WikiLeaks released on Tuesday what the whistleblower group claimed were thousands of secret CIA files showing how U.S. spies hack smartphones, as well as exposing a major secret listening post in Germany.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment, and in a statement the CIA would not say whether the files are authentic.

“We do not comment on the authenticity or content of purported intelligence documents,” said CIA spokesperson Jonathan Liu.

However, several current and former intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told ABC News the documents appear to be authentic and likely have origins at the National Security Agency, where most national security hacking of overseas targets occurs.

“Somebody really screwed up to let this get out,” a former official familiar with the activities outlined in the WikiLeaks-released files told ABC News.

WikiLeaks said a former government contractor leaked the tranche of files.

“Recently, the CIA lost control of the majority of its hacking arsenal, including malware, viruses, trojans, weaponized ‘zero day’ exploits, malware remote control systems and associated documentation. This extraordinary collection, which amounts to more than several hundred million lines of code, gives its possessor the entire hacking capacity of the CIA. The archive appears to have been circulated among former U.S. government hackers and contractors in an unauthorized manner, one of whom has provided WikiLeaks with portions of the archive,” WikiLeaks said in a statement accompanying more than 8,000 pages of documents.

The WikiLeaks files also revealed that the U.S. Consulate in Frankfurt is a major hacker outpost for the most important and sensitive operations, and a former official confirmed that it is the major nerve center for covert joint CIA and National Security Agency voice collection around the globe. The official said it was the likely origin of the hacking of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s personal phone — which was revealed in a leak by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013.

In fact, many of the hacker tools and files referred to in the documents appear to be the NSA’s, in the possession of the CIA rather than the CIA’s capabilities, an official said.

“There are only specific people at [the CIA’s Center for Cyber Intelligence] who are allowed to see tailored access operations products by NSA hackers,” the official told ABC News.

The U.K.’s signals intelligence spy agency GCHQ, for example, is known to conduct proxy cyberactivities in places where the U.S. faces legal restrictions the British government does not have to contend with, a former official involved in hacking said. That intelligence is often shared with or gathered at the behest of American spy services.

The current and former officials could not corroborate WikiLeaks’ claim that a former contractor was behind the massive security breach but said it was very possible, if not highly likely.

“I’m not denying there are people leaking information,” Tyler Wood, a former senior Defense Intelligence Agency cyberprograms official, told ABC News today.

The leaked files show a large effort undertaken by CIA’s Center for Cyber Intelligence to find ways to turn consumer electronic devices — from smart TVs to Google Android and Apple IOS devices, including smartphones and tablets — into remotely activated spy devices. The files detail efforts made to access messages before they are encrypted by security apps and to turn on phones and activate tablet cameras and microphones without owners’ awareness. An entire office at CCI is devoted to exploiting mobile smart devices, the documents suggest.

While Snowden, in hiding in Russia and still wanted by U.S. authorities for his breach, tweeted today that the CIA files reveal a “security hole the CIA left open to break into any iPhone in the world,” an official familiar with such intelligence activities said usually a human spy is necessary — a “cyber middleman” — who can first gain physical access to a device. That is an often dangerous task and is rarely accomplished, the official told ABC News.

The programs revealed today have a series of cover names, such as BrutalKangaroo, RickyBobby, AfterMidnight and WeepingAngel — the last being the name of a set of characters in the BBC sci-fi drama “Dr. Who.”

Countless intelligence programs with similar cover names — approved by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in a lengthy process — had to be renamed after Snowden blew the lid on those activities.

“And everything will have to be renamed after this,” an official familiar with many of the named programs told ABC News.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., said Americans should pay attention to such breaches that reveal vulnerabilities to privacy and national security.

“This is of the utmost seriousness. If they can hack into the CIA, they can hack into anybody,” he said today.

Many cybersecurity experts on social media after the leaks focused attention on the apparent capability of U.S. intelligence to hack smart devices such as Samsung smart TVs, which the leaked files said can be in “fake off mode” when in reality the microphone is turned into a room-listening device without anyone nearby knowing it because the TV appears to be off.

“Pretty much anything can be made into an eavesdropping device,” said a former official.

Samsung, in its user manuals’ privacy statement, warns users that their speech can be transmitted through the internet to third parties.

In the last 10 years, WikiLeaks has published an incredible amount of secret U.S. information — about military operations in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay and, more recently, Democratic National Committee emails hacked by Russian intelligence.

Devin Nunes, R-Calif., the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said he is “extremely concerned” by the WikiLeaks publications on Tuesday, telling reporters his panel has reached out to the intelligence community for more information.

“We’ve had initial inquiries into the [intelligence community]. Look, this is early on in the investigation, but these appear to be very, very serious. But at this time, that’s really all the information that I have on it,” he said. “I’ve long said this — that emails and many of our electronic devices are not safe, and they’re primarily not safe from our adversaries like the Russians and the Chinese and others who are actively trying to get into government institutions and private businesses.”

Asked about supposed security vulnerabilities detailed in the documents that are relevant to its devices, Apple said, “While our initial analysis indicates that many of the issues leaked today were already patched in the latest iOS, we will continue work to rapidly address any identified vulnerabilities. We always urge customers to download the latest iOS to make sure they have the most recent security updates.”

