Sources
on the 2019-2020 Trump Impeachment
(This
will be updated as new documents become available)
This
page has links to primary sources (government documents) and secondary sources (from
journalists and scholars) on issues related to Russian interference in the 2016
US presidential election, possible Trump campaign connections to that Russia
government interference, and the Trump administration’s withholding of military
assistance to Ukraine in 2019 (the reason Trump was impeached).
Politifact Timeline of Trump Impeachment
1.
Russian
Activities in 2016: Russia interfered in the US 2016 US election, hacking the
Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign computers, while also
attempting to influence US voters through social media campaigns. A few dozen indictments have been handed out
(as of 2019) and several key figures in the Trump campaign have pled guilty or
been convicted of crimes related to their contacts with Russian intelligence
and the Russian government (generally lying to investigators about those
contacts).
·
Mueller
Report:
Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential
Election, March 2019
o February 16, 2018:
Indictments
resulting from Muller Investigation (13 people; 3 Russian companies)
o
Rick
Gates case
(former Trump campaign advisor and business partner to Manafort). Pled guilty
to lying to investigators and fraud on February 23, 2018
o July 13, 2018 Indictments resulting from
Mueller Investigation (12 Russian military intelligence officers)
o Paul Manafort case
(former Trump campaign manager)
§ Verdict: convicted August
20, 2019 on 10 of 18 counts (tax fraud, bank fraud, and more)
§ Sentencing:
sentenced
March 13, 2019 to 7 ½ years in prison
o Roger Stone case
(longtime advisor to Trump)
§ Convicted
on seven counts
including lying to congress and witness tampering on November 15, 2019.
·
Michael
Flynn case
(former Trump campaign advisor and President Trump’s first National Security
Advisor). Pled guilty to lying to federal investigators on December 1, 2017.
·
Senate
Committee on Intelligence Report on Russian Activities During the 2016 US
Election, Volume 1, August 2019
·
Senate
Committee on Intelligence Report on Russian Activities During the 2016 US
Election, Volume 2, October 2019
·
Office
of Inspector General, Department of Justice Report on the
Investigations of Russian Connections to the Trump Campaign during the 2016
Election, December 9, 2019
2.
The
Withholding of US Assistance to Ukraine: The US government was scheduled to
provide Ukraine with $391 million in assistance for fiscal year 2019; money
that needed to be disbursed by October 1, 2019. US foreign assistance to other
nations is defined by legislation. In short, it is the law. When a bill is passed that money must be
spent during the fiscal year unless the president provides congress with an
explicit reason for delaying or withdrawing those funds. Congress is allowed to
challenge that presidential decision.
The process is defined by the Congressional Budget and Impoundment
Control Act of 1974.
In July 2019, President Trump delayed the
disbursement of funds to Ukraine; Congress was not notified. Ukraine did
notice, however, and requested the funding. Ukraine is at war with Russia and
needs the funding to defend its eastern regions from Russian incursions. The entire impeachment of President Trump
hinges on whether the president delayed the funds to Ukraine as a means of
pressuring Ukraine to open up an investigation into the role former Vice
President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, may have played in Ukraine during the
Obama administration. Charges about
Biden shielding his son from a corruption probe by the Ukrainian government
have been thrown around by some American journalistic sources. US and European intelligence agencies believe the charges to
be completely false; they are fabrications by Russian intelligence meant to
discredit Biden. The president had been warned that these were false
allegations by his own intelligence agencies; however, he and many Republican members
of Congress continue to publicize these allegations. The issue came to turning point during a July
25, 2019 telephone call between President Trump and President Volodimir Zelenskyy of Ukraine.
In this phone call, Trump asks Zelenskyy to
investigate the Bidens right after Zelenskyy thanks Trump for the aid. Other members of the Trump administration
have testified that they understood that Zelenskyy
would not get the aid or a meeting with Trump at the White House unless Zelenskyy announced publicly that Ukraine was investigating
the Bidens.
Whether Trump is using the aid to extort Zelenskyy
to announce an investigation into the Bidens is the
crucial issue in the charges against the president. The allegations first came to light as part
of a whistleblower report by a member of the intelligence community who
listened to the phone call.
Investigations by the House of
Representatives began soon after.
·
The
Whistleblower Report (unclassified version), August 12, 2019
·
White
House Transcript
of Trump-Zelenskyy Telephone Call of July 25, 2019
(Key paragraphs are from the top of page three to the end of the first
paragraph on page 4)
·
House
Judiciary Committee Study of the Impeachment Process as Developed in
the Constitution and in US Law and Practice
·
Report
of
the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on Trump-Ukraine Issues,
December 2019
o
Testimony
before the House Committee
§ Ambassador
Marie Yovanovitch
§ George
Kent (State Dept)
§ Lt. Col.
Alexander Vindman (NSC Staff)
§ Fiona
Hill (NSC Staff)
§ Laura
Cooper (State Dept)
§ Catherine
Croft (State Dept)
§ Christopher
Anderson (State Dept)
§ Timothy
Morrison (NSC Staff)
§ Jennifer
Williams (Vice President’s Staff)
§ David
Holmes (State Dept)
§ David
Hale (Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs
#3 official at State)
§ Mark
Sandy (Office of Management and Budget)
§ Ambassador
Philip Reeker (State
Dept)
·
The
Center
for Public Integrity’s collection of emails from national security
officials regarding the Trump-Ukraine policy (released through Freedom of
Information Act requests)
·
Articles
of Impeachment
against President Donald Trump, December 10, 2019
·
House
Judiciary Committee Impeachment
Report, December 13, 2019
·
Roll
Call Vote
on Article One of Impeachment: Abuse of Power (230-197), December 18, 2019
·
Roll
Call Vote
on Article Two of Impeachment: Obstruction of Justice (229-198), December 18,
2019
·
Letter
from President Trump to Speaker Pelosi about the impeachment, December
17, 2019
o
Fact
Check
of President Trump’s Letter to Speaker Pelosi
3.
Given
how much disinformation is out there on the web, it’s important to find ways to
fact check all the garbage and even the statements of some of our politicians. Whether you support or oppose President
Trump, this is a truism: one of his unique characteristics is that he embraces
conspiracy theories, retweets discredited propaganda from conspiracy-theory web
sites, and lies more than any president in US history (he makes Presidents
Johnson, Nixon, and Clinton look like amateurs). There has never been anything
like it. Below are links to some fact
check articles on the key issues.
Remember the words of Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan: “Everyone is entitled
to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.”
There are no such things as “alternative facts” as one Trump advisor
called them. Facts are facts. President John Adams once said: “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may
be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot
alter the state of facts and evidence.”
He was paraphrasing
something he had read, but he is often credited with the quote. Sadly, the
internet makes facts less important than they used to be. This is a danger to democracy. When we can’t agree on the facts, how can we
possible make decisions? There is some excellent
research that shows how rumor and falsehood spread on the internet much
faster and much wider than truth. Truth
is more boring and more complex than rumor and conspiracy. We’ll talk about some of this in class.
·
Washington Post Article on the Russian
Origins of the Biden-Ukraine Corruption Disinformation, December 17,
2019
·
Fact
Checking President Trump (from Washington Post)
·
Fact Checking Adam
Schiff
(head of House Intelligence Committee) (from
Politifact.com)
·
Fact Checking of
statements on impeachment by politician, pundits, bloggers, and
websites (from Politifact.com)
·
Fact
Checking Ukraine Issues (from Factcheck.Org)
·
Fact Checking the
Russia-Trump Campaign Investigation (from Factcheck.Org)