Trump -psykoosi

Nyt ei näytä hyvältä.

'Donald Trump pushed the United States towards a constitutional crisis on Tuesday when his legal counsel said the White House would refuse to cooperate with Congress’s impeachment inquiry.

“Given that your inquiry lacks any legitimate constitutional foundation, any pretense of fairness, or even the most elementary due process protections, the Executive Branch cannot be expected to participate in it,” the counsel Pat Cipollone said in a letter to Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives.'

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...nt-investigation-letter-constitutional-crisis
 
Nyt ei näytä hyvältä.

'Donald Trump pushed the United States towards a constitutional crisis on Tuesday when his legal counsel said the White House would refuse to cooperate with Congress’s impeachment inquiry.

“Given that your inquiry lacks any legitimate constitutional foundation, any pretense of fairness, or even the most elementary due process protections, the Executive Branch cannot be expected to participate in it,” the counsel Pat Cipollone said in a letter to Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives.'

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...nt-investigation-letter-constitutional-crisis
Varmaankin käy kuten Nixonilla eli tästä tulee yksi lisäkohta viraltapanoon, Nixonin tapauksessa kyseessä oli syyte 3/3 "contempt of congress". On mahdollista Trumpin estäessä virkamiehiä menemästä kuultaviksi että virkamiehet jotka eivät suostu kuulemiseen voidaan panna istumaan, rangaistus on 1-12kk vankilaa ja max. 100000$ sakkoja.
 
Varmaankin käy kuten Nixonilla eli tästä tulee yksi lisäkohta viraltapanoon...

Ikävä kyllä Trump on luultavasti turvassa, 'Moscow Mitch' ja kumppanit eivät hylkää suunnilleen riippumatta siitä mitä tulee ilmi, kaikki on vain noitavainoa.... Se mikä oikeasti on huolestuttavaa on vaikutelma ettei Trump suostuisi astumaan syrjään vaikka häviäisi vaalit 2020 ja että republikaanivetoinen senaatti asettuisi silloinkin Trumpin taakse.
 
Viimeksi muokattu:
Trump on hyökännyt hänen Ukraina-diplomatiansa paljastanutta "pilliin viheltäjää" voimakkaasti, kuten hänen tapana on. Myös haukkunut tätä edustavaa lakimiestä demokraattien tukijaksi. Kuinka ollakaan, sama lakimies edustikin republikaaneja heidän Hillaryn sähköpostit -tutkinnassaan. Ha.

 
Joe Bidenkin haluaa hämmentää soppaa.
Former vice president Joe Biden made his most direct call for President Trump’s impeachment Wednesday hours after Trump said the Democratic-led inquiry should be terminated “for the good of the Country,” claiming it was tainted with political bias.

“President Trump has indicted himself by obstructing justice, refusing to comply with a congressional inquiry … he’s already convicted himself,” Biden said during a fiery address in New Hampshire.

The comments from the Democratic presidential hopeful came a day after the White House said in a scathing eight-page letter that it would not cooperate with the inquiry into the Ukraine scandal on the grounds that it lacked merit.

The letter was the latest escalation in a standoff with Congress, where Democrats are vowing to hold Trump accountable for pressing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Biden and his son at a time when U.S. military aid to Ukraine had been suspended.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...bb38e0-e9f7-11e9-9c6d-436a0df4f31d_story.html
 
Varmaankin käy kuten Nixonilla eli tästä tulee yksi lisäkohta viraltapanoon, Nixonin tapauksessa kyseessä oli syyte 3/3 "contempt of congress". On mahdollista Trumpin estäessä virkamiehiä menemästä kuultaviksi että virkamiehet jotka eivät suostu kuulemiseen voidaan panna istumaan, rangaistus on 1-12kk vankilaa ja max. 100000$ sakkoja.


