House Impeachment Report Implicates Nunes And Trump Officials
Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif, walks out to speak with reporters after a meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House in Washington, Wednesday, March 22, 2017. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
On Monday, House Republicans released a report that served as a full-throated defense of President Trump’s Ukraine extortion plot. Today, House Democrats released their findings in the impeachment inquiry into that plot, and it included incredibly damning new details.
After 100 hours of depositions from 17 witnesses and 30 hours of public testimony from 12 of those witnesses, a draft of the House’s impeachment report is here. Although there were additional witnesses the White House has kept from testifying, House Democrats have decided they have enough evidence to move forward with the impeachment of President Trump. The report will make its way to the House Judiciary Committee for further review, where articles of impeachment will reportedly be crafted and sent to the full House for a vote before Christmas. The report makes clear Democrats are circling “Abuse of Power” and “Obstruction” as articles of impeachment. Whether they will include bribery is still up for debate.
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The report outlines, in robust detail, how President Trump attempted to extort foreign election interference from the Ukrainian government in the form of investigations into his political targets. In furtherance of this scheme, President Trump deployed multiple allies, in and outside his administration, to pressure Ukraine to launch the investigations into the Bidens and the Russia-created Ukraine meddling conspiracy theory. At the core of this extortion campaign was the fact the Trump Administration withheld military aid and a White House meeting from Ukraine, and it was explicitly made clear to Ukraine that they needed to launch the probes in order to receive either.
After President Trump was made aware of the existence of the whistleblower complaint regarding his July 25 phone call with President Zelensky, and the House launched their investigation, Trump released the aid on September 11. Ukraine has still not obtained a White House meeting with President Trump.
The report also came to this conclusion (which we’ve covered before):
President Trump’s closest subordinates and advisors within the Executive Branch, including Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Secretary of Energy J. Richard Perry, and other senior White House and Executive Branch officials had knowledge of, in some cases facilitated and furthered the President’s scheme, and withheld information about the scheme from the Congress and the American public.
But one of the most damning details involved House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Devin Nunes (R-CA). Over the course of the report, it becomes clear that Nunes was even more complicit in the extortion plot than many originally thought. The new revelations paint the way he conducted himself in the impeachment hearings in a significantly more damning light in hindsight. Nunes’s conduct was clearly a desperate attempt to cover up a scheme that he himself was potentially involved in and at the very least aware of.
Looking to make a difference? Consider signing one of these sponsored petitions:There were multiple questionable calls involving Devin Nunes, Rudy Giuliani, indicted Giuliani associate Lev Parnas, a member of Nunes’s staff Derek Harvey, and former member of Nunes’s staff Kashyap “Kash” Patel. This first record is particularly damning because it showcases that Nunes may have been involved in crafting the false narrative of Ukraine meddling that Solomon published in The Hill. Also, why was Nunes communicating with Lev Parnas, who waged a smear campaign against then-Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch and also claimed Trump himself sent him on a “mission” to pressure Ukraine to investigate the Bidens?
Page 46:
Over the course of the four days following the April 7 article, phone records show contacts between Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Parnas, Representative Devin Nunes, and Mr. Solomon. Specifically, Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Parnas were in contact with one another, as well as with Mr. Solomon. Phone records also show contacts on April 10 between Mr. Giuliani and Rep. Nunes, consisting of three short calls in rapid succession, followed by a text message, and ending with a nearly three minute call.
Page 56:
On the morning of May 8, Mr. Giuliani called the White House Switchboard and connected for six minutes and 26 seconds with someone at the White House. That same day, Mr. Giuliani also connected with Mr. Solomon for almost six minutes, with Mr. Parnas, and with Derek Harvey, a member of Representative Nunes’ staff on the Intelligence Committee.
Page 58:
Call records also show that around midday on May 10, Mr. Giuliani began trading aborted calls with Kashyap “Kash” Patel, an official at the National Security Council who previously served on Ranking Member Devin Nunes’ staff on the Intelligence Committee. Mr. Patel successfully connected with Mr. Giuliani less than an hour after Mr. Giuliani’s call with Ambassador Volker. Beginning at 3:23 p.m., Eastern Time, Mr. Patel and Mr. Giuliani spoke for over 25 minutes. Five minutes after Mr. Patel and Mr. Giuliani disconnected, an unidentified “-1” number connected with Mr. Giuliani for over 17 minutes. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Giuliani spoke with Mr. Parnas for approximately 12 minutes.
Here’s a bird’s eye view of the call records:
Looks like Devin #Nunes is in deep, deep trouble.
Comprehensive list of call records listed in #ImpeachmentReport
Nunes/senior aide Derek Harvey calls
with
Giuliani and indicted Lev Parnas, who were engaged in disinformation campaign and Ukraine dirt on Bidens. pic.twitter.com/n0bKgBnpIX
— Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw) December 3, 2019
There were also call logs between the Office and Budget Management (OMB) and Rudy Giuliani, who was running point on the extortion plot, the day Yovanovitch was removed from her post.
This is fascinating, as flagged by @KatyTurNBC and @AriMelber as I sit on tv w them: @RudyGiuliani was in contact with OMB. pic.twitter.com/UwYD4CZffy
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) December 3, 2019
House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) spoke about the fact Nunes appears to be implicated in the scheme in a press conference today.
“It is, I think, deeply concerning that at a time when the president of the U.S. was using the power of his office to dig up dirt on a political rival that there may be evidence that there were members of Congress complicit in that activity.”
Devin Nunes is not handling this well. Nunes is suing CNN for publishing Parnas’s claims that Nunes went to Vienna last December to meet with former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Victor Shokin and that Nunes spoke about the need for probes into the Bidens and the Ukraine meddling conspiracy theory.
In lawsuit against CNN, @DevinNunes says network should have known Parnas was “a renowned liar, a fraudster, a hustler, an opportunist with delusions of grandeur…” Not good timing given phone records in intel report. https://t.co/GCBYc71KeP pic.twitter.com/Bp2g1DXjBe
— Michael Isikoff (@Isikoff) December 3, 2019
After calling for Nunes’s recusal, Parnas’s lawyer responded to the impeachment report and this lawsuit:
Lev Parnas’ attorney, Joseph Bondy, added: “Devin Nunes was definitely part of an attempt to gather information about the Bidens. He was definitely involved in Ukraine. He definitely had involvement in the GOP shadow diplomacy efforts in Ukraine, contrary to his claims.”
— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) December 3, 2019
Yesterday, House Republicans released a fact-averse report defending President Trump’s extortion plot. Today, the House released a report directly implicating Devin Nunes with hard evidence/phone records. At the very least, Nunes had knowledge of the scheme. The lead byline on the GOP report was Nunes. It was a defense of himself.
