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White House officials to kick off big Trump impeachment week

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two top national security aides who listened to President Donald Trump’s call with Ukraine are preparing to testify in the impeachment hearings, launching a week of back-to-back sessions as Americans hear from those closest to the White House.

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, an Army officer at the National Security Council, and Jennifer Williams, his counterpart at Vice President Mike Pence’s office, both say they had concerns as Trump spoke on July 25 with the newly elected Ukraine president about political investigations into Joe Biden.

After they appear Tuesday morning, the House will hear in the afternoon from former NSC official Timothy Morrison and Kurt Volker, the former Ukraine special envoy.

In all, nine current and former U.S. officials are testifying in a pivotal week as the House’s historic impeachment inquiry accelerates and deepens. Democrats say Trump demanded that Ukraine investigate his Democratic rivals in return for U.S. military aid it needed to resist Russian aggression and that may be grounds for removing the 45th president. Trump says he did no such thing and the Democrats just want him gone.

“I did not think it was proper to demand that a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen,” said Vindman, an Iraq War veteran. He said there was “no doubt” what Trump wanted from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

It wasn’t the first time Vindman, a 20-year military officer, was alarmed over the administration’s push to have Ukraine investigate Democrats, he testified.

Earlier, during an unsettling July 10 meeting at the White House, Ambassador Gordon Sondland told visiting Ukraine officials that they would need to “deliver” before next steps, which was a meeting Zelenskiy wanted with Trump, the officer testified.

“He was talking about the 2016 elections and an investigation into the Bidens and Burisma,” Vindman testified, referring to the gas company in Ukraine where Hunter Biden served on the board.

“The Ukrainians would have to deliver an investigation into the Bidens,” he said. “There was no ambiguity.”

On both occasions, Vindman said, he took his concerns about the shifting Ukraine policy to the lead counsel at the NSC, John Eisenberg.

Williams, a longtime State Department official who is detailed to Pence’s national security team, said she too had concerns during the phone call, which the aides monitored as is standard practice.

When the White House produced a rough transcript later that day, she put it in the vice president’s briefing materials. “I just don’t know if he read it,” Williams testified in a closed-door House interview.

Sondland, the wealthy donor whose routine boasting about his proximity to Trump has brought the investigation to the president’s doorstep, is set to testify Wednesday. Others have testified that he was part of a shadow diplomatic effort with the president’s personal lawyer, Rudy Guiliani, outside of official channels that raised alarms.

Pence’s role throughout the impeachment inquiry has been unclear, and the vice president’s aide is sure to be questioned by lawmakers looking for answers.

The White House has instructed officials not to appear, and most have received congressional subpoenas to compel their testimony.

Trump has already attacked Williams, associating her with “Never Trumpers,” even though there is no indication the career State Department official has shown any partisanship.

The president wants to see a robust defense by his GOP allies on Capitol Hill, but so far so far Republicans have offered a changing strategy as the fast-moving probe spills into public view.

That is likely to change this week as Republicans mount a more aggressive attack on all the witnesses as the inquiry reaches closer into the White House and they try to protect Trump.

In particular, Republicans are expected to try to undercut Vindman, suggesting he reported his concerns outside his chain of command, which would have been Morrison, not the NSC lawyer.

Those appearing in public have already given closed-door interviews to investigators, and transcripts from those depositions have largely been released.

Under earlier questioning, Republicans wanted Vindman to disclose who else he may have spoken to about his concerns, as the GOP inch closer to publicly naming the still anonymous whistleblower whose report sparked the inquiry.

GOP Sen. Ron Johnson, who was deeply involved in other White House meetings about Ukraine, offered a sneak preview of this strategy late Monday when he compared Vindman, a Purple Heart veteran, to the “bureaucrats” who “never accepted Trump as legitimate.”

“They react by leaking to the press and participating in the ongoing effort to sabotage his policies and, if possible, remove him from office. It is entirely possible that Vindman fits this profile, said Johnson, R-Wis.

Vindman told the House investigators in his earlier testimony he was not the government whistleblower.

The witnesses are testifying under penalty of perjury, and Sondland already has had to amend his earlier account amid contradicting testimony from other current and former U.S. officials.

Morrison has referred to Burisma as a “bucket of issues” — the Bidens, Democrats, investigations — he had tried to “stay away” from.

Sondland met with a Zelenskiy aide on the sidelines of a Sept. 1 gathering in Warsaw, and Morrison, who was watching the encounter from across the room, testified that the ambassador told him moments later he pushed the Ukrainian for the Burisma investigation as a way for Ukraine to gain access to the military funds.

Volker provided investigators with a package of text messages with Sondland and another diplomat, William Taylor, the charge d’affaires in Ukraine, who grew alarmed at the linkage of the investigations to the aid.