Periaatteessa noin, mutta demarien ongelma on, etteivät he ole vieläkään päättäneet virallisen tutkimuksen avaamisesta. Tutkimus avataan äänestämällä siitä edustajainhuoneessa. Sitten kun virallinen tutkimus avataan, niin vasta silloin voidaan pakottaa todistajat kongressiin.

Eli kunhan demarit virallisesti avaavat tutkimuksen, niin sitten mennään normaalien sääntöjen mukaan. Tähän mennessä Pelosi on telkkarissa ilmoittanut tutkimusten avaamisesta, mutta siitä pitäisi vielä tehdä virallinen.
 
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Periaatteessa noin, mutta demarien ongelma on, etteivät he ole vieläkään päättäneet virallisen tutkimuksen avaamisesta. Tutkimus avataan äänestämällä siitä edustajainhuoneessa. Sitten kun virallinen tutkimus avataan, niin vasta silloin voidaan pakottaa todistajat kongressiin.

Eli kunhan demarit virallisesti avaavat tutkimuksen, niin sitten mennään normaalien sääntöjen mukaan. Tähän mennessä Pelosi on telkkarissa ilmoittanut tutkimusten avaamisesta, mutta siitä pitäisi vielä tehdä virallinen.
Vieläkö tämä väite elää? Mikään laki tai sääntö ei vaadi äänestystä viraltapanoprosessin aloittamisesta, kyseessä on republikaanien taktiikka viedä keskustelua sivuraiteille. Kongressi itse päättää miten hoitaa viraltapanoprosessin.
It’s one of Republicans’ main talking points to rebut impeachment: that House Democrats’ inquiry isn’t legitimate because the members didn’t vote to start one. And now it’s what President Trump is resting his decision on for not cooperating with the inquiry.

White House lawyer Pat Cipollone wrote top House Democrats on Tuesday saying that Trump will ignore all requests in part because the House won’t vote to formalize its inquiry as past Congresses have for impeachment proceedings.

“Your inquiry is constitutionally invalid and a violation of due process,” Cipollone argued. “In the history of our Nation, the House of Representatives has never attempted to launch an impeachment inquiry against the President without a majority of the House taking political accountability for that decision by voting to authorize such a dramatic constitutional step.”

There are a couple of issues with that argument. First, there is no rule that the full House has to vote to start an impeachment inquiry. And a vote probably wouldn’t change anything. Nearly all House Democrats support an impeachment inquiry, so if they did take a vote, presumably they would all vote to keep it going.

(A senior Democratic House aide told the Fix last week that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has no intention of taking a vote, no matter what demands Trump makes. This person called the argument “pathetic” and “bogus.”)

Republicans surely know a vote won’t stop Democrats’ impeachment inquiry. So why are they pushing for it anyway?

Republicans in the House think they can exert more control over the process once it’s formalized by having a chance to call their own witnesses in hearings. But House Democrats control the majority and, thus, the process, so this is a nominal change to how things work now. Democrats could still vote to block the minority party’s witnesses, explains the Los Angeles Times’s Sarah Wire.

It seems more likely that Republicans’ focus on the process is an attempt to delegitimize House Democrats’ probe in a broad sense. That becomes especially important to do now that there are indications that public opinion is shifting; a new Washington Post-Schar School poll shows that a majority of Americans now support an impeachment inquiry.

The House did vote on an impeachment inquiry for Presidents Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon. The White House argued that those votes created a precedent the House must now follow. But, again, there is no rule that they have to.

“I don’t think anything at all turns on it,” Josh Chafetz, a constitutional law expert at Cornell University, said in an email to The Fix. “The House can structure its impeachment inquiry however it wants to. If it wants to kick it off with passing a cameral resolution, it can do that, but it certainly doesn’t have to.”

That’s in line with what Pelosi said in an interview with Washington Post columnist Karen Tumulty last week: “We can if we want, but we don’t have to have it. There’s nothing anyplace that says that we should.”

Asking for a vote is also a negotiating chip Trump can use to agree to cooperate with House investigators. But it’s a small chip. If the House did hold a vote, the vote would almost certainly be approved. It might slow things down by, like, a couple of days. Trump’s battles in the courts to not hand over documents are dragging things out much more effectively.

