Tag: fiona hill
​"File:Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump at the 2017 G-20 Hamburg Summit (4).jpg"

Fiona Hill Says Trump’s Pro-Russia Policies Stoked Ukraine Crisis

Fiona Hill, former Senior Director for Europe and Russia at the United States National Security Council, believes former President Donald Trump's foreign policy has played an intricate role in Russia's bold invasion of Ukraine.

On Monday, February 21, Hill — who worked as a Russian advisor for Trump — appeared on CNN where she weighed on the distinct differences between Trump's approach compared to President Joe Biden's. According to Hill, Trump's policy was more about concern for his own personal agenda as opposed to the United States' national interest.

While Trump's campaign often pushed the message of putting America first and making it "great again," Hill argues otherwise due to what she witnessed during her time working for the former president.

"There's no Team America for Trump," Hill explained. "Not once did I see him do anything to put America first. Not once. Not for a single second."

Hill touched on the timeline leading up to this point as she recalled Trump's admiration for Putin and his disapproval of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). She also noted Trump's longstanding pushback against Ukraine as he relentlessly tried to obtain incriminating information on Biden and his son, Hunter. The controversy surrounding Ukraine was also a major component of the former president's first impeachment trial.

"All this did was say to Russia that Ukraine was a playground," Hill said.

Although Biden has made a real effort to strengthen NATO allies amid Russian adversity, Hill warned that the contention will likely last for a prolonged period of time as Russia continues its pressure campaign against Ukraine. Hill also expressed concern about the real change and the effort it will take to maintain a united front.

"The real challenge is keeping everyone together for a considerable period," Hill concluded. "It's going to go on a long time."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Top 5 Revelations From Ukraine Transcripts Portend Trouble For Trump

Top 5 Revelations From Ukraine Transcripts Portend Trouble For Trump

It’s been reported for weeks now that Trump wanted Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and the Democratic National Committee in exchange for $400 million in military defense funds that Congress promised the country for its fight against Russia. A meeting between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky was also predicated on Ukraine announcing the investigations.

The rough phone transcript Trump released, text messages between top Trump administration officials, and even an explicit admission from acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney all confirmed the existence of a quid pro quo.

The four witness depositions released last week by the House Intelligence Committee add further direct confirmation of that arrangement.

Bill Taylor, who currently serves as the top American diplomat in Ukraine; Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a national security staffer who focuses on Ukraine issues; Tim Morrison, an outgoing National Security Council official focused on Russia and European issues, whom Trump appointed; and Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, all corroborated previous admissions about the quid pro quo.

Taylor told lawmakers during his deposition that Sondland himself had pushed the quid pro quo. Taylor testified that Sondland at one point told him, “President Trump is a businessman. When a businessman is about to sign a check to someone who owes him something, he said, the businessman asks that person to pay up before signing the check.”

Morrison confirmed Taylor’s account.

Vindman testified that “there was no doubt” that Trump was demanding investigations in exchange for the military aid and a meeting with the Ukrainian president.

Sondland was later forced to amend his testimony to say that there was indeed a quid pro quo, and that he was involved in making sure Ukrainian officials knew about it. Sondland said that testimony from other witnesses “refreshed” his memory.

2. Multiple White House aides were involved in the scheme

The transcripts revealed that Mulvaney was a big player in concocting the Ukraine quid pro quo.

Fiona Hill, a former NSC staffer, testified that her boss, former national security adviser John Bolton, wanted it known that he was “not part of this drug deal that Sondland and Mulvaney are cooking up.”

George Kent, a deputy assistant Secretary of State, testified that Mulvaney was the one who carried out the hold on the $400 million in security aid to Ukraine.

Kent also revealed that Energy Secretary Rick Perry — who until now was one of the few original Trump Cabinet officials to not face major scandals — was part of the unofficial backchannel to Ukraine. Kent testified that while Ukraine was part of his portfolio at the State Department, he was told to step aside on Ukrainian issues to make way for the “three amigos” — the nickname former special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker came up with for himself, Perry, and Sondland.

Perry handed Trump his resignation in mid-October, saying he would leave by the end of the year. Trump told reporters then that Perry had “done a fantastic job” as energy secretary, but that “it was time.”