Taylor, who testified publicly last week, called that “crazy.”

A wealthy hotelier who donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration, Sondland is the only person interviewed to date who had direct conversations with the president about the Ukraine situation.

Morrison said Sondland and Trump had spoken about five times between July 15 and Sept. 11 — the weeks that $391 million in U.S. assistance was withheld from Ukraine before it was released.

Trump has said he barely knows Sondland.

Besides Sondland, the committee will hear on Wednesday from Laura Cooper, a deputy assistant secretary of defense, and David Hale, a State Department official. On Thursday, David Holmes, a State Department official in Kyiv, and Fiona Hill, a former top NSC staff member for Europe and Russia, will appear.

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Associated Press writers Jill Colvin and Hope Yen in Washington and Bruce Schreiner in Louisville, Kentucky, contributed to this report.

No mention of Bidens, Burisma while Ukraine military aid was held up, State official testifies

David Hale, the State Department’s No. 3 official, testified in a Nov. 6 closed-door deposition that no one in the Trump administration or any "government channel" ever mentioned former Vice President Joe Biden or his son Hunter as a reason for withholding aid from Ukraine, according to a transcript of his remarks released late Monday by House Democrats in their impeachment inquiry.
Democrats have argued that the White House improperly pressured Ukraine to look into the Bidens and Burisma Holdings, the natural gas company where Hunter Biden held a lucrative role despite limited expertise while his father oversaw Ukraine policy as vice president. George Kent, a State Department official who has also testified in the impeachment investigation, said he flagged Hunter Biden's apparent conflict of interest to the Obama administration at the time.
However, Hale said, he saw the Bidens referenced only in media reports -- as well as in a "speculative" email from former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, who testified last week. Hale is scheduled to testify publicly Wednesday.
Yovanovitch "mentioned that Mayor [Rudy] Giuliani might have been motivated to sully Vice President Biden's reputation by reminding the world of the issue regarding his son's activities in Ukraine," Hale testified, referring to President Trump's personal attorney.
"When the whistleblower reports and all that came out of that, that's when I first saw this," Hale, the under secretary of state for political affairs, testified.

David Hale, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, arrives on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2019, to be interview for the impeachment inquiry. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Separately, Hale recalled that representatives from key executive departments -- including the Treasury Department, Office of Management and Budget, Department of Homeland Security and State Department -- "endorsed the resumption of military aid" to Ukraine.
Under questioning from Democrats, Hale acknowledged he was "out of the loop" on a variety of matters, and that Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland didn't brief him about "discussions he was having with his Ukraine counterparts to either condition the White House meeting or the aid on these investigations." Additionally, Hale noted that he was similarly "out of the loop" on acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney's discussions with the president concerning Ukraine aid.
Mulvaney has acknowledged that White House assistance to Ukraine was tied to the country's broader anti-corruption efforts, although he did not state that the aid was linked to a probe of the Bidens in particular.
"This is a corrupt place. Everyone knows this is a corrupt place ... Plus, I'm not sure that the other European countries are helping them out either," Mulvaney said last month. He added: "Did [Trump] also mention to me, in the past, the corruption related to the DNC server? Absolutely. No question about that, but that's it, and that's why we held up the money ... The look back to what happened in 2016 certainly was part of the thing that he was worried about in corruption with that nation, and that is absolutely appropriate."
Also late Monday, Democrats released testimony from State Department official David Holmes, who said in his Nov. 15 deposition that the conversation he overheard between Trump and Sondland during a lunch in Ukraine was so distinctive — even extraordinary — that nobody needed to refresh his memory.
Holmes testified that he told "a number of friends of mine" about the call because it was "like, a really extraordinary thing" to be "part of" a lunch in which "someone called the president." He insisted he didn't go into detail about the call while he boasted about it, but estimated that he may have told as many as six friends.

David Holmes appearing on Capitol Hill last week to testify before congressional lawmakers. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)