“As we’ve reviewed the documents, we’re confident that security updates and protections in both Chrome and Android already shield users from many of these alleged vulnerabilities,” Heather Adkins, Director of Information Security and Privacy at Google, said in a statement to ABC News after original publication of this story. “Our analysis is ongoing and we will implement any further necessary protections. We’ve always made security a top priority and we continue to invest in our defenses.”

Samsung, when asked for comment, said, “Protecting consumers’ privacy and the security of our devices is a top priority at Samsung. We are aware of the report in question and are urgently looking into the matter.”

Last October, Trump as a presidential candidate said, “WikiLeaks, I love WikiLeaks. And I said, write a couple of them down. Let’s see.”

In the regular White House press briefing on Tuesday, press secretary Sean Spicer declined to comment on the matter.

ABC News’ Matthew Mosk, Alexander Hosenball, Paul Blake, Cho Park, Benjamin Siegel and Elizabeth McLaughlin contributed to this report.

This story was originally published on March 7, 2017 and has been updated as new information has become available.

Source: https://abcnews.go.com/International/wikileaks-docs-allege-cia-hack-smartphones-exposes-frankfurt/story?id=45977302

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WASHINGTON — Over recent days, officials from the newly minted U.S. Space Force and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence briefed multiple congressional committees on an “uptick” in Russian military activity in space targeting U.S. defense and intelligence satellites, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

While the sources declined to comment on the specifics of recent incidents, which follow general increases in Chinese and Russian aggression in space, these recent actions were deemed “serious enough” to merit briefings on Capitol Hill, said one of the sources. Officials also briefed committees on plans to counter the Russian aggression, the source said.

The aggressive acts come amid rising concerns about Russian and Chinese activities in space, particularly when it comes to anti-satellite weapons. Earlier this year the Pentagon stood up the Space Force, a new branch of the military authorized by President Trump, which is supposed to help protect U.S. space assets.

Much of the work related to protecting military systems in space in classified, but during a recent virtual conference, Army National Guard Maj. Gen. Tim Lawson hinted at “things coming” that would help combat space-based threats, while emphasizing the importance of creating a large, resilient network of small satellites that are less vulnerable than the large military and intelligence satellites currently operating.

Representatives for the House and Senate Intelligence Committees as well as the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment. “ODNI does not discuss intelligence matters or sensitive and classified communication with Congress,” wrote an ODNI spokesperson in an email. Spokespeople for the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, the Pentagon and the Space Force did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A Yuanwang-class Chinese space tracking ship. (Siyuwj via Wikicommons)

Russian meddling in space has long been a topic of concern for the U.S. government, within the Pentagon and the broader national security apparatus. Space has not been a safe “sanctuary” for several decades, noted Robin Dickey, an analyst at the nonprofit Aerospace Corporation’s Center for Space Policy and Strategy. 

“The Russians have been doing this s–t for several years,” explained one former national security official who served during the Trump administration.

Russian military satellites and other spacecraft frequently perform what are called “proximity” operations, explained the former official, which involve getting close to U.S. satellites to search for vulnerabilities or determine capabilities, not unlike adversaries scanning digital networks for virtual flaws in cyberspace. “It’s a dangerous game,” continued the former official. “People need to wake up.”

The U.S. government’s fleet of spy and defense satellites is worth billions of dollars and helps blanket the globe in near constant coverage, helping U.S. officials spot worrisome developments like a new weapon test or locate a terrorist hideout. Satellites are vital for communication, navigation, weather, environmental monitoring, and defense and intelligence more broadly.

The Defense Intelligence Agency, tasked with collecting and analyzing intelligence for the Pentagon, recently published a lengthy report titled “Challenges to Security in Space.” According to the report, both China’s and Russia’s militaries “view space as important to modern warfare” and aim to conduct operations there “as a means to reduce U.S. and allied military effectiveness.”

The DIA authors also noted that both Russia and China are developing “jamming and cyberspace capabilities, directed energy weapons, on-orbit capabilities, and ground-based antisatellite missiles”—technology that could have direct negative or destructive impacts on U.S. satellites. Russia’s space weaponry may be able to disrupt or degrade U.S. communications and navigation through GPS, block the U.S.’s view of satellite imagery or even destroy certain satellites, according to the DIA.

A mockup of the Russian GLONASS-K satellite navigation system. (Kirill Kukhmar/TASS via Getty Images)

On July 23, the U.S. Space Command announced it had evidence that Russia had tested a new “space-based anti-satellite weapon” — technology the Russian Defense Ministry had said was designed to run tests on its own space equipment.

Gen. John Raymond, commander of the U.S. Space Command and the U.S. Space Force chief of space operations, had previously warned about similar activities. “This is further evidence of Russia’s continuing efforts to develop and test space-based systems, and consistent with the Kremlin’s published military doctrine to employ weapons that hold U.S. and allied space assets at risk,” he said in a statement at the time.

Christopher Ford, a senior State Department official, condemned that Russian test as an example of “Russia’s hypocritical advocacy of outer space arms control, with which Moscow aims to restrict the capabilities of the United States while clearly having no intention of halting its own counter space program — both ground-based anti-satellite capabilities and what would appear to be actual in-orbit anti-satellite weaponry.”