Plus, the Trump administration has given no indication that if the House held a vote, it would cooperate.

Another aspect that makes this call for a vote so puzzling is that it could backfire on Republicans.

Nearly every day, damaging information on Trump is coming out in this impeachment investigation. Last week, House Democrats released texts between Trump diplomats that showed some were concerned the White House was setting up a quid pro quo between Ukrainian military aid and Ukraine agreeing to investigate Democrats in the 2016 election (and perhaps Trump’s 2020 potential challenger former vice president Joe Biden).

Throughout all this, House Republicans are largely standing by Trump. What happens if something comes out that makes it no longer tenable for the party to do that? Do Republicans, especially those in potentially vulnerable districts, really want to be on the record opposing this impeachment investigation not knowing what it will ultimately uncover?

“The people who are most afraid of a vote on the floor are the Republicans,” Pelosi told Tumulty. “That’s why they’re beating their tom-toms like they want it, but they don’t. They have the most to be concerned about because for some of their members to say that we shouldn’t go forward with this is a bad vote.”

For many reasons, Republicans’ “take a vote” argument is thin. But that in itself is instructive about the options Republicans and Trump have. Beyond muddying the facts, which Trump and some high-level House Republicans are also willing to do, Republicans don’t have a whole lot in the way of defending Trump right now.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...ding-house-vote-start-an-impeachment-inquiry/
 
Vieläkö tämä väite elää? Mikään laki tai sääntö ei vaadi äänestystä viraltapanoprosessin aloittamisesta, kyseessä on republikaanien taktiikka viedä keskustelua sivuraiteille. Kongressi itse päättää miten hoitaa viraltapanoprosessin.

Ota huomioon, että demarit puhuvat suomeksi käännettynä vasta viraltapanoprosessin tutkimuksesta, siis tutkimuksesta, eli ei olla edes vielä varsinaisessa viraltapanoprosessissa.

Oli miten oli, lopulta näistä lakiteknillisistä kiistakysymyksistä tapellaan oikeudessa, ja sen päättää oikeuslaitos miten asiassa edetään.
 
Viraltapanoprosessi on käynnistynyt. Tutkimus -> Syyte -> Tuomio. Kaksi ensimmäistä alahuoneessa, viimeinen ylähuoneessa. Jos syyte saa riittävän kannatuksen.


Ihan päin seiniä. Demarit tekee suurinpiirtein samaa impeachment inquirya, kuin mitä ovat tehneet kolme vuotta - eli tutkimusta. Jos tutkimuksesta ilmenee rikos, niin siitä tehdään virallinen paperi, joka menee edustajainhuoneen äänestykseen, joka on se varsinainen viraltapanoprosessi - impeachment. Minua ei tarvitse uskoa, kun jopa Washington Post kertoo asian varsin selväsanaisesti. Suomen mediaa ei nyt kannata uskoa.

Nyt repujen/v.talon ja demarien välillä närää aiheuttaa se, että miten tuossa inquiryssä menetellään, tai mitä se edes tarkoittaa -jopa WaPo on epävarma mitä inquiry tarkoittaa.

On jopa väitteitä siitä, että demarit käyttävät hyväkseen tämän tutkimuksen 'harmautta', eli repujen vaatimuksia normaaleista lainmukaisista menettelyistä ja oikeuksista ei pidetä kiinni.


What does impeachment actually mean?
It means that Congress thinks the president is no longer fit to serve and should be removed from office.

Who can impeach the president?
Congress. Specifically, the House of Representatives. Under the framework of the Constitution, the House can vote to impeach a president for “high crimes and misdemeanors.” It’s up to the House to decide what that means.

But impeaching the president is not the same thing as removing the president from office. For that, the Senate holds a trial presided over by the chief justice of the United States.