3. Rudy Giuliani is the nefarious heart of the scandal

Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s name came up in multiple interview transcripts, with officials describing him as a bad actor whose efforts to poison Trump’s mind with anti-Ukraine sentiment and push for Ukrainian interference in the 2020 election were troublesome.

Kent testified that Giuliani’s “campaign of lies” against now former Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch eventually led to her ouster.

Hill said that Bolton called Giuliani a “hand grenade that is going to blow everybody up.

Hill even warned GOP lawmakers — who were trying to defend Trump by pushing conspiracy theories in her interview — that perpetuating conspiracies like the ones Giuliani trafficked in was dangerous.

“If we have people running around chasing rabbit holes because Rudy Giuliani or others have been feeding information to The Hill, Politico, we are not going to be prepared as a country to push back on this again,” Hill said, referring to future elections and Russian disinformation campaigns.

She noted, “The Russians thrive on misinformation and disinformation.”

4. Republicans have been trying to cover for Trump — and out the whistleblower

Transcripts show that Republicans who are part of the closed-door depositions haven’t been trying to get to the bottom of the Ukrainian scandal, but are instead trying to protect Trump.

Some Republicans planned stunts, including Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who stormed Hill’s closed-door deposition even though he was not authorized to be there. Experts have said the stunt, which several Republicans took part in, carrying their cell phones into a secure room, may have threatened national security.

Republicans have also tried to expose the name of the whistleblower whose complaint kicked off the impeachment inquiry in the first place.

During Vindman’s hearing, Republican lawmakers and a top Republican aide who was asking questions tried to push Vindman to name people who might be the whistleblower, in order to get the name into the official record. At one point, the Republican staffer read a name aloud and asked Vindman directly whether that person was the whistleblower. The name was censored in the official transcript, indicating it had been deemed classified.

Emily C. Singer

@CahnEmily

Counsel for Republicans on the Intelligence Committee tried to out the whistleblower in the interview with Alexander Vindman.

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5. Trump’s demand to purchase Greenland caused actual problems in the intelligence community

In one of the most bizarre revelations from the transcripts, Taylor testified that Trump’s desire to buy Greenland became an issue in the growing Ukraine scandal.

According to the transcript, national security officials were trying to get a meeting on the books to convince Trump to release military aid to the country. However, Trump’s desire for the United States to buy Greenland was taking up a large chunk of intelligence officials’ time, and made it difficult to set up that meeting.

Published with permission of The American Independent.

IMAGE: Former New York mayor and Trump attorney Rudolph Giuliani.

Roger Stone Smear On Infowars Instigated Threats Against Fiona Hill

Roger Stone Smear On Infowars Instigated Threats Against Fiona Hill

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

While giving testimony for the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, Fiona Hill, who previously worked in the Trump administration as a Russia expert, related that during her tenure in the administration, she received harassment and death threats over the conspiracy theory she was a “mole” planted by financier and philanthropist George Soros. The smear can be traced back to comments made in May 2017 by Trump confidant Roger Stone, who is currently standing trial on seven felony counts as a result of the special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in 2016 presidential elections.

Hill, who joined the Trump administration in Spring 2017 and left in August 2019, referenced the harassment and threats she faced while discussing a smear campaign Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani orchestrated against former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.

In her testimony, which was released on November 8, Hill related, “My entire first year of my tenure at the National Security Council was filled with hateful calls, conspiracy theories, which has started again, frankly, as it’s been announced that I’ve been giving this deposition, accusing me of being a Soros mole in the White House, of colluding with all kinds of enemies of the President, and, you know, of various improprieties.” Hill added that former NSC head H.R. McMaster “and many other members of staff were targeted as well, and many people were hounded out of the National Security Council because they became frightened about their own security.” Hill related receiving death threats and said she got harassing phone calls at home, stating, “My neighbors reported somebody coming and hammering on my door.”

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and Stone purported to reveal Hill as a “Soros mole” during the May 31, 2017, broadcast of The Alex Jones Show.

Hill mentioned in her testimony that since it was announced on October 11 that she was going to testify, the harassment has picked back up. On October 12, a video-sharing platform used by Jones’ Infowars outlet posted a “Bombshell Flashback” claiming, “Roger Stone and Alex Jones expose a major Soros operative within the Trump White House. Fiona Hill.” The video included footage from Jones’ May 31, 2017, show.