Later in July, however, officials from the Departments of State, Defense and Energy as well as the National Security Council met with Russian counterparts for a lengthy discussion about space policy and security, and “expressed interest in continuing these discussions and improving communications.”

Cover thumbnail image: ImageBank/Getty Images

Source: https://www.yahoo.com/news/sources-russian-aggression-against-us-intelligence-satellites-sparks-congressional-briefing-214104043.html

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Welcome back, Russia hysteria!

While it’s no secret that Russia meddles in foreign elections, the evidence that they backed any one candidate in 2016 has always been lacking. The aim of Russian election interference is more often to create chaos and division rather than back one particular candidate.

Despite the secretive FBI investigation which morphed into Robert Mueller’s special counsel exonerating Trump from claims of collusion, the Washington Post reported last night that Russia is up to their old tricks again.

According to them, Joseph Maguire had been considered to be nominated for the DNI post, but Trump’s opinion shifted last week after he learned from a Republican ally that the intelligence official in charge of election security (Shelby Pierson, who works for Maguire) gave a closed briefing last Thursday to the House Intelligence Committee. The Post claims that while we don’t exactly know what Pierson said in the meeting, “the president erroneously believed that she had given information exclusively to Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the committee chairman, and it would be helpful to Democrats if released publicly, the people familiar with the matter said.”

And what did the Post claim that information was? According to their narrative: “Intelligence officials warned House lawmakers last week that Russia was interfering in the 2020 campaign to try to get President Trump re-elected, five people familiar with the matter said, in a disclosure that angered Mr. Trump, who complained that Democrats would use it against him.”

But according to CNN of all places, it’s mostly B.S.

Jake Tapper writes:

A national security official I know and trust pushes back on the way the briefing/ODNI story is being told, and others with firsthand knowledge agree with his assessment. “What’s been articulated in the news is that the intelligence community has concluded that the Russians are trying to help Trump again. But the intelligence doesn’t say that,” the official says. “The problem is Shelby” — Pierson, the elections threats executive in the intelligence community — “said they developed a preference for Trump. A more reasonable interpretation of the intelligence is not that they have a preference, it’s a step short of that.

“It’s more that they understand the president is someone they can work with, he’s a dealmaker. But not that they prefer him over Sanders or Buttigieg or anyone else. So it may have been mischaracterized by Shelby” at the House Intel briefing last week. “And by the way,” the official says, “both Democrats and Republicans were challenging this at the briefing.”

Then there’s the matter of the tense meeting between President Trump and erstwhile Acting Director of National Intelligence Admiral Maguire. “The President was upset that he had to hear about an intelligence conclusion from a Member of the House Republicans rather than from the intelligence community. So he was out of joint with Maguire on that process.”

None of this disputes that Trump desires to replace those who have Intel expertise with partisan loyalists, or dismisses the larger issues and concerns about Russia and how the president seeks help from abroad.  Just that there seems to be more to this particular story. ALSO, none of this disputes that the Russians (and others) are attempting to interfere in the US election again.

Or as President Trump put it this morning:

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The post Will a Trump representative attend this week’s impeachment hearings? first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The five-page letter came as the Democratic majority on the House Intelligence Committee was preparing to approve a report on Tuesday that will outline possible charges of bribery or “high crimes and misdemeanors,” the constitutional standard for impeachment. After receiving the report, the Judiciary Committee would prepare actual charges.

“This baseless and highly partisan inquiry violates all past historical precedent, basic due process rights, and fundamental fairness,” wrote White House counsel Pat Cipollone, continuing the West Wing’s attack on the procedural form of the impeachment proceedings. Cipollone said Nadler provided only “vague” details about the hearing, and that unnamed academics — and not “fact witnesses” — would apparently be attending.

“As for the hearing scheduled for December 4, we cannot fairly be expected to participate in a hearing while the witnesses are yet to be named and while it remains unclear whether the Judiciary Committee will afford the president a fair process through additional hearings,” Cipollone said. “More importantly, an invitation to an academic discussion with law professors does not begin to provide the President with any semblance of a fair process. Accordingly, under the current circumstances, we do not intend to participate in your Wednesday hearing.”

He continued: “When the Judiciary Committee scheduled a similar hearing during the Clinton impeachment process, it allowed those questioning the witnesses two-and-a-half weeks’ notice to prepare, and it scheduled the hearing on a date suggested by the president’s attorneys. Today, by contrast, you have afforded the president no scheduling input, no meaningful information and so little time to prepare that you have effectively denied the administration a fair opportunity to participate. …

READ THE FULL WHITE HOUSE LETTER

Cipollone’s letter made clear that his response applied only to the Wednesday hearing, at least for now. Cipollone demanded more information from Democrats on how they intended to conduct further hearings before Trump would decide whether to participate in those hearings, amid sagging national support for Democrats’ probe.

Specifically, Cipollone demanded to know whether Republicans would be able to cross-examine and call their own fact witnesses, including House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. (AP)

House-passed rules provide the president and his attorneys the right to cross-examine witnesses and review evidence before the committee, but little ability to bring forward witnesses of their own.

