NATION/WORLD
Friday, November 22, 2019
East Oregonian
A7
Former Trump adviser undercuts GOP impeachment defenses
Impeachment
witnesses say
Giuliani pursued
political probes
in Ukraine
By LISA MASCARO,
MARY CLARE
JALONICK AND ERIC
TUCKER
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — A
former White House offi-
cial said Thursday that Pres-
ident Donald Trump’s top
European envoy was sent on
a “domestic political errand”
seeking investigations of
Democrats, stunning testi-
mony that dismantled a main
line of the president’s defense
in the impeachment inquiry.
In a riveting appearance
on Capitol Hill, Fiona Hill
also implored Republican
lawmakers — and implic-
itly Trump himself — to stop
peddling a “fictional nar-
rative” at the center of the
impeachment probe. She
said baseless suggestions
that Ukraine interfered in
the 2016 election bolster Rus-
sia as it seeks to sow political
divisions in the United States.
Testimony from Hill
and David Holmes, a State
Department adviser in Kyiv,
capped an intense week in
the historic inquiry and rein-
forced the central complaint:
that Trump used his leverage
over Ukraine, a young East-
ern European democracy
facing Russian aggression,
to pursue political investiga-
AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta
Former White House national security aide Fiona Hill, and David Holmes, a U.S. diplomat in
Ukraine, back right, walk to their seats to testify before the House Intelligence Committee on
Capitol Hill in Washington on Thursday during a public impeachment hearing of President
Donald Trump’s efforts to tie U.S. aid for Ukraine to investigations of his political opponents.
tions. His alleged actions set
off alarms across the U.S.
national security and foreign
policy apparatus.
Hill had a front row seat
to some of Trump’s pursuits
with Ukraine during her ten-
ure at the White House. She
testified in detail about her
interactions with Gordon
Sondland, saying she initially
suspected the U.S. ambassa-
dor to the European Union
was overstating his author-
ity to push Ukraine to launch
investigations into Demo-
crats. But she says she now
understands he was acting
on instructions Trump sent
through his personal attorney
Rudy Giuliani.
“He was being involved in
a domestic political errand,
and we were being involved
in national security foreign
policy,” she testified in a day-
long encounter with lawmak-
ers. “And those two things
had just diverged.”
It was just one instance in
which Hill, as well as Holmes,
undercut the arguments being
made by Republicans and
the White House. Both told
House investigators it was
abundantly clear Giuliani
was seeking political investi-
gations of Democrats and Joe
Biden in Ukraine, knocking
down assertions from ear-
lier witnesses who said they
didn’t realize the purpose of
the lawyer’s pursuits. Trump
has also said he was simply
focused on rooting out cor-
ruption in Ukraine.
Giuliani “was clearly
pushing forward issues and
ideas that would, you know,
probably come back to haunt
us and in fact,” Hill testified,
“I think that’s where we are
today.”
Hill also defended Lt. Col.
Alexander Vindman, the
Army officer who testified
earlier and whom Trump’s
allies tried to discredit. A pre-
vious witness said Hill raised
concerns about Vindman, but
she said those worries cen-
tered only on whether he had
the “political antenna” for the
situation at the White House.
The landmark House
impeachment inquiry was
sparked by a July 25 phone
call, in which Trump asked
Ukraine President Volody-
myr Zelenskiy for investi-
gations into Biden and the
Democratic National Com-
mittee. A still-anonymous
whistleblower’s official gov-
ernment complaint about that
call led the House to launch
the current probe.
After two weeks of public
testimony, many Democrats
believe they have enough evi-
dence to begin writing arti-
cles of impeachment. Work-
ing under the assumption that
Trump will be impeached by
the House, White House offi-
cials and a small group of
GOP senators met Thursday
to discuss the possibility of a
two week Senate trial.
There still remain ques-
tions about whether there
will be additional House tes-
timony, either in public ses-
sion or behind closed doors,
including from high-pro-
file officials, such as for-
mer Trump national security
adviser John Bolton.