"I've never seen anything like this," Holmes told House investigators, "someone calling the president from a mobile phone at a restaurant, and then having a conversation of this level of candor, colorful language. There's just so much about the call that was so remarkable that I remember it vividly."
Holmes testified that after a bottle of wine, Sondland "said that he was going to call President Trump to give him an update. Ambassador Sondland placed a call on his mobile phone, and I heard him announce himself several times, along the lines of: 'Gordon Sondland holding for the president.' It appeared that he was being transferred through several layers of switchboards and assistances. I then noticed Ambassador Sondland’s demeanor change, and understood that he had been connected to President Trump."
The conversation between the president and the ambassador July 26 came one day after the call between Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky that led to the impeachment inquiry.
Holmes' account of the conversation in Kiev was the first to include Trump personally calling about the investigations into Democrats and Joe Biden.
Holmes, who joined Sondland and others during the lunch meeting, told investigators Trump was talking so loudly he could hear the president clearly on the ambassador's phone.
"I then heard President Trump ask, quote, 'So he's going to do the investigation?'" Holmes testified. "Ambassador Sondland replied that 'He's going to do it,' adding that President Zelensky will, quote, 'do anything you ask him to.'"
Holmes said he didn't take notes of the conversation he overheard between Trump and Sondland but remembered it "vividly."
Pressed during the interview if anyone helped him recall the details, Holmes said, "that wouldn’t have been needed, sir, because, as I said, the event itself was so distinctive that I remember it very clearly."
Holmes said Sondland announced that the president was "in a bad mood." And, Holmes said he "asked Ambassador Sondland if it was true that the president did not give a sh-- about Ukraine. Ambassador Sondland agreed that the president did not give a sh-- about Ukraine..nope, not at all, doesn’t give a sh-- about Ukraine."
Holmes said the president "only cares about 'big stuff.'" Holmes testified that Sondland said that didn't mean war with Russia, but "this Biden investigation that Giuliani is pushing."
During a meeting between then-National Security Advisor John Bolton and Zelensky’s top aide Andriy Bogdan in Kiev, Holmes served as note-taker. Holmes indicated Bolton was frustrated "about Giuliani's influence with the president, making clear that there was nothing he could do about it."
"I came to believe it was the president's political agenda" that Guiliani was pursuing in Ukraine, Holmes went on, "because Mr. Giuliani was promoting that investigations issue, which later I came to understand, including through these various interactions, that was -- that the president cared about."
Holmes, a political counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, is scheduled to testify publicly Thursday.
Fox News' Ashley Cozzolino, Chad Pergram and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Democrats' make-or-break week of impeachment hearings kicks off, as contradictions surface in testimony