So wait, is impeachment happening?
No. There’s an impeachment inquiry happening. If lawmakers decide there is enough evidence to consider writing up articles of impeachment, then they will. At which point, impeachment will be underway. The difference may sound semantic, but it’s important to note that a majority of House Democrats support an impeachment inquiry. We don’t know how many would vote to actually impeach Trump. So far only 27 have publicly said they want him impeached.

What is an impeachment inquiry?
It is the first step in the impeachment process. It means lawmakers will investigate what, if any, “high crimes and misdemeanors” Trump may have committed.

What is the process for an impeachment inquiry?
Pelosi said when she announced the inquiry that the six key committees that are already investigating the president will continue to investigate Trump “under that umbrella of impeachment inquiry.” If the investigations conclude that there are reasons for impeachment, the House Judiciary Committee will draw up articles of impeachment, and the Judiciary Committee and then the full House will vote on it.

So the House was already in an impeachment inquiry?
Yes. Well, kind of. It depends on whom you ask. (Lyhennetty)

What does the readout of Trump’s call with the Ukrainian president have to do with impeachment?
It means Democrats are moving forward with their impeachment inquiry with conviction. But it does not mean Trump is going to be removed from office.

 
Ei siinä ole mitään epäselvää. Impeachment inquiry alkoi, kun alahuoneen puheenjohtaja Pelosi kertoi sen alkaneen. Äänestystä impeach inquiryn aloittamiseksi ei enää tarvita, koska lait ovat muuttuneet sitten Pili Clintonin ja Dick Nixonin ajoista. Alahuoneen änestys sitten aikanaan päättää, eteneekö varsinaiseen impeachment syytteen lähettämiseen ylähuoneelle käsiteltäväksi, vai raukeaako siinä vaiheesaa.

On ollut spekulointia, olisiko alahuoneen silti, ylläolevasta huolimatta, järkevää äänestää myös tutkimuksen "virallisesta" aloittamisesta, mutta mikään laki ei niin vaadi, ja alahuone ei halua lähteä tähän Trumpin jatkuvaan maalitolppien siirtelyyn.
 
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Ottakaa koko ajan huomioon, että prosessi on poliittinen ensisijaisesti ja vasta toissijaisesti -laillinen-.....mitä se tuolla amerikoissa sitten tarkoittaakaan näissä asioissa?

Eli demokraatit vetävät eteenpäin VAIN omien poliittisten tavoitteidensa mukaan....ei tässä kukaan oikeasti aja mitään hämärää kansakunnan etua. Tai jätä ajamatta. En ole tod. Trump-fani, mutta on tässä nähtävä myös demokraattien raadollisuus.

Seuraavat vaalit....onko Trumpille edes tarpeeksi kovaa haastajaa tiedossa? Ei mitään hajua, tuskin on. Äijä on liukas kuin saunasaippua ja republikaanit sietävät heppua, koska haluavat roikkua vallassa, vaikka se maksaisi mitä. Koska Trump voittaa.
 
Ottakaa koko ajan huomioon, että prosessi on poliittinen ensisijaisesti ja vasta toissijaisesti -laillinen-.....mitä se tuolla amerikoissa sitten tarkoittaakaan näissä asioissa?

Eli demokraatit vetävät eteenpäin VAIN omien poliittisten tavoitteidensa mukaan....ei tässä kukaan oikeasti aja mitään hämärää kansakunnan etua. Tai jätä ajamatta. En ole tod. Trump-fani, mutta on tässä nähtävä myös demokraattien raadollisuus.
Sinällään tämä impeachment-prosessi kongressin työkaluna vahtia suuren vallan omaavaa presidenttiä ei ole pöllömmin suunniteltu. Mitä Tasavallan Isät sitten 1700-luvulla perustuslakia suunnitellessaan polttivatkaan, niin hyvin toimii. Matala kynnys alahuonella tutkia ja nostaa syyte, korkea kynnys ylähuoneella tuomita ja erottaa presidentti.
 