During the May 2017 broadcast, Jones teased that Stone “has exclusive inside intel that he’s breaking right now” and that he would reveal “a major Soros mole discovered in the White House.” Stone then said that, “George Soros has penetrated the Trump White House. Soros has planted a mole infiltrating the national security apparatus, a woman named Fiona Hill,” before he and Jones disparaged her work in the Trump administration.

Hill previously was an advisory board member on an Open Society Institute (OSI) project. OSI, which is now called Open Society Foundations, was founded by Soros and describes itself as “the world’s largest private funder of independent groups working for justice, democratic governance, and human rights.”

Stone and Jones would continue to smear Hill. During the March 15, 2018, broadcast of The Alex Jones Show, Stone said, “We also reported exclusively last year that H.R. McMaster’s top aide was a globalist named Fiona Hill who we traced directly to George Soros and his Open Society Institute. Now we have learned that it was Hill who facilitated the conversation between McMaster and [former NSA adviser Susan] Rice that has gotten McMaster fired.”

Stone added, “Again, we here at Infowars first identified Fiona Hill, the globalist leftist Soros insider who had infiltrated McMaster’s staff.” Jones said, “We broke this word for word, in May 31, 2017, ‘Bombshell: Soros insider infiltrates Trump administration.’ Then it was picked up by NewsMax and then it was hand delivered to the president at Mar-a-Lago, we can now reveal, back in the summer of last year.” Jones described Hill as “this Soros operative lady who is the linchpin to it all,” and Stone later claimed, “We know that the president first took note of Fiona Hill because of our reporting here at Infowars. Now he’s put two and two together and figured out — we’ve confirmed this this morning — that Fiona Hill was the one who engineered his communications with Susan Rice.”

 

New Transcripts Confirm Trump Demanded Ukraine Probe Of Biden

New Transcripts Confirm Trump Demanded Ukraine Probe Of Biden

The three House committees leading the impeachment inquiry released two more transcripts from their closed-door hearings on Friday, further confirming the existence of a quid pro quo between the White House and Ukraine.

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and Dr. Fiona Hill testified before the House Intelligence, Oversight, and Foreign Affairs Committees on Oct. 29 and Oct. 14, respectively. The transcripts of those depositions were made public on Friday afternoon.

Vindman, a decorated veteran who serves on the National Security Council, listened in on the July 25 phone call between Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — now at the center of the impeachment probe — from inside the White House situation room. He testified last month that he was “concerned” by the conversation.

“I was concerned by the call. I did not think it was proper to demand that a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen, and I was worried about the implications for the U.S. government’s support of Ukraine,” Vindman said in his opening statement.

Following the call, Vindman said he “immediately went to the senior NSC legal counsel and shared those concerns.”

Vindman also testified that the Trump administration dangled the possibility of a White House meeting to pressure Ukraine into opening an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden.

“It was a demand for him [Zelensky] to fulfill his — fulfill this particular prerequisite in order to get the [White House] meeting,” Vindman said.

Hill, an aide to former national security adviser John Bolton, testified before the same committees on Oct. 14. Her testimony was delayed when Republicans threatened national security by storming the secure testimony room with their cell phones.

In her testimony, Hill testified that Bolton did not want to be a part of pressuring Ukraine to open an investigation into Biden in return for a White House meeting.

“…Ambassador Bolton asked me to go over and report this to our NSC counsel, to John Eisenberg,” Hill said. “And he told me, and this is a direct quote from Ambassador Bolton: You go and tell Eisenberg that I am not part of whatever drug deal Sondland and Mulvaney are cooking up on this, and you go and tell him what you’ve heard and what I’ve said.”

Hill also corroborated other testimony pointing out that Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, played a key role in the removal of former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.

Hill said Giuliani was behind “a mishmash of conspiracy theories” smearing Yovanovitch, which eventually led to Yovanovitch’s removal.

Vindman’s full testimony can be read here, and excerpts can be found below:

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman excerpts (PDF)

Hill’s full testimony can be read here, and excerpts can be found below:

Fiona Hill excerpts (PDF)

Published with permission of The American Independent.