Beginning Tuesday morning, in a rush of five hearings ahead of the Thanksgiving recess, eight witnesses -- including several who have provided inconsistent accounts of key events -- are set to testify over three days in what could be a make-or-break week in House Democrats' impeachment investigation.
Less than 24 hours before the proceedings are set to be gaveled in at 9 a.m. ET, President Trump floated the idea of testifying, rather than tweeting, during the inquiry. A top Republican called for a last-minute postponement, citing secretive new developments behind closed doors. And, the Trump campaign has pointed out apparent inconsistencies in some testimony already on the record.
The key witness to focus on amid the rapid-fire series of developments is likely to be Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, the wealthy donor who has bragged about his proximity to President Trump -- and who repeatedly has frustrated Democrats' narrative by contradicting several other key witnesses in the probe. Though he won't testify until Wednesday, Sondland will loom large in Tuesday morning's proceedings.
In part, that's because Sondland previously testified behind closed doors that Trump directly told him there were to be "no quid pro quos of any kind" with Ukraine, and that he didn’t recall any conversations with the White House about withholding military assistance in return for Ukraine helping with the president’s political campaign. Democrats have alleged that Trump held up the aid to ensure a public probe into the Ukraine business dealings of former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
Then, William Taylor, the U.S. chargé d'affaires for Ukraine, told lawmakers that Sondland himself said "everything" — a White House visit for Ukraine's new leader and the release of military aid to the former Soviet republic — was contingent on a public announcement of investigations into the 2016 election and into Ukraine gas company Burisma. (Hunter Biden held a highly lucrative role on the board of Burisma, despite having little relevant experience, while his father oversaw Ukraine policy as vice president.)
Weeks later, after testimony from Taylor and National Security Council [NSC] official Tim Morrison placed him at the center of key discussions, Sondland suddenly amended his testimony and claimed his recollection had been "refreshed." Sondland said he now could recall a September conversation in which he told an aide to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky that military aid likely would not occur until Ukraine made public announcements about corruption investigations. Sondland said he came to "understand" that arrangement from other sources.
Morrison, the NSC's outgoing senior director of European and Russian affairs and White House deputy assistant, is to testify Tuesday afternoon. In his closed-door deposition, which Democrats released over the weekend, Morrison said 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.
Additionally, Sondland has insisted he knew acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney only well enough to wave and say hello — and that’s about it. He said he may have spoken to him once or twice on the phone, but not about Ukraine. Meanwhile, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a National Security Council official, has testified Sondland cited a discussion with Mulvaney when pushing Ukrainian officials to open the investigations that Trump wanted into the 2016 U.S. presidential election and into potential 2020 election opponent Joe Biden.
Vindman is scheduled to testify Tuesday morning. Republicans have further noted that Morrison has testified privately that he "had concerns about Lieutenant Colonel Vindman’s judgment" and had heard concerns that Vindman was a leaker.
Separately, Fiona Hill, another White House national security official, said Sondland often talked of meetings with Mulvaney. In a further link between the two men, she quoted the-then National Security Adviser John Bolton as telling her he didn’t want to be part of “whatever drug deal Sondland and Mulvaney were cooking up.”
Hill is to testify Friday morning, after Sondland's appearance.
She also has recalled scolding Sondland face-to-face after tense July 10 meetings at the White House involving U.S. and Ukrainian leaders, reminding him of the need for proper procedures and the role of the National Security Council. She said Bolton "stiffened" when Sondland brought up investigations in front of the Ukrainian officials and immediately ended the meeting. Vindman, too, said he made clear to Sondland his comments were inappropriate "and that we were not going to get involved in investigations."
But, Sondland said he didn't recall a cross word from Hill, Bolton or anyone else about his Ukraine work. In fact, he said, Bolton signed off on the whole Ukraine strategy.
"Indeed, over the spring and summer of 2019, I received nothing but cordial responses from Ambassador Bolton and Dr. Hill. Nothing was ever raised to me about any concerns regarding our Ukrainian policy," Sondland said. When Hill left her post in government, he recalled, she gave him a big hug and told him to keep in touch.
Testimony from multiple witnesses has centered on the July 10 White House meetings. Several of those present said Sondland, on that day, explicitly connected a coveted White House visit to the country’s public announcement of corruption investigations. It was something he just “blurted out,” Hill said, recalling him saying: "Well, we have an agreement with the Chief of Staff for a meeting if these 'investigations in the energy sector start."
Vindman, too, said he remembered Sondland saying that day that the Ukrainians would have to deliver an investigation into the Bidens.
But, Sondland told a different version of the day. He said he didn’t recall mentioning Ukraine investigations or Burisma. The only conflict he described from that day was a disagreement on whether to schedule a call between Trump and Zelensky promptly. He was in favor.
Sondland likely won't be the only witness in the impeachment inquiry facing credibility concerns this week. Late Monday, the Trump campaign pointed out that State Department official David Holmes' testimony concerning Trump's call with Sondland -- in which Trump allegedly called for "investigations" -- seemed to conflict with Taylor's remarks under oath.
Taylor, who testified before the House Intelligence Committee last Wednesday, said he had just learned about the July phone call this month. But, Holmes' timeline of events, according to a written statement from his closed-door interview, seemed to depart from Taylor's -- saying he notified Taylor of the call shortly after it happened.
Holmes is slated to testify Thursday. Late Monday, Democrats released testimony from Holmes' Nov. 15 closed-door deposition in which he stated that the phone call he overheard between Trump and Sondland during a lunch in Ukraine was so distinctive — even extraordinary — that nobody needed to refresh his memory.
"I've never seen anything like this," Holmes told House investigators, "someone calling the president from a mobile phone at a restaurant, and then having a conversation of this level of candor, colorful language. There's just so much about the call that was so remarkable that I remember it vividly."
Holmes also testified that he told "a number of friends of mine" about the call because it was "like, a really extraordinary thing" to be "part of" a lunch in which "someone called the president." He insisted he didn't go into detail about the call while he boasted about it, but estimated that he may have told as many as six friends.

"It was, like, a really extraordinary thing."
— State Department official David Holmes, on overhearing Trump's call with Gordon Sondland in a restaurant