Nyt on Fox Newsilläkin väärät mielipidekyselytulokset, eikä kanava ole sama kuin vanhoina hyvinä aikoina. Foxin kyselyssä 51% oli Trumpin viraltapanon puolella.

A new high of 51 percent wants Trump impeached and removed from office, another 4 percent want him impeached but not removed, and 40 percent oppose impeachment altogether. In July, 42 percent favored impeachment and removal, while 5 percent said impeach but don’t remove him, and 45 percent opposed impeachment.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fox-news-poll-record-support-for-trump-impeachment
 
Kaksi Rudy Giulianin bisneskaveria jotka ovat auttaneet Giuliania painostamaan ukrainalaisia Bidenin pojan tutkimuksissa pidätettiin tänään epäiltynä vaalirahoitusrikoksista, rikokset liittyvät ulkomaisen rahan ohjaamisesta vaalikampanjoihin. Maanantaina samaiset kaverukset Parnas ja Fruman ilmoittivat etteivät aio tehdä yhteistyötä kongressin viraltapanotutkimuksen kanssa.
Two business associates of President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani were arrested and are in custody Thursday, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan said.

The two men, who helped Giuliani investigate former vice president Joe Biden, were arrested Wednesday night in Virginia and charged with campaign finance violations, according to a person familiar with the charges. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman have been under investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan and are expected to appear in federal court in Virginia later on Thursday.

According to the indictment, Parnas, Fruman and other defendants “conspired to circumvent the federal laws against foreign influence by engaging in a scheme to funnel foreign money to candidates for federal and state office so that the defendants could by potential influence with the candidates, campaigns, and the candidates’ governments.”

An attorney for the two men, John Dowd, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Parnas and Fruman have little history of political involvement but emerged suddenly in a circle of elite Trump donors after Parnas gave $50,000 to support Trump’s election in 2016 and a pro-Trump super PAC reported receiving $325,000 last year from a company the two men incorporated. House committees have asked them to turn over all documents and communications related to the donations and have sought depositions from both men.

Since late 2018, the two Florida-based business executives have been assisting Giuliani’s push to get Ukrainian officials to investigate former vice president Joe Biden and his son, as well as Giuliani’s claim that Democrats conspired with Ukrainians in the 2016 campaign. They have also been pursuing opportunities in Ukraine for a new liquefied-natural-gas venture.

Parnas, a 47-year-old former stockbroker who was born in Ukraine, has told The Washington Post that Giuliani is an attorney for the two men but declined to say what services he is providing them.

Parnas said he and Fruman helped set up a Skype call for Giuliani in late 2018 with Viktor Shokin, the ousted prosecutor general, and an in-person meeting in New York in January 2019 with Yuri Lutsenko, then Ukraine’s prosecutor general.

Parnas made his first large political contribution in 2016, when he gave $50,000 to Trump Victory, a joint fundraising committee for the Republican National Committee, the Trump campaign and GOP state parties, campaign finance records show.

Parnas told The Post that he decided to get involved politically because he was a passionate supporter of Trump’s candidacy after growing up in New York and selling Trump condos in the city when Trump’s late father, Fred, was still running the Trump Organization.

In May 2018, about six months before the men began working with Giuliani on his Biden investigation, a Florida business established by Parnas received a $1.26 million wire transfer from an account whose owner was represented by a real estate lawyer who specializes in assisting foreign buyers of U.S. property, court documents and corporate filings show.

Two days later, America First, the main pro-Trump super PAC, reported receiving $325,000 from a company Parnas and Fruman had incorporated the previous month called Global Energy Producers.

Last year, the nonprofit Campaign Legal Center filed a still-pending complaint with the Federal Election Commission over the donation, alleging that it appeared to be a straw donation that masked the identity of the original contributor.

Parnas told the Miami Herald last week that the money for the super PAC donation was from proceeds from the sale of a Miami-area condominium. Kelly Sadler, a spokeswoman for the super PAC, has declined to comment on “ongoing legal matters.”