“If [Schiff] chooses not to (testify), then I really question his veracity in what he’s putting in his report,” said Rep. Doug Collins, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee. “It’s easy to hide behind a report,” Collins added. “But it’s going to be another thing to actually get up and have to answer questions.”

Schiff has come under scrutiny from Republicans, in part because of his overtly partisan comments and his previous claim in a televised interview that “we have not spoken directly with the whistleblower.” A Schiff spokesperson later narrowed that claim in October, telling Fox News that Schiff himself “does not know the identity of the whistleblower, and has not met with or spoken with the whistleblower or their counsel” for any reason.

STATE DEPT OFFICIAL TESTIFIES THAT HE FLAGGED BIDEN CONFLICT OF INTEREST ISSUES — BUT WAS TOLD NOW’S NOT THE TIME 

An aide to Schiff insisted that when Schiff mentioned “we” had not spoken to the whistleblower, he was referring to members of the full House intelligence committee, rather than staff. NBC National Security reporter Ken Dilanian flagged Schiff’s explanation as “deceptive” late Wednesday, and Schiff acknowledged he “should have been more clear” concerning whistleblower contacts.

The panel of constitutional scholars who will testify on Wednesday will weigh in on the question of whether the president committed an impeachable offense by allegedly withholding of military aid to Ukraine until it investigated former Vice President Joe Biden.

During impeachment hearings last month, a career State Department official testified that in January or February 2015, he “became aware that [Joe Biden’s son] Hunter Biden was on the board” of Ukrainian company Burisma Holdings while his father Joe Biden was overseeing Ukraine policy as vice president — and that he raised concerns about potential conflicts of interest at the time. Joe Biden has openly bragged about pressuring Ukraine to fire its top prosecutor by threatening to withhold $1 billion in critical U.S. aid., all while Burisma was under scrutiny.

Republicans had urged President Trump not to attend the Democrats’ hearings, arguing that his presence would validate a process they have repeatedly derided as partisan.  In his letter, Cipollone repeatedly derided what he called Democrats’ “fundamentally unfair” process.

“Inviting the Administration now to participate in an after-the-fact constitutional law seminar — with yet-to-be-named witnesses — only demonstrates further the countless procedural deficiencies that have infected this inquiry from its inception and shows the lack of seriousness with which you are undertaking these proceedings,” Cipollone wrote.

Nadler had written the president last week announcing a hearing for Dec. 4 at 10 a.m., and notified him of the committee’s intentions to provide him with “certain privileges” while they consider “whether to recommend articles of impeachment to the full House.” Nadler also extended an invitation to the president, asking whether “you and your counsel plan to attend the hearing or make a request to question the witness panel.”

With polls showing support for impeachment flagging, Democrats were aiming for a final House vote by Christmas, which would set the stage for a likely Senate trial in January.  Surveys have shown that independents are souring on the idea of impeaching and removing Trump from office, including in critical battleground states like Wisconsin, even as House Democrats aggressively presented their focus-group-tested “bribery” case against the president over the past two weeks.

“I do believe that all evidence certainly will be included in that report so the Judiciary Committee can make the necessary decisions that they need to,” said Rep. Val Demings, D-Fla., a member of both the Intelligence and Judiciary committees.

She said Democrats had not yet finalized witnesses for the upcoming Judiciary hearings and were waiting to hear back from Trump on his plans to present a defense.

“If he has not done anything wrong, we’re certainly anxious to hear his explanation of that,” Demings said.

The House Judiciary’s impeachment hearings will follow last month’s hearings by the House Intelligence Committee, which heard from 12 witnesses during five days of testimony.

Trump has previously suggested that he might be willing to offer written testimony under certain conditions, though aides suggested they did not anticipate Democrats would ever agree to them.

CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APP

“The Democrats are holding the most ridiculous Impeachment hearings in history. Read the Transcripts, NOTHING was done or said wrong!” Trump tweeted Saturday.

Late Sunday, Trump tweeted a link to a Fox News opinion piece written by legal analyst Gregg Jarrett, and quoted the piece as saying the president had done “nothing impeachable.”

Fox News’ Brooke Singman and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/white-house-says-trump-wont-participate-in-judiciary-hearing

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“Did anyone ever ask you to bribe or extort anyone at any time during your time in the White House?” House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Devin Nunes, R-Calif., asked at one point in Tuesday’s afternoon hearing.

Former National Security Council (NSC) aide Tim Morrison: “No.”

Former U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker: “No.”

Later, Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., covered similar ground in asking the witnesses about Trump’s fateful July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky: “Mr. Morrison, you were on that call, and there was no quid pro quo, correct? No bribery? No extortion?”

“Correct,” Morrison replied in response to each question.

“And, Ambassador Volker, I presume you got a readout of the call. … Was there any reference to withholding aid? Any reference to bribery? Any reference to quid pro quo? Any reference to extortion?”

“No, there was not,” Volker replied, again and again.

The answers underscored a problem facing House Democrats as their impeachment inquiry continued into its second week of public hearings: With more witnesses testifying, more soundbites have emerged that may help Republicans and the Trump campaign argue that the proceedings were politically motivated theater, long in the works and foreshadowed openly by Democrats for months, if not years.