For his part, Trump has insisted Democrats had been out to get him any way they could. The president has noted, for example, that The Washington Post discussed the push to impeach Trump just minutes after he took office in 2017 -- and, the Ukraine whistleblower's lawyer openly called for a "coup" and impeachment around the same time. Prominent Democrats, including Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, rang in 2019 with colorful vows to impeach Trump.
House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Doug Collins, R-Ga., sent a letter Monday to the panel's chairman, Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., panning what he called the "Democrat impeachment crusade" for lacking the "due process protections afforded in all past presidential impeachments, including those protections afforded to President Clinton by Republicans."
Collins continued, "It is an unfair process for many other reasons, chief among them the fact that minority questions are not being answered in depositions and the president’s counsel has had no voice in the fact-gathering phase of this impeachment inquiry."
For his part, Trump revealed Monday he was considering an invitation from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to provide his own account to the House, possibly by submitting written testimony. That would be an unprecedented moment in this constitutional showdown between the two branches of U.S. government.
Trump tweeted: “Even though I did nothing wrong, and don’t like giving credibility to this No Due Process Hoax, I like the idea & will, in order to get Congress focused again, strongly consider it!”
But, a Democratic official working on the impeachment probe told Fox News on Monday that they weren't taking the offer seriously.
"If President Trump were serious about providing information to our investigation, he’d stop obstructing his administration from providing documents and people to provide testimony," the official said. "There are people who could testify, including John Bolton and Mick Mulvaney. This is not serious. We're not going to play that game."
Tuesday’s sessions at the House Intelligence Committee are to start with Vindman, an Army officer at the National Security Council, and Jennifer Williams, his counterpart at Vice President Mike Pence’s office.
The witnesses, both foreign policy experts, said they listened with concern as Trump spoke on July 25 with the newly elected Ukraine president. The government whistleblower’s complaint about that call led the House to launch the impeachment investigation.
Vindman and Williams said they were uneasy as Trump talked to Zelensky about investigations of the Bidens. Vindman also said he reported the call to NSC lawyers.
Williams said she found it "unusual" and inserted the White House's readout of it in Pence's briefing book.
"I did not think it was proper to demand that a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen," Vindman said, adding there was "no doubt" what Trump wanted.
Pence's role remained unclear. "I just don't know if he read it," Williams testified in a closed-door House interview.
Vindman also lodged concerns about Sondland, relaying details from the explosive July 10 meeting at the White House and saying the ambassador pushed visiting Ukraine officials for the investigations Trump wanted.
"He was talking about the 2016 elections and an investigation into the Bidens and Burisma," Vindman testified.
Morrison referred to Burisma as a "bucket of issues" -- the Bidens, Democrats, investigations -- from which he had tried to "stay away."
Along with Volker's testimony, their accounts further complicated Sondland’s testimony and characterized Trump as more central to the action.
Sondland met with a Zelensky aide on the sidelines of a Sept. 1 gathering in Warsaw, Poland, and Morrison, who was watching the encounter from across the room, testified that the ambassador told him moments later he pushed the Ukrainian for the Burisma investigation as a way for Ukraine to gain access to the military funds.
Volker provided investigators with a package of text messages with Sondland and Taylor, who said he grew alarmed at the possible linkage of the investigations to the aid.
Republicans are certain to mount a more aggressive attack on all the witnesses as the inquiry has reached closer into the White House.
The president has aimed to see a robust defense by his GOP allies on Capitol Hill, but so far they have offered a changing strategy as the fast-moving probe spilled into public view.
Republicans first complained the witnesses were offering only hearsay, without first-hand knowledge of Trump’s actions. But, as more witnesses came forward bringing testimony closer to Trump, they more recently have said the president was innocent because the military money eventually was released.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., during an appearance Monday in Louisville, Kentucky, acknowledged the House will likely vote to impeach the president.
But, the GOP leader said he "can't imagine" a scenario in which there would be enough support in the Senate -- a supermajority 67 votes -- to remove Trump from office.
McConnell said House Democrats "are seized with 'Trump derangement syndrome,'" a catch-phrase used by the president's supporters. He said the inquiry seemed "particularly ridiculous since we're going into the presidential election and the American people will have an opportunity in the very near future to decide who they want the next president to be."
Pelosi, though, said the president could speak for himself.
"If he has information that is exculpatory, that means ex, taking away, culpable, blame, then we look forward to seeing it," she said in a CBS News interview that aired Sunday. Trump "could come right before the committee and talk, speak all the truth that he wants if he wants," she said.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Trump "should come to the committee and testify under oath, and he should allow all those around him to come to the committee and testify under oath." He said the White House's insistence on blocking witnesses from cooperating raised the question: "What is he hiding?"
The White House has instructed officials not to appear, and most have received congressional subpoenas to compel their testimony.
Those appearing in public already have given closed-door interviews to investigators, and transcripts from those depositions largely have been released.
Sondland is to appear Wednesday. The wealthy hotelier, who donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration, was the only person interviewed to date who had direct conversations with the president about the Ukraine situation.
Morrison said Sondland and Trump had spoken about five times between July 15 and Sept. 11 — the weeks that $391 million in U.S. assistance was withheld from Ukraine before it was released.
Trump has said he barely knew Sondland.
Besides Sondland, the committee is set to hear Wednesday from Laura Cooper, a deputy assistant secretary of defense, and David Hale.
Hale, the State Department’s No. 3 official, testified in a Nov. 6 closed-door deposition that no one in the Trump administration or any "government channel" ever mentioned former Vice President Joe Biden or his son Hunter as a reason for withholding aid from Ukraine, according to a transcript of his remarks released late Monday by House Democrats.
Hale said he saw the Bidens referenced only in media reports -- as well as in a "speculative" email from former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, who testified last week. Hale is scheduled to testify publicly Wednesday.
Fox News' Chad Pergram, Brooke Singman, and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

DOJ outlines slew of Strzok 'security violations,' says wife learned of affair through unsecured phone