“I can tell you that we scrupulously adhere to all laws and regulations,” she said.

The real estate lawyer involved in the transfer, Russell S. Jacobs, did not respond to requests for comment.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...9c101a-eb63-11e9-9306-47cb0324fd44_story.html
Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani's contempt for the House's ongoing impeachment inquiry has spread to his circle of associates. Two of Giuliani's colleagues who helped him pursue his Ukrainian conspiracy theories, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, officially stated Monday that they would not comply with a Monday deadline for them to turn over their documents to House investigators, nor will they appear at depositions scheduled for Thursday and Friday. In a letter sent to House investigators—and written in Comic Sans font—former Trump attorney John Dowd, who now represents Parnas and Fruman, said his clients could not provide the necessary documents in such a limited amount of time, calling the House request “overly broad and unduly burdensome.” “The subject matter of your requests is well beyond your scope of inquiry,” Dowd wrote, adding that he's reached the “inescapable conclusion that the Democratic Committee members’ intent is to harass, intimidate and embarrass my clients.”


Parnas and Fruman, both Soviet-born Ukrainians turned South Florida businessmen, reportedly acted as “couriers” for Giuliani during his quest for dirt on Joe Biden in Ukraine, and introduced him to former Ukrainian prosecutors Viktor Shokin and Yuri Lutsenko, who promoted the baseless Biden allegations. Dowd's letter notes that his clients also assisted Giuliani “in connection with his representation of President Trump,” whom the two men supported through donations of a combined $325,000 to a Trump-allied political action committee in 2018. Parnas and Fruman became further embroiled in scandal over the weekend, as the Associated Press reported that the two businessmen, along with Boca Raton oil magnate Harry Sargeant III, reportedly attempted to leverage their Trump ties as part of a scheme to replace the CEO of Ukraine's state-run natural gas company, Naftogaz, and then “steer lucrative contracts to companies controlled by Trump allies.” (Dowd characterized their efforts to the AP as “an attempt to do legitimate business that didn’t work out,” and Giuliani denies playing any role in the business deal.) As part of their efforts, the two men reportedly pressed for the dismissal of former ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, and told business associates of Yovanovitch's impending ouster—which was reportedly orchestrated by Trump and Giuliani—before it took place.

Giuliani, the man at the heart of the Ukraine scandal now spurring Trump's impeachment, has signaled that he could follow suit by refusing to comply with his own House-issued subpoena. “I haven't made up my mind,” the lawyer told the Daily Beast Monday about whether or not he'd comply with the subpoena, citing his belief that the House Intelligence Committee, whose chairman Rep. Adam Schiff has become a target for Trump allies during the impeachment showdown, is “illicit.” “I have a real question about whether I should recognize their legitimacy,” he said. Giuliani previously told ABC News that he would “of course” testify if Trump wanted him to, “even though I think Adam Schiff is an illegitimate chairman,” but remained otherwise undecided. (The president's lawyer, of course, is also “at risk of criminal exposure” himself for his outsized role in the Ukraine scandal, as former U.S. Attorney Barb McQuade told Vanity Fair, which raises the stakes for whatever information he does—or doesn't give—the House.)
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/10/giuliani-ukraine-parnas-fruman-impeachment-house-subpoena
 
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Ja punaniskat silti todennäkösesti äänestää ja on ''white housen'' takana. On ne lutusia.
 
Liittovaltion syyttäjät tutkivat rikkoiko Rudy Giuliani lobbauslakeja Ukraina-sekoiluissaan.
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan are investigating whether President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani broke lobbying laws in his dealings in Ukraine, according to two people familiar with the inquiry.

The investigators are examining Mr. Giuliani’s efforts to undermine the American ambassador to Ukraine, Marie L. Yovanovitch, one of the people said. She was recalled in the spring as part of Mr. Trump’s broader campaign to pressure Ukraine into helping his political prospects.