Morrison, in another key moment, testified Tuesday afternoon that he understood the transcript of Trump’s call with Ukraine’s leader wound up on a highly secured and classified computer system due to an “administrative error” — not, as Democrats have alleged because the president wanted to hide his conversation.

And, Volker testified repeatedly that he never received any indications at all that there was an improper quid pro quo with Ukraine, in which the Trump administration allegedly sought a probe of former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter in exchange for military aid.

As the hearing concluded, President Trump tweeted, “A great day for Republicans, a great day for our Country!”

Ohio GOP Rep. Jim Jordan told Fox News, “This was a very good day for Republicans, for our president.”

“Kind of hard to prove a corrupt quid pro quo theory when the key U.S. policy people, plus the Ukrainians, were never aware of such an arrangement,” Texas GOP Rep. Dan Crenshaw added late Tuesday, noting that Ukraine’s president has said he felt no pressure from Trump to open any probes. “Can we go back to governing now, that’d be great thanks.”

Donald J. Trump@realDonaldTrump

A great day for Republicans, a great day for our Country!

Morrison and Volker’s testimony was sought by the GOP, and the two undercut Democrats’ poll-tested claims of White House “bribery” and a cover-up. But, they also raised new questions concerning the administration’s use of the little-discussed code-word-level system that ordinarily held sensitive national-security information. Back in September, a senior Trump administration official acknowledged that White House lawyers directed moving the transcript of the call to the secure system, noting that several of Trump’s previous phone calls with foreign leaders had leaked to the media.

FLASHBACK: LEAK OF VERBATIM TRUMP CALL WITH AUSTRALIA LEADER PROMPTS WHITE HOUSE TO INCREASE SECURITY MEASURES

Morrison previously testified behind closed doors that senior NSC lawyer John Eisenberg had relayed to him that his secretary accidentally put the transcript in the classified system. Morrison said Eisenberg wanted to “restrict access” to the transcript, but maintained that the secretary had apparently misinterpreted that instruction.

“It was represented to me that it was a mistake,” Morrison testified Tuesday, saying he tried to “pull up the package in our system” but was prevented from doing so. When he asked why the transcript was unavailable, he testified that he was “informed it had been moved to the higher classification system” at Eisenberg’s direction. Then, Eisenberg told Morrison that he “gave no such direction” and that it was an “administrative error,” according to Morrison.

Ambassador Kurt Volker, left, former special envoy to Ukraine, and Tim Morrison, a former official at the National Security Council are sworn in to testify before the House Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2019, during a public impeachment hearing of President Donald Trump’s efforts to tie U.S. aid for Ukraine to investigations of his political opponents. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

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Morrison said to the best of his knowledge, there was no “malicious intent” in the decision to move the transcript to the compartmentalized system, and all essential personnel retained access to the transcript even after it was moved.

Later in the day, Volker made clear he had not seen anything to support Democrats’ contention that Trump improperly withheld foreign aid to Ukraine as a means of forcing an investigation into the Bidens’ dealings in the country.

Instead, Volker suggested — in a moment that the Trump campaign reposted on social media — that Trump’s general hesitation to provide foreign aid, especially to corrupt countries, was the prevailing justification for holding up aid to Ukraine temporarily.

Asked again whether he saw any evidence that Trump had committed “bribery” — the term Democrats have taken to using after focus groups indicated that it would help them sell impeachment to voters — Volker was unequivocal that he had not. In fact, Volker said, Trump never linked any probe of Burisma or the Bidens to any military aid. Hunter Biden sat on Burisma’s board while his father spearheaded Ukraine policy as vice president.

“I have only seen an allegation of bribery in the last week,” Volker said. “I was never involved in anything that I considered to be bribery at all or extortion.”

In one remarkable moment, Volker contradicted a media headline; asked about a Daily Mail story claiming he had “walked back” his testimony and had “now learned” there was a link between U.S. aid and Biden probe, Volker refuted the website outright.

Volker also said he didn’t initially realize the connection between a Trump-sought investigation of Burisma and the Bidens, given that Burisma was seen as a symbol of Ukraine’s endemic corruption problem.

EXPLOSIVE DOJ FILING OUTLINES STRZOK’S ‘SECURITY VIOLATIONS’ AMID AFFAIR — AND HOW COMEY CAME TO DISCLOSE THE WEINER EMAILS

Hunter Biden was a board member of the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings, which had been under investigation before then-Vice President Joe Biden pressured Ukraine to fire the prosecutor in charge. In his call with Zelensky, Trump suggested the Ukrainians look into the circumstances of the prosecutor’s termination, including Joe Biden’s boast that he had the prosecutor fired by threatening to withhold $1 billion in critical aid. “Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution, so if you can look into it…It sounds horrible to me,” Trump said.

In a lengthy opening statement, Volker said he didn’t have any problem with pushing Ukraine to open an investigation into Burisma or corruption.

“It has long been U.S. policy under multiple administrations to urge Ukraine to investigate and fight internal corruption,” Volker said.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent similarly testified behind closed doors last month that he had qualms about Hunter Biden’s lucrative role on the board of Burisma.