The Department of Justice released documents Monday outlining a slew of "security violations" and flagrantly "unprofessional conduct" by anti-Trump ex-FBI agent Peter Strzok -- including his alleged practice of keeping sensitive FBI documents on his unsecured personal electronic devices, even as his wife gained access to his cell phone and discovered evidence that he was having an affair with former FBI attorney Lisa Page.
The DOJ was seeking to dismiss Strzok’s lawsuit claiming he was unfairly fired and deserves to be reinstated as chief of the counterespionage division at the FBI. In its filing, the DOJ included an August 2018 letter to Strzok from the DOJ's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), which found in part that Strzok had engaged in a "dereliction of supervisory responsibility" by failing to investigate the potentially classified Hillary Clinton emails that had turned up on an unsecured laptop belonging to Anthony Weiner as the 2016 election approached.
The situation became so dire, OPR said, that a case agent in New York told federal prosecutors there that he was "scared" and "paranoid" that "somebody was not acting appropriately" and that "somebody was trying to bury this."
The New York prosecutors then immediately relayed their concerns to the DOJ, effectively going over Strzok's head -- and leading, eventually, to then-FBI Director James Comey's fateful announcement just prior to Election Day that emails possibly related to the Clinton probe had been located on Weiner's laptop.
Additionally, DOJ and OPR noted that although Strzok claimed to have "double deleted" sensitive FBI materials from his personal devices, his wife nonetheless apparently found evidence of his affair on his cell phone -- including photographs and a hotel reservation "ostensibly" used for a "romantic encounter." Strzok didn't consent to turning over the devices for review, according to OPR, even as he acknowledged using Apple's iMessage service for some FBI work.
"[My wife] has my phone. Read an angry note I wrote but didn't send you. That is her calling from my phone. She says she wants to talk to [you]. Said we were close friends nothing more," one of Strzok's text to Page read, according to the filing.

Former FBI lawyer Lisa Page leaves the Rayburn House Office Building after a closed doors interview with the House Judiciary and House Oversight and Government Reform committees, Friday, July 13, 2018, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

"Your wife left me a vm [voicemail]. Am I supposed to respond? She thinks we're having an affair. Should I call and correct her understanding? Leave this to you to address?" Page responded.
Strzok then wrote, "I don't know. I said we were [] close friends and nothing more. She knows I sent you flowers, I said you were having a tough week."
Strzok's wife allegedly threatened to send Page's husband some of the photographs from Strzok's phone.
OPR and the DOJ also included a slew of Strzok and Page's anti-Trump text messages, which Strzok sent as he was overseeing the 2016 Clinton email investigation.
An after-hours email sent to Aitan Goelman, a partner with Zuckerman Spaeder LLP and one of Strzok’s lawyers, was not immediately returned.’
Strzok, a veteran counterintelligence agent who led FBI investigations into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server and ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, was removed from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team after his anti-Trump texts with Page came to light. He was fired from the FBI last August.
The motion claimed that Strzok cannot succeed on any of his claims. The document said his key role within the agency on some of its highest-profile investigations “imposed on him a higher burden of caution with respect to his speech.”
Strzok, who joined the FBI in 1998 and rose to deputy assistant director of the agency’s counterintelligence division, exchanged over 40,000 text messages on government-issued phones from August 2015 through May 2018, the motion said. One of the messages called then-candidate Trump a “disaster” and suggested that”[w]e’ll stop” him.
Republicans interpreted the text as Strzok saying that he would work to prevent Trump from being elected, but his lawsuit says the message was actually meant to reassure Page, with whom he was having an affair, that the American people would not support a Trump candidacy.

"She knows I sent you flowers, I said you were having a tough week."
— Text from Peter Strzok to Lisa Page, after Strzok's wife uncovered evidence of apparent affair

Trump seized on these messages and used Strzok as a favorite target during the Russia investigation. Trump identified these messages as proof that the investigators were biased in their investigation.
“It is because of those text messages, and the paramount importance of preserving the FBI’s ability to function as a trusted, nonpartisan institution, that Plaintiff was removed from his position, and not because of any alleged disagreement with Plaintiff's viewpoints on political issues or Tweets from the President,” the motion claimed.
The motion—which identified Attorney General William Barr as the defendant-- claimed that Strzok’s allegation that his due process rights were infringed upon would be soundly rejected due to his position on FBI’s Senior Executive Service at the time of his firing. The department also claimed that he was “given ample notice and opportunity to be heard."
Goelman said at the time that Strzok filed the lawsuit said in a statement, "While many in law enforcement have faced attacks by this president, Pete Strzok has been a constant target for two years. It’s indisputable that his termination was a result of President Trump’s unrelenting retaliatory campaign of false information, attacks and direct appeals to top officials."
The lawsuit also says the Justice Department set out to smear Strzok's reputation and humiliate him when it disclosed nearly 400 text messages he had sent or received.
Fox News' Brooke Singman, Andrew O'Reilly and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Michael Bloomberg Cartoons

Bloomberg apologizes for stop-frisk anti-crime policy in church speech; police union hits back

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has yet to formally announce whether he will run for president in 2020, but during remarks where he looked to the future before a majority-black church in Brooklyn, he apologized for his controversial “stop and frisk” policy that sowed distrust of police in black and Latino communities during his administration.
That policy, which was later repealed, allowed police to stop individuals on the street and briefly question and frisk them if they had reasonable suspicion that the person may be committing, had committed or is about to commit a crime. During his Sunday speech, Bloomberg recognized that this led to “far too many innocent people” being stopped, many of them black or Latino.
“Over time I’ve come to understand something that I’ve long struggled to admit to myself,” Bloomberg told congregants at the Christian Cultural Center in the East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn. “I got something important wrong. I got something important really wrong.”