The investigation into Mr. Giuliani is tied to the case against two of his associates who were arrested this week on campaign finance-related charges, the people familiar with the inquiry said. The associates were charged with funneling illegal contributions to a congressman whose help they sought in removing Ms. Yovanovitch.

Mr. Giuliani has denied wrongdoing, but he acknowledged that he and the associates worked with Ukrainian prosecutors to collect potentially damaging information about Ms. Yovanovitch and other targets of Mr. Trump and his allies, including former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his younger son, Hunter Biden. Mr. Giuliani shared that material this year with American government officials and a Trump-friendly columnist in an effort to undermine the ambassador and other Trump targets.

Federal law requires American citizens to disclose to the Justice Department any contacts with the government or media in the United States at the direction or request of foreign politicians or government officials, regardless of whether they pay for the representation. Law enforcement officials have made clear in recent years that covert foreign influence is as great a threat to the country as spies trying to steal government secrets.

A criminal investigation of Mr. Giuliani raises the stakes of the Ukraine scandal for the president, whose dealings with the country are already the subject of an impeachment inquiry. It is also a stark turn for Mr. Giuliani, who now finds himself under scrutiny from the same United States attorney’s office he led in the 1980s, when he first rose to prominence as a tough-on-crime prosecutor and later ascended to two terms as mayor of New York.

It was unclear how far the investigation has progressed, and there was no indication that prosecutors in Manhattan have decided to file additional charges in the case. A spokeswoman for the United States attorney in Manhattan, Geoffrey S. Berman, declined to comment.

Mr. Giuliani said that federal prosecutors had no grounds to charge him with foreign lobbying disclosure violations because he said he was acting on behalf of Mr. Trump, not the Ukrainian prosecutor, Yuriy Lutsenko, when he collected the information on Ms. Yovanovitch and the others and relayed it to the American government and the news media.

“Look, you can try to contort anything into anything, but if they have any degree of objectivity or fairness, it would be kind of ridiculous to say I was doing it on Lutsenko’s behalf when I was representing the president of the United States,” Mr. Giuliani said. Mr. Lutsenko had chafed at Ms. Yovanovitch’s anticorruption efforts and wanted her recalled from Kiev.

Mr. Giuliani also said he was unaware of any investigation into him, and he defended the pressure campaign on Ukrainians, which he led, as legal and above board.

CNN and other news organizations reported that federal prosecutors were scrutinizing Mr. Giuliani’s financial dealings with his associates, but it has not been previously reported that federal prosecutors in Manhattan are specifically investigating whether he violated foreign lobbying laws in his work in Ukraine.

Ms. Yovanovitch told impeachment investigators on Friday that Mr. Trump had pressed for her removal for months even though the State Department believed she had “done nothing wrong.”
Mr. Giuliani had receded from the spotlight in recent years while he built a brisk international consulting business, including work in Ukraine. But he re-emerged in the center of the political stage last year, when Mr. Trump retained him for the special counsel’s investigation into Russian election interference.

Russia’s sabotage also ushered in a new focus at the Justice Department on enforcing the laws regulating foreign influence that had essentially sat dormant for a half-century and under which Mr. Giuliani is now being investigated.

Mr. Giuliani said that because Democrats had questioned his business consulting for foreign clients, his contracts explicitly say he does not lobby or act as an agent of foreigners.

Through his two associates who also worked to oust the ambassador, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, Mr. Giuliani connected early this year with Mr. Lutsenko, who served as Ukraine’s top prosecutor until August. Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman had previously connected Mr. Giuliani to Mr. Lutsenko’s predecessor, Viktor Shokin, late last year.

Mr. Parnas had told people that Ms. Yovanovitch was stymieing his efforts to pursue gas business in Ukraine. Mr. Parnas also told people that one of his companies had paid Mr. Giuliani hundreds of thousands of dollars for an unrelated American business venture, and Mr. Giuliani said he advised Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman on a Ukrainian dispute.