In what was seen as a
nudge to Bolton, her former
boss, Hill said those with
information have a “moral
obligation to provide it.”
She recounted one vivid
incident at the White House
where Bolton told her he
didn’t want to be involved in
any “drug deal” that Sond-
land and Trump’s acting
White House chief of staff
Mick Mulvaney were cook-
ing up over the Ukrainian
investigations Trump wanted.
Hill said she conveyed sim-
ilar concerns directly to
Sondland.
“And I did say to him,
‘Ambassador Sondland, Gor-
don, I think this is all going
to blow up,’” she said. “And
here we are.”
Hill and Holmes both
filled in gaps in previous tes-
timony and poked holes in the
accounts of other witnesses.
They were particularly ada-
mant that efforts by Trump
and Giuliani to investigate
the Burisma gas company
were well-known by officials
working on Ukraine to be
the equivalent of probing the
Bidens. That runs counter to
earlier testimony from Sond-
land and Kurt Volker, the for-
mer Ukraine special envoy,
who insisted they had no idea
there was a connection.
Holmes, a late addition
to the schedule, also under-
cut some of Sondland’s rec-
ollections about an extraor-
dinary phone call between
the ambassador and Trump
on July 26, the day after
the president’s call with
Ukraine. Holmes was hav-
ing lunch with Sondland in
Kyiv and said he could over-
hear Trump ask about “inves-
tigations” during a “colorful”
conversation.
After the phone call,
Holmes said Sondland told
him Trump didn’t care about
Ukraine but rather about “big
stuff,” meaning the “Biden
investigation.”
Sondland
said he didn’t recall raising
the Bidens.
Teen used ‘ghost gun’ in Southern
California high school shooting
By STEFANIE DAZIO
Associated Press
AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed
Riot police fire tear gas while protesters set fires during clashes between Iraqi security
forces and anti-Government protesters in Baghdad, Iraq, on Thursday.
Iraqi officials: 8 protesters
dead in day of violent clashes
By SAMYA KULLAB
AND MURTADA FARAJ
Associated Press
BAGHDAD — Eight
people died and at least 90
were wounded on Thursday
in renewed clashes in central
Baghdad, in the most violent
clashes between anti-govern-
ment protesters and security
forces in recent days, Iraqi
officials said.
Separately, one police-
man was killed and six oth-
ers wounded when an IED
exploded in northeast Bagh-
dad, security officials said.
One person was killed
when security forces hurled
sound bombs at crowds of
protesters on the strategic
Sinak bridge late Thursday,
security and hospital officials
said.
Earlier
clashes
had
erupted on Baghdad’s Rash-
eed Street, a cultural center
known for its old crumbling
buildings, and on the Ahrar
bridge. Security forces fired
live ammunition, tear gas and
sound bombs to disperse doz-
ens of protesters, causing the
fatalities.
Protesters have been occu-
pying parts of Baghdad’s
three main bridges — Sinak
and Ahrar and Jumurhiya
— leading to the heavily for-
tified Green Zone, the seat
of Iraq’s government. Secu-
rity forces are deployed on
the other side to repel them
from entering the area, which
houses government buildings
and various foreign embas-
sies, including the United
States.
The officials spoke on
condition of anonymity in
line with regulations.
Two protesters were killed
when tear gas canisters struck
them and one was killed by
live ammunition during the
clashes in Rasheed street.
Four protesters were
killed in fighting near Ahrar
and Sinak bridges early
Thursday.
Fighting also resumed
overnight in the Shiite holy
city of Karbala, south of
Baghdad, between protesters
and security forces.
Tents have been set up
under the bridges and also
on central Tahrir Square, the
epicenter of the protest move-
ment, where first-aid volun-
teers treat those wounded by
pieces of exploded tear gas
cannisters and live fire.
