing Trump’s Calls With Putin; Whistleblower Has Agreed to Testify

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By The Daily Caller. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff announced Sunday that the whistleblower who filed a complaint regarding President Donald Trump’s call with Ukraine’s president has agreed to testify before the committee, adding that it will likely happen “very soon.”

A whistleblower complaint filed in August accused Trump of pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to dig up dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, during a July 25 phone call. Following the news, the House of Representatives opened up an impeachment inquiry into Trump.

(Read more from “WATCH: Whistleblower Has Agreed to Testify” HERE)

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Pelosi Suggests Losing the House Might Be Worth the Price If Trump Is Impeached

By The Daily Caller. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested Saturday night that she is willing to lose the House of Representatives to Republicans if it means ousting President Donald Trump.

“It doesn’t matter,” Pelosi said in response to a question from Texas Tribune CEO Evan Smith about whether she is worried how an impeachment inquiry will impact the 2020 House elections. “Our first responsibility is to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” She made the comments during an an interview at Tribune Fest, a festival in Texas highlighting newsmakers.

“People say you have to take a political risk doing that,” she added. “That doesn’t matter. That doesn’t matter. Because we cannot have a president of the United States undermining his oath of office, his loyalty to his oath of office, undermining our national security, and undermining the integrity of our elections.” (Read more from “Pelosi Suggests Losing the House Might Be Worth the Price If Trump Is Impeached” HERE)

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Dems Now Eyeing Trump’s Calls With Putin

By Vox. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) would like to obtain more of President Donald Trump’s phone calls with world leaders — especially those with Russian President Vladimir Putin, although that’s the last thing the Kremlin wants.

The White House has released a record of a phone call Trump held with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to rebut a whistleblower’s allegations Trump asked a foreign leader to investigate a political opponent. The White House’s record of that call did contain Trump asking Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, and the whistleblower claims the administration placed its notes from the call in a system meant only for highly classified material in order to keep the request secret. . .

On NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday, Schiff, who as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee is leading investigations into the Ukraine matter, said he wanted to better understand whether the White House was trying to hide any more calls with foreign leader — and if so, why.

“The paramount need here is to protect the national security of the United States and see whether, in the conversations with other world leaders and, in particular, with Putin, that the president was also undermining our security in a way that he thought would personally benefit his campaign,” Schiff said.

“If those conversations with Putin or with other world leaders are sequestered in that same electronic file that is meant for covert action, not meant for this, if there’s an effort to hide those and cover those up, yes, we’re determined to find out,” he added. (Read more from “Dems Now Eyeing Trump’s Calls With Putin” HERE)

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Fox News Host Has an Idea of Whose Behind the Whistleblower Complaint

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During Friday’s episode of “The Five” on Fox News, Geraldo Rivera made an interesting prediction: he believes a group like Media Matters is behind the whistleblower complaint that has lead to the House formally announcing an impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump. . . .

“And that’s the issue,” Katie Pavlich replied. “If they had released the complaint that the Intelligence Committee in the House and Senate received, without the transcript, people would believe the complaint over the transcript. So you release the transcript and hope people can look at it and know exactly what was said. But the timing here now comes into question, because the complaint is dated August 12, 2019 and Adam Schiff claims he only got it this week. Elise Stefanik, who sits on the same committee in the House, saying yesterday that not only should he not be making stuff up but then pointing out, how long did he have this complaint and why didn’t he share it with the committee? Because they were only given two hours to look at the complaint, so obviously, it’s political.” . . .

“Half a dozen U.S. officials that are named in the complaint, well, who are those people? Can they bring them up and say why didn’t you file a whistleblower report if this was that important?,” Pavlich explained. “And also, who’s behind the writing of the complaint? This is not just an email that someone sent as a ‘Hey, I have information, I need to meet with you.’ It’s very clearly written by a lawyer or a team of lawyers and possibly a research team.”

“I bet this can be traced, ultimately, and I’m not accusing, but a group like Media Matters, is in the air, with their dirty hands,” Rivera said. (Read more from “Fox News Host Has an Idea of Whose Behind the Whitstleblower Complaint” HERE)

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