Volker and Sondland were on the outside looking in, yet President Zelenskyy turned to them to better understand what exactly was going on. Volker and Sondland were piecing together a strategy that worked to protect Ukraine, it's government and president regardless of the proper channels. I good way to look at this is that Volker and Sondland were winging it with a priority on Ukraine's sovereignty to maintain a significant military presence.
No one is going to like this, but, these men had no one to turn to. They were winging international priorities WITHOUT LEADERSHIP. They didn't have a strong process back home taking up the outrageous nature of the Trump presidency in order to file documents and concerns to enable the US House to remove Trump from office.
If the one thing the Special Counsel's report told everyone in the USA is that Russia interfered in USA elections and Donald J. Trump was obstructing justice. The USA Constitution in it's oath among all government employees, elected or not, demands to be protected. There was no one protecting the USA Constitution to turn to in resolving the obvious breach in constitutional activities by the Trump administration. That is why there are whistleblowers filing documents to tell the Congress there are profound problems in protecting the USA Constitution with this administration.
THE USA SENATE BETTER SHAPE UP. They are losing the country for the sake of their politics. Some might say that is an illness of the US House as well.
Allies have to "play ball" with Trump in order to protect their national security interests, huh? I don't think so. The US Congress, both the House and Senate, needs to take the corrupt pitcher out of the game. This is a disgrace. Is the USA sure it still has allies? We aren't acting like one.
I'll be back.
There was a fatal flaw in the Ambassadors' thinking. They were working on the basis that if they could satisfy Trump, Ukraine would receive the military equipment it needed from the USA. Trump wasn't going to send any military equipment to Ukraine REGARDLESS if Zelenskyy cooperated or not.
Trump canceled the shipment. That is a fact. He unilaterally canceled it without a word to Congress or their legislative approval.
There was no incentive for him to provide Ukraine with military equipment it needed. He would have the election strategy he wanted and a compromised Ukraine that can be handed to Vladimir Putin. Why knowing Trump's loyalities would he ever arm Ukraine for its' national security?
The Ambassadors had no right to attempt to engineer a clever outcome. They needed to act to end the blackmail against President Zelensky. They had no control over the outcome. Here again, the failure in leadership compromised some of the brightest and best minds within the diplomatic corp of the USA.
By Todd Prince
Washington - It (click here) was supposed to be a special occasion, an event that would symbolize and strengthen the bond between the United States and Ukraine.
Back in early July, U.S. House members representing the bipartisan Ukraine Caucus were hoping Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy would address both chambers of Congress during a trip that was expected later in the summer and would also take him to the White House.
Zelenskiy, a former comic with no political experience, had easily defeated incumbent Petro Poroshenko in an April runoff, after a campaign centered on pledges to curb corruption and end the five-year war against Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.
The House members wanted to show their support for the new leader as he took charge of a country under persistent pressure from Russia, which seized Ukraine’s Crimea region in 2014 and helped ignite the war in the Donbas by fomenting separatism following the ouster of Moscow-friendly Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych....
...“Inviting President Zelenskiy to a joint meeting of Congress would serve as a strong symbolic message to the Kremlin: the American people stand shoulder to shoulder with the Ukrainian people during this time of great need,” the lawmakers said.
Now, Zelenskiy’s visit to the White House is off the table for the foreseeable future -- instead, he talked to Trump on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York late last month -- and the strength of the relationship between Kyiv and Washington is being tested at a critical stage in the history of Ukraine....
Now Andrey works as a political consultant in the US and Canada and is able to afford some frankness – or to the extent that it is possible to be frank about a story that affects so many powerful people in the world.
The diplomat Andrey Telizhenko (click here) about the interference of the Ukrainian authorities in the American elections…
The Ukrainian Embassy in the US is located in an old brick mansion on the corner of M-street in the prestigious Georgetown area. In this building George Washington signed an agreement with a group of landowners on the allocation of plots for the creation of the capital District of Columbia. The embassy even stores a copy of the symbolical key from Washington. Here is where the American capital began. Here is where a story started that has politically shaken this city for two years.
Sometimes it seems that all current political processes in the US revolve around the “Russia investigation” of the special prosecutor Robert Müller. And the investigation, in turn, rests on charges against the former head of the campaign headquarters of Trump Paul Manafort.
Well, and the charges in their essence contain information about the Ukrainian Embassy helping the Democrats, who were eager to receive compromising evidence on their opponent.
We decided to talk to a unique witness of this story – a former employee of the diplomatic mission of Ukraine in Washington Andrey Telizhenko.
The world heard his name for the first time in January of the last year, when his testimony about the interference of the Ukrainian authorities in the American elections on the side of Hillary Clinton formed the basis of an article in the authoritative Politico publication....
The June interview with Trump by George Stephanopoulos (click here) where Trump openly stated he would take dirt on the opposition candidate was intended to secure the idea of other countries reporting in about any candidate for president. At this point did Trump set up the American people for the drummed up story about the Bidens out of Ukraine? I think he did. He and Guiliani were well on their way to twist the Ukraine president's arm for a story about the Bidens. Trump stated that to set the stage for what he anticipated would be coming.
About a week later Guiliani added that to date he nor Trump received any cooperation with the Biden story.
Trump had already stopped the military aid to Ukraine BEFORE the telephone call where he leaned on him for a story about the Bidens. His plans were to hand over Ukraine to Russia. He didn't care about the Ukraine people or their leadership.
October 2, 2019
By Aaron Fels
Ukraine’s president falsely believed a check for $391 million in US military aid (click here) was in the mail during his July phone call with President Trump — and didn’t learn the cash flow was dammed in Washington until roughly a month later, a report said Wednesday.
President Volodymyr Zelensky went into the July 25 call — now the subject of a Beltway firestorm over Trump’s request that Ukraine launch a probe into the son of political rival Joe Biden — still expecting $250 million from the Pentagon and another $141 million from the State Department to fund Ukraine’s conflict with Russia, according to BuzzFeed News.
In fact, Trump ordered the aid suspended during a meeting before the call ever took place, according to the Washington Post.
Only no one told Ukrainian officials, who instead learned that the funds had stopped flowing in a letter from their Washington embassy in late August, according to BuzzFeed, which cited both Ukrainian and US officials....
Continued in next entry.