“Around 1:30 a.m., the
shooting started with live
ammunition, tear gas and
sound grenades,” said one
volunteer, speaking on con-
dition of anonymity for fear
of government reprisal. The
volunteer said there were
deaths and several injured
people with bullet wounds
and breathing difficulties.
In Karbala, protesters
threw crudely made fire
bombs, also known as Molo-
tov cocktails, at security
forces while anti-riot police
responded by throwing
stones at protesters.
Dozens of demonstra-
tors had attacked the Iranian
consulate in this city earlier
in November, scaling con-
crete barriers and saying they
rejected the influence of the
neighboring country in Iraqi
affairs.
At least 320 protesters
have been killed and thou-
sands have been wounded
since the unrest began on
Oct. 1, when demonstrators
took to the streets in Bagh-
dad and across Iraq’s mainly
Shiite south to decry rampant
government corruption and
lack of basic services despite
Iraq’s oil wealth.
The leaderless movement
seeks to dismantle the sec-
tarian system and unseat the
government, including Prime
Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi.
LOS ANGELES — The
16-year-old boy who fatally
shot two fellow students and
wounded three others last
week at a Southern California
high school used an unreg-
istered, untraceable “ghost
gun,” Los Angeles County
Sheriff Alex Villanueva said
Thursday.
Villanueva told media out-
lets that Nathaniel Berhow’s
.45 caliber, 1911-model replica
semi-automatic pistol was
assembled from gun parts and
did not have a serial number.
Such weapons are a grow-
ing problem for law enforce-
ment around the country
because the parts are easy
to obtain and the guns take
limited expertise to build. In
Southern California, federal
authorities say one-third of all
the firearms seized are ghost
guns.
California has among the
strictest gun laws in the coun-
try, but they are based on
traditional firearms that are
made by manufacturers and
labeled so ownership can be
traced.
“Congress and state legis-
latures enact all these crimes
about gun registration but
now the gun industry is cre-
ating a way to just bypass
the entire thing by creating a
mechanism to manufacture
weapons yourself,” Villan-
ueva said.
It’s legal to purchase gun
kits and assemble them at
home. That method allows
the purchaser, sometimes a
minor or other person prohib-
ited from owning firearms,
to avoid background checks
required to purchase ready-
made guns from licensed
dealers.
Thomas
Groneman,
a detective sergeant with
the Suffolk County Police
Department in New York,
said his agency built their own
Glock-replica handgun from
parts they ordered online as
an experiment earlier this
year.
“It was ridiculously easy
to do it,” he said. “It’s scary
because anybody — con-
victed felons, people with
psychological issues — can
order it online.”
Several high-profile crimes
in recent years have involved
ghost guns. For instance, a
Northern California gunman
built his own rifles — despite
a court order prohibiting him
from having guns — and
killed his wife and four others
in a 2017 rampage.
While hobbyists have long
been able to use spare parts to
create a firearm, modern tech-
nology has made it far easier
to build a deadly weapon.
Adam Winkler, a gun pol-
icy expert and professor at
the University of California,
Los Angeles, said that means
more criminals will use them
and it will be more difficult
for police to solve crimes.
“Anytime you can trace a
gun, you have a little bit more
information,” he said. “How
did this gun get here? Who
sold it, who was the gun-
maker, who was the first per-
son they sold it to and what
happened?”
Police don’t yet know
where and when Berhow
got the handgun he used to
shoot students at Saugus
High School in the Los Ange-
les suburb of Santa Clarita.
As the school day was start-
ing on Nov. 14, he pulled the
gun from his backpack in an
open-air quad and in 16 sec-
onds shot five students at ran-
dom, police said.
Berhow counted his
rounds, saving the last bullet
for himself, investigators said.
He died from a head wound
the next day.
Anne Muehlberger, 15,
and Dominic Blackwell, 14,
were killed. The other three
students were hospitalized
and the last of them went
home earlier this week.
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