You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

State Dept. Official: White House Put “Three Amigos” in Charge of Ukraine Policy

HeadlineOct 16, 2019

In news from the ongoing impeachment inquiry, the senior State Department official in charge of Ukraine policy, George Kent, told House committee lawmakers Tuesday he was sidelined from his job by the “three amigos” — U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, special envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker and Energy Secretary Rick Perry. These three worked with Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani on the effort to pressure Ukraine to investigate Trump’s political rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter. The Washington Post reports acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney told White House staff members that it was legal to block nearly $400 million in funds to Ukraine. In a July phone call, President Trump mentioned the U.S. funding to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and then asked for “a favor.” Meanwhile, a federal grand jury in New York has subpoenaed former Texas Congressmember Pete Sessions for records and information about his interactions with Giuliani and his two associates who were arrested at the Dulles airport trying to board a one-way flight to Vienna and were charged with campaign finance violations.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top