Ukraine feels abandoned amid US impeachment drama
Ukraine is at the center of today’s east-west geopolitical battle, but it’s feeling increasingly alone and abandoned by its U.S. backers amid the impeachment drama unfolding in Washington.
The U.S. ambassador — who was pushed out earlier this year and testified Friday in Congress — hasn’t been replaced. Neither has the influential U.S. envoy tasked with helping Ukraine quell its Russia-backed separatist insurgency. The lower-level U.S. officials remaining in Kyiv are keeping an unusually low profile.
The erosion of Washington’s readiness to protect its Eastern European ally leaves Ukraine vulnerable to mounting Russian pressure, just as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy heads into high-stakes talks next month with Russian President Vladimir Putin to try to end the deadly conflict in eastern Ukraine.
Ukrainians increasingly feel the U.S. impeachment inquiry is making their country toxic.
A member of the Ukrainian parliament’s foreign affairs committee told The Associated Press that U.S. officials have shown increasing indifference to Ukraine and have been reluctant to attend meetings.
Roger Stone guilty of witness tampering, lying to Congress
WASHINGTON (AP) — He was proud of his reputation as a practitioner of political dirty tricks and frequently boasted about the extent of his contacts and the depth of his insider information.
Now Roger Stone, a longtime friend and ally of President Donald Trump, faces a prison sentence for a collection of crimes that essentially amounts to exaggerating how much he knew, then lying and scrambling to keep those boasts from being exposed.
Stone was convicted Friday of all seven counts in a federal indictment that accused him of lying to Congress, tampering with a witness and obstructing the House investigation into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia to tip the 2016 election.
He is the sixth Trump aide or adviser to be convicted of charges brought as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
Stone has denied wrongdoing and consistently criticized the case against him as politically motivated. He did not take the stand during the trial and his lawyers did not call any witnesses in his defense.
AP sources: Epstein jail guards had been offered plea deal
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal prosecutors offered a plea deal to two correctional officers responsible for guarding Jeffrey Epstein on the night of his death, but the officers have declined the offer, people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.
The existence of the plea offer signals the Justice Department is considering criminal charges in connection with the wealthy financier’s death at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York in August. The city’s medical examiner ruled Epstein’s death a suicide.
The guards on Epstein’s unit are suspected of failing to check on him every half hour, as required, and of fabricating log entries to show they had. As part of the proposed plea deal, prosecutors wanted the guards to admit they falsified the prison records, according to the people familiar with the matter. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not permitted to publicly discuss the investigation.
The U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan had no comment on the plea offer.
Both guards were working overtime because of staffing shortages. They have been placed on administrative leave while the FBI and the Justice Department’s inspector general investigate the circumstances surrounding Epstein’s death. The 66-year-old had been awaiting trial on charges of sexually abusing teenage girls.
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Email shows Trump’s property not among original G-7 sites
WASHINGTON (AP) — A newly released email shows President Donald Trump’s private golf resort near Miami was not among the original sites to be considered to host a major international summit next year.
Trump had claimed in August that his Trump National Doral had emerged as a top contender for the Group of Seven summit after Secret Service and other officials visited various locations. But an internal Secret Service email obtained and released Friday by the government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington shows otherwise.
According to the July 12 email, agents were told to add Trump’s resort after they had arrived at a list of four finalists.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Secret Service declined comment, citing “operational security reasons.”
The email references the “the original 10 site surveys we conducted at the end of May/beginning of June” and said: “Yesterday was the first time we put eyes on this property,” meaning Doral. The author of the email noted that Trump has visited the location in the past and added – without elaboration – that the property presents “some challenges.”