“I got something important wrong. I got something important really wrong.”
— Michael Bloomberg, former mayor of New York City

Bloomberg, who has filed paperwork to enter the presidential primaries in Alabama and Arkansas, said that as he looked to the future, he also reflected on instances in the past where he “came up short.” He said that he had worked hard to build trust between communities and police, but that the stop-and-frisk policy eventually resulted in resentment when too many innocent people were being stopped.
“The erosion of that trust bothered me,” Bloomberg said. “And I want to earn it back.”

Michael Bloomberg, mulling a 2020 presidential run, apologized Sunday for an anti-crime policy he implemented while mayor of New York City. The city's police union called the policy "misguided."

The former three-term mayor defended his intentions, which were to reduce gun violence, but admitted that he made an error in how he went about it, even noting that when he put in safeguards to reduce police stops, crime did not go up.
“Today, I want you to know that I realize that back then I was wrong,” he said. “And I’m sorry.”
The city's top police union hit back Sunday. “Mayor Bloomberg could have saved himself this apology if he had just listened to the police officers on the street. We said in the early 2000s that the quota-driven emphasis on street stops was polluting the relationship between cops and our communities. His administration’s misguided policy inspired an anti-police movement that has made cops the target of hatred and violence, and stripped away many of the tools we had used to keep New Yorkers safe. The apology is too little, too late,” Police Benevolent Association President Patrick J. Lynch said.

"Mayor Bloomberg could have saved himself this apology if he had just listened to the police officers on the street."
— Patrick J. Lynch, president, New York City PBA

Patrick J. Lynch, president of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association of the City of New York, speaks to reporters, Aug. 2, 2019. (Associated Press)

Despite repeated references to the future and promises to keep fighting gun violence, Bloomberg would not make any declaration on what his next steps will be.
“I don’t know what the future holds for me,” he said, but promised that he will continue to working to stop gun violence, “and creating a more equal and just society for everyone.”
Fox News' Tamara Gitt contributed to this report.

Ron Johnson spars with Chuck Todd over Trump impeachment inquiry: 'Tormented from the day after his election'

President Trump has been constantly bombarded by rival Democrats and an angry media since his first day in the White House and is worthy of defending, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said in a Sunday television interview.
Johnson told "Meet the Press" host Chuck Todd of NBC News that he's sympathized with Trump throughout the impeachment process, after seeing him treated unfairly for purely partisan reasons following his election victory.
"I'm sympathetic with President Trump as he has been tormented from the day after his election," he said.
Johnson then read a 2017 tweet from the Ukraine whistleblower's attorney, Mark Zaid, in which he wrote of a coup to remove Trump from office.
"This is ten days after [Trump's] inauguration -- 'Coup has started. First of many steps, rebellion, impeachment will follow ultimately.'" Now. if this whistleblower... is to be lionized by the Washington Post, maybe we ought to take a look at who he hired," Johnson said.
"He could have hired an unbiased officer of the court. Instead, he hired Mark Zaid... That's not an unbiased officer of the court," Johnson continued. "So, there's something going on here... it's dividing this country."
Todd pressed Johnson on his outspoken criticism of Hillary Clinton's mishandling of her private email server in 2016 and said his rhetoric leading up to the election was identical to what he's accused Democrats of doing in recent months.
"We've been investigating the whole Hillary Clinton email scandal, the exoneration of her, that was not an investigation to really dig out the truth," Johnson replied.
"I was just pointing out what Hillary Clinton had done and I was hoping that people would not elect her and they didn’t and that's, I think, one of the main reasons that she was not elected -- is what she did with that private server," he continued, "which was completely intentional. It baffles me that she was not indicted, quite honestly... That's a part of the problem."

Customs and Border Protection announces 70% drop in apprehensions since May

Acting Customs and Border Protection director Mark Morgan speaks with reporters in the briefing room at the White House, Thursday, Nov. 14, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

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The White House is praising Customs and Border Protection officers for regaining control of U.S. borders. In a Saturday tweet, acting CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan highlighted some of the agency’s accomplishments — including a 70 percent drop in apprehensions since May.