Mr. Lutsenko had sought to relay the information he had collected on Mr. Trump’s targets to American law enforcement agencies and saw Mr. Giuliani as someone who could make that happen. Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Lutsenko initially spoke over the phone and then met in person in New York in January.

Mr. Lutsenko initially asked Mr. Giuliani to represent him, according to the former mayor, who said he declined because it would have posed a conflict with his work for the president. Instead, Mr. Giuliani said, he interviewed Mr. Lutsenko for hours, then had one of his employees — a “professional investigator who works for my company” — write memos detailing the Ukrainian prosecutors’ claims about Ms. Yovanovitch, Mr. Biden and others.

Mr. Giuliani said he provided those memos to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo this year and was told that the State Department passed the memos to the F.B.I. He did not say who told him.

Mr. Giuliani said he also gave the memos to the columnist, John Solomon, who worked at the time for The Hill newspaper and published articles and videos critical of Ms. Yovanovitch, the Bidens and other Trump targets. It was unclear to what degree Mr. Giuliani’s memos served as fodder for Mr. Solomon, who independently interviewed Mr. Lutsenko and other sources.

Mr. Solomon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The lobbying disclosure law contains an exemption for legal work, and Mr. Giuliani said his efforts to unearth information and push both for investigations in Ukraine and for news coverage of his findings originated with his defense of Mr. Trump in the special counsel’s investigation.

He acknowledged that his work morphed into a more general dragnet for dirt on Mr. Trump’s targets but said that it was difficult to separate those lines of inquiry from his original mission of discrediting the origins of the special counsel’s investigation.
Mr. Giuliani said Mr. Lutsenko never specifically asked him to try to force Ms. Yovanovitch’s recall, saying he concluded himself that Mr. Lutsenko probably wanted her fired because he had complained that she was stifling his investigations.

“He didn’t say to me, ‘I came here to get Yovanovitch fired.’ He came here because he said he had been trying to transmit this information to your government for the past year, and had been unable to do it,” Mr. Giuliani said of his meeting in New York with Mr. Lutsenko. “I transmitted the information to the right people.”

The president sought to distance himself earlier on Friday from Mr. Giuliani, saying he was uncertain when asked whether Mr. Giuliani still represented him. “I haven’t spoken to Rudy,” Mr. Trump told reporters. “I spoke to him yesterday quickly. He is a very good attorney and he has been my attorney.”

Mr. Giuliani later said that he still represented Mr. Trump.

The recall of the ambassador and the efforts by Mr. Trump and Mr. Giuliani to push for investigations in Ukraine have emerged as the focus of House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry into Mr. Trump.

The impeachment was prompted by a whistle-blower complaint about Mr. Trump pressing President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine in a July phone call to pursue investigations that could help Mr. Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign. At the time, the Trump administration had frozen $391 million in military assistance to Ukraine for its fight against Russian-backed separatists.

The State Department’s inspector general has turned over to House impeachment investigators a packet of materials including the memos containing notes of Mr. Giuliani’s interviews with Mr. Lutsenko and Mr. Shokin.

The investigation into Mr. Giuliani is the latest to scrutinize one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers. His former personal lawyer and fixer, Michael D. Cohen, implicated the president when he pleaded guilty last year to making hush payments during the 2016 campaign to women who claimed affairs with Mr. Trump, which he has denied.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan mentioned Mr. Trump as “Individual 1” in court papers but never formally accused him of wrongdoing.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/11/us/politics/rudy-giuliani-investigation.html?action=click&module=Top Stories&pgtype=Homepage
 
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On ollut spekulointia, olisiko alahuoneen silti, ylläolevasta huolimatta, järkevää äänestää myös tutkimuksen "virallisesta" aloittamisesta, mutta mikään laki ei niin vaadi, ja alahuone ei halua lähteä tähän Trumpin jatkuvaan maalitolppien siirtelyyn.
Tämä äänestys olisi kannattanut tehdä ihan selvyyden vuoksi. Mutta tosiaan juridiikka ei sitä vaatinut.
 
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