However, Volker said he felt a discussion of investigations was “inappropriate” in a July meeting between Ukrainian and U.S. officials at the White House. Volker confirmed others’ testimony that Trump’s European Union ambassador, Gordon Sondland, raised the investigations “in a generic way,” and that then-national security adviser John Bolton immediately ended the meeting.

The meeting happened two weeks before Trump’s momentous summer phone call with Zelensky.

Volker, who resigned in September after becoming embroiled in the scandal, added that he didn’t “understand” at the time that an investigation of Burisma “was tantamount to investigating Vice President Biden.”

“I saw them as very different – the former being appropriate and unremarkable, the latter being unacceptable,” Volker said. “In retrospect, I should have seen that connection differently, and had I done so, I would have raised my own objections.”

Volker added: “The allegations against Vice President Biden are self-serving and non-credible.”

Volker went on to say that during a September dinner with top Ukrainian official Andriy Yermak, he’d discouraged Ukraine from trying to prosecute the country’s previous president. Volker says he warned it would sow deep societal divisions.

Volker said Yermak quipped in response, “You mean like asking us to investigate Clinton and Biden?” Volker claimed he didn’t “quite understand” the head-turning remark and was “kind of puzzled” by it.

Both Volker and Morrison previously gave closed-door interviews to the inquiry: Volker provided investigators with a package of text messages with Sondland and William Taylor, the U.S. chargé d’affaires for Ukraine, who said he grew alarmed at the possible linkage of the investigations to the aid.

For his part, Morrison, who served as the NSC’s senior director of European and Russian affairs, told lawmakers Trump didn’t want tax dollars funding Ukrainian corruption and remarked that he wasn’t concerned Trump’s calls with Ukraine’s leader were tied to his political interests.

Morrison resigned from the NSC last month. In his testimony Tuesday, he said he left on his “own volition” and made the decision “before I decided to testify.”

The testimony from Volker and Morrison followed five hours of testimony earlier in the day with the NSC’s Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and Vice President Pence aide Jennifer Williams, who were each critical of Trump’s conversation with Zelensky.

In a particularly remarkable moment, Vindman testified that he was asked to serve as Ukraine’s defense minister three times — but repeatedly denied the offers — when he traveled to Kiev for the inauguration of Ukraine’s president. Oleksander Danylyuk, the former Chairman of the National Security and Defence Council in Ukraine, reportedly said on Tuesday the offer was “clearly a joke.”

Among the biggest revelations Tuesday morning came when Vindman acknowledged communications with an unnamed intelligence official — during an at-times tense exchange with Republicans, immediately raising apparent questions over whether he could have been a source of information for the anonymous whistleblower who reported the call.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., interjected to express concern that Republicans were trying to out the whistleblower through the questioning. After consulting his attorney, Vindman said, “Per the advice of my counsel, I’ve been advised not to answer the specific questions about members of the intelligence community.”

National Security Council aide Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman is sworn in to testify before the House Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2019, during a public impeachment hearing of President Donald Trump’s efforts to tie U.S. aid for Ukraine to investigations of his political opponents. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

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Still, Vindman told lawmakers, “I do not know who the whistleblower is.”

That claim didn’t hold water with Republicans and prompted Donald Trump Jr. to accuse Vindman of perjury. “I’d like them to be treated like I would be if I lied to Congress,” he told Fox News late Tuesday.

On the whole, Vindman was largely critical of Trump’s call with Zelensky, describing the investigation “demand” as “improper.” At one point, Vindman described his reaction to Trump’s call as one of “shock.”

“Frankly, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing,” he testified. “In certain regards, my worst fear of how our Ukraine policy could play out was playing out.”

However,  Vindman was caught in an apparent contradiction late in the day by Republican Ohio Rep. Brad Wenstrup. Vindman testified earlier in the day that he did not discuss his concerns about Trump’s July phone call with Morrison, his superior because he was unavailable.

But, under questioning from Wenstrup, Morrison confirmed that Vindman had given him edits of the transcript of the call, on the same day that Vindman testified Morrison was unreachable.

“Frankly, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.”

— NSC’s Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, concerning Trump’s July call with Ukraine’s leader

Arizona GOP Rep. Paul Gosar offered a blunt assessment of Vindman’s testimony, tweeting: “I think people need a reminder:  the democrats said they would impeach starting in December 2016–before @realDonaldTrump was even sworn in.  This is a hearing looking for a reason. It’s corrupt and immoral.  The dude in the uniform is a seditionist.”

Morrison, meanwhile, also said he had heard others express concern that Vindman was a leaker, and could not be trusted with key information. Asked about that allegation, Vindman read from a glowing performance review that described him as an exemplary officer.

The other morning witness, Williams, also expressed concern about Trump’s call with Zelensky, saying, “I found the July 25th phone call unusual because, in contrast to other presidential calls I had observed, it involved discussion of what appeared to be a domestic political matter.”

Until Tuesday, none of the witnesses who have testified at the public hearings had first-hand knowledge of the president’s thinking, which Republicans have used to cast doubt on Democrats’ allegations, but Vindman, Williams, and Morrison all listened in on Trump’s July 25 phone call with Zelensky.