Ever since President @realDonaldTrump took action in the face of Congress’ neglect, border apprehensions have plummeted by 70% (!) since the peak of the crisis.

THANK YOU to our brave @CBP officers! pic.twitter.com/TYaPToUdBX
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) November 17, 2019

He said with President Trump’s aid to border officials, October marked the fifth month in a row agents saw a drop in detainments. May was the peak of the border crisis, which resulted in 140,000 apprehensions.
“We’ve all but ended catch and release,” stated Morgan. “Migrants are no longer allowed to come to the interior of the United States based on fraudulent claims and the cartels are no longer able to profit on the backs of these migrants.”

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During a Thursday press conference, the CBP commissioner noted that the Trump administration’s strategies are successfully sending a message to Mexico’s drug cartels and other criminal organizations contributing to the national security crisis at the border. He reported that the U.S. is continuing to see an overall decline in migrant apprehensions and an increase in drug seizures.
“The month of October has continued with that trend, reaching a 14 percent decline compared to September — with just over 42,000 apprehensions,” stated Morgan. “Last month on the southwest border, CBP seized more than 47,000 pounds of drugs — a 50 percent increase from this time last year.”
He added though there is progress, there still needs to be more wall constructed in order to put the cartels permanently out of business. He is urging Congress to pass legislation to assist the ongoing border crisis.

GOP lawmakers say Democrats’ evidence against President Trump is ‘crumbling’

President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the CenturyLink Center, Thursday, Nov. 14, 2019, in Bossier City, La. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)

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UPDATED 8:10 PM PT — Sunday, November 17, 2019

GOP congressmen are coming to the president’s defense amid the ongoing impeachment inquiry. Representative Chris Stewart is saying evidence the Democrats are looking to find against President Trump is “crumbling.” During a Sunday interview, Stewart said there was no evidence building through ongoing impeachment hearings.
He pointed to Marie Yovanovitch’s testimony last week, where she told lawmakers she had no knowledge of criminal activity related to the Trump administration.
The representative accused Democrats of reaching for reasons to impeach President Trump. He added the longer the public hearings go on, the less Americans will support impeachment — because the evidence just doesn’t support it.
“I think the Democrats know they’re in trouble on this — which is why we keep moving the goal post,” stated Stewart. “We went from some supposed quid pro quo, and as you said, tying these investigations to withholding military aid — but we know that didn’t happen.”

Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah, holds up the transcript summary of the call between President Donald Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky as he questions top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine William Taylor, and career Foreign Service officer George Kent, at the House Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2019. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

GOP representative Jim Jordan also came to the president’s defense, saying there was never a quid pro quo. On Sunday, Jordan pointed out Ukraine’s president met with U.S. senior officials multiple times before the security aid was released. He said aid was never talked about being linked to investigations in those meetings.
Jordan suggested the funding was released after officials became convinced Ukraine’s president was the “real deal” and not corrupt. He also noted the aid was provided before it actually had to be.
“The Ukrainians did nothing to…get the aid released,” stated Jordan. “There was never this quid pro quo — that the Democrats all promised existed — before President Trump released the phone call.”

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, questions former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch as she testifies before the House Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, Nov. 15, 2019, during the second public impeachment hearing of President Donald Trump’s efforts to tie U.S. aid for Ukraine to investigations of his political opponents. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

President Trump has been accused of withholding aid from Ukraine to pressure the foreign country to investigate 2020 hopeful and former Vice President Joe Biden. In regards to the alleged quid pro quo, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise slammed claims the commander-in-chief cared more about investigating the Bidens than Ukraine policy.
Scalise pointed out that in the original phone call transcript that was released, President Zelensky thanked President Trump for all he’s done to help Ukraine. He stressed this included when the White House sold javelin missiles to Ukraine to help the country stand up to Russia. He also noted the Obama administration had refused to sell Ukraine those missiles.
Scalise also pointed out the law required President Trump to ensure Ukraine is rooting out corruption before any taxpayer money went to the nation.

FILE – In this Aug. 27, 2018 file photo, House Majority Whip U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., recalls the prayers he received after getting shot during a congressional baseball practice in Virginia in 2017, during a press availability in Jackson, Miss. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

Despite these comments, it appears Democrats have little interest in listening to their Republican colleagues.
During a Sunday interview, main spokesperson for the impeachment inquiry House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she has no interest in responding to her Republican colleagues about their impeachment concerns. She rejected opening a dialogue with the GOP, calling it “a waste of time.”
Pelosi went on to say she has a “real level of discomfort” in regards to hearing out issues brought forward by those on the other side of the aisle.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., talks to reporters on the morning after the first public hearing in the impeachment probe of President Donald Trump on his effort to tie U.S. aid for Ukraine to investigations of his political opponents, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Nov. 14, 2019. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)