TRUMP SLAMS PELOSI AS ‘GROSSLY INCOMPETENT’ FOR TRADE DEAL HANDLING, CALLS IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY A ‘KANGAROO COURT’

Morrison said his understanding was that Trump generally was skeptical of foreign aid, and wanted to make sure that taxpayers were “getting their money’s worth.”

“The president was concerned that the United States seemed to bear the exclusive brunt of security assistance to Ukraine,” Morrison said. “He wanted to see the Europeans step up and contribute more security assistance.”

The impeachment inquiry has focused on a possible link between military aid to Ukraine and investigations sought by Trump pertaining to the Bidens and Democrats. The questions arose after the July 25 phone call led to a whistleblower complaint alleging that Trump was trying to pressure Ukraine into helping him.

“As we have heard from other witnesses, when Joe Biden was considering whether to enter the race for the presidency in 2020, the president’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, began a campaign to weaken Vice President Biden’s candidacy by pushing Ukraine to investigate him and his son,” Schiff said in his opening statement.

Nunes opened his remarks by welcoming people to “Act Two of today’s circus,” dismissing the inquiry as a partisan exercise.

WATCH: VINDMAN CORRECTS CONGRESSMAN WHO DIDN’T USE HIS FORMAL MILITARY TITLE

“It’s an ambitious attack to deprive the American people of their right to elect a president that the Democrats don’t like,” Nunes said. “The chairman of this committee claims that democracy is under threat. If that’s true, it’s not the president who poses the danger.”

Morrison, though, suggested the impeachment brouhaha was predictable partisan politics as usual.

“I feared at the time of the call on July 25th how its disclosure would play in Washington’s political climate,” Morrison said in his opening statement. “My fears have been realized.”

Fox News’ Chad Pergram and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ex-ukraine-envoy-nsc-official-testify-in-second-round-of-impeachment-testimony

[Disclaimer]

The post Morrison, Volker undercut claims of ‘quid pro quo,’ ‘bribery’ and ‘cover-up’ in pivotal day of testimony first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Leaders of the Democratic-run U.S. House of Representatives believe that putting the main witnesses on TV will convince independent voters and other doubters that Trump was wrong in asking the Ukrainian government to dig up dirt on a political rival, Democrat Joe Biden, who hopes to be the candidate to oust Trump in the 2020 election.

While Republicans and the president face great political risk in the hearings, so do Democrats. They must present themselves as sober and trustworthy investigators, former congressional aides and analysts said.

“The allegations – and what the president has admitted to – are serious enough. They don’t need embellishment. They just need explanation,” said Mieke Eoyang, a former aide to the House Intelligence Committee who works for the Democratic think tank Third Way.

Lawmakers will have to avoid the urge to grandstand before a TV audience of millions, Eoyang said. “The hardest thing for members in an open hearing is to remember they are not the star of the thing.”

Republicans have painted the Democratic-led inquiry as a purely partisan exercise and will seek to present a different picture of Trump to the masses of viewers.

Trump has denied wrongdoing, and the expectation is that Trump would not be convicted at any trial in the Senate because it is controlled by his fellow Republicans, even if a House majority voted to impeach, similar to being indicted.

The hearings likely will be a ratings bonanza for television networks as Democratic President Bill Clinton’s impeachment case was in the 1990s.

WALL-TO-WALL COVERAGE

The public phase of the hearings is expected to begin when the House resumes session later in November. News executives are preparing wall-to-wall coverage on cable news and digital news networks, networks told Reuters.

Representative Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and the Democratic point man for the probe, told PBS this week that the move to public hearings will allow “the American people to hear firsthand from those that were eyewitnesses to this kind of abuse of power.”

The inquiry focuses on a July 25 telephone call in which Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate Biden, a former U.S. vice president, and his son Hunter, who had served as a director for Ukrainian energy company Burisma. The Bidens deny wrongdoing.

One pivotal segment of voters are political independents, who according to Reuters/Ipsos polling, have remained more reserved about the impeachment inquiry even as Democrats and Republicans have largely made up their minds.

An October poll found that less than half of independents surveyed believe Trump should be impeached. And while 61% of independents disapprove of the president and 59% support the congressional inquiry, the poll suggested that they may be turned off if the hearings devolve into a hyper-partisan spectacle that diverts lawmakers’ attention from other business.

When asked about how Congress should prioritize the impeachment hearings, 54% of independents agreed that lawmakers “should focus on fixing important problems facing Americans, rather than focusing on investigating President Trump,” while 34% disagreed.

With Trump up for re-election next year, that is the prime danger Democrats face, said Columbia University political scientist Donald Green.

“Nobody really expects Trump to be convicted,” Green said. “The question is whether Democrats have the grounds to say that, ‘We didn’t get a conviction, but there deserves to be one.’”

CIRCUS MAXIMUS

Rodell Mollineau, a Democratic strategist who was a longtime aide to former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, said it will be difficult for House leaders to prevent the hearings from becoming a “circus.”

“There are certain things out of their control,” he said.

Up until now, Democrats have largely controlled the narrative emerging from closed hearings, publicizing the testimony of former and current administration officials who have said that Trump did indeed seek to pressure Ukraine to investigate Biden.

But in the public hearings, Republicans will have a very public platform, arguing that what Trump did does not justify his removal from office.

“I think they (Republicans) will show up to play,” said Representative Tom Cole, a member of the House Republican leadership. “Most of our members have read the transcript (of the Trump-Zelenskiy call). They do not believe this is an impeachable offense.”

Democratic members will also seek their time in the spotlight as the media looks for “bombshell” moments, analysts said.

Ahead of the hearings, organizations including AT&T’s CNN and Comcast’s NBC News and cable news channels have already launched new features such as podcasts to cover the historic event.

Tim Miller, a Republican and former communications director for Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential campaign, said Democrats should conduct the hearings quickly to combat what he termed “impeachment fatigue” that may be setting in among voters who feel “frustrated” or “that the whole thing is a charade.”

That may be of particular importance to the first-term Democrats who last year helped the party take control of the House for the first time in almost a decade. Those Democrats focused more on issues such as healthcare and less on Trump’s conduct since he took office in January 2017.

The post Democrats’ decision to televise Trump impeachment hearings could prove politically perilous first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

In a letter sent to Democratic House lawmakers, Pelosi, D-Calif., said the resolution “affirms the ongoing, existing investigation” and “establishes the procedure” for future investigative steps.

“We are taking this step to eliminate any doubt as to whether the Trump administration may withhold documents, prevent witness testimony, disregard duly authorized subpoenas, or continue obstructing the House of Representatives,” Pelosi said.

Fox News has learned the vote will take place Thursday on the House floor.

It is not an actual article of impeachment, but rather a resolution that sets process ground rules.

MORE QUESTIONS EMERGE ABOUT HUNTER BIDEN’S BUSINESS DEALINGS, EVEN AS TRUMP IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY INTENSIFIES

Republicans hit back Monday at Pelosi over the planned vote, with South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham — the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which would play a role in a Senate impeachment trial — saying, “A vote now is a bit like un-ringing a bell as House Democrats have selectively leaked information in order to damage President Trump for weeks.”

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., told Fox News: “What it authorizes is that we were right. You can’t go back now.”

The White House argued Monday that the move proves Democrats have been conducting an “unauthorized” inquiry.

“We won’t be able to comment fully until we see the actual text, but Speaker Pelosi is finally admitting what the rest of America already knew – that Democrats were conducting an unauthorized impeachment proceeding, refusing to give the President due process, and their secret, shady, closed-door depositions are completely and irreversibly illegitimate,” White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement.

Republicans for weeks have called for a formal House vote, challenging the legitimacy of the current framework for impeachment proceedings in the absence of one. Earlier this month, the White House wrote a defiant eight-page letter to Pelosi and top Democrats saying it would not cooperate with the impeachment inquiry.

“I take pride in the fact that our vigorous response to their underhanded tactics ended up making the House Democrat position untenable,” Graham said Monday. “Today, they were forced to change course.”

Pelosi made clear in her letter that the vote is being conducted because of the Republican complaints. She accused Trump and his GOP allies of holding the position that “because the House has not taken a vote, they may simply pretend the impeachment inquiry does not exist.”

Even as she announced a formal vote, Pelosi insisted Monday that this argument “has no merit.”

“This resolution establishes the procedure for hearings that are open to the American people, authorizes the disclosure of deposition transcripts, outlines procedures to transfer evidence to the Judiciary Committee as it considers potential articles of impeachment, and sets forth due process rights for the president and his counsel,” she said.

In a statement, California Rep. Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and a key Democrat involved in the inquiry, said: “This week, we will bring to the floor a resolution that establishes the format for open hearings that will be conducted by the House Intelligence Committee as part of the House’s ongoing impeachment inquiry, as well as procedures to transmit any evidence or report to the Judiciary Committee. The American people will hear firsthand about the president’s misconduct.”

Just two weeks ago, Pelosi met with the Democratic caucus and said that there would be no formal vote at that point on the launch of formal impeachment proceedings, despite the GOP pressure. But Democrats said Pelosi is now embracing a vote for strategic reasons.

“She wants to nullify their process argument,” a senior Democratic source told Fox News. “That’s all they talk about. Republicans won’t touch the substance. So this is her way of forcing their hand.”

On Wednesday, the Democratic chairman of the Rules Committee, Massachusetts Rep. James McGovern, said the committee will mark up the impeachment procedure resolution Wednesday. Fox News is told that the resolution should be available for review Tuesday but is not yet complete.

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“As committees continue to gather evidence and prepare to present their findings, I will be introducing a resolution to ensure transparency and provide a clear path forward, which the Rules Committee will mark up this week. This is the right thing to do for the institution and the American people,” McGovern said.

Pelosi on Sept. 24 announced the formalization of the Trump impeachment inquiry, saying at the time that “the president must be held accountable” for his “betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of our national security, and the betrayal of the integrity of our elections.”

The inquiry was opened after a whistleblower complaint alleged that Trump, during a July phone call, pushed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter as military aid to the country was being withheld.

Fox News’ Chad Pergram, Mike Emanuel, and Brooke Singman contributed to this report.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pelosi-says-house-will-vote-this-week-on-resolution-formalizing-impeachment-procedures

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