EUROTRIP!!
Top administration officials have been tracking Giuliani’s venture through Europe, wondering if he’s going to cause yet another major headache for the president.
Erin Banco is a national security reporter for The Daily Beast and holds a master's degree from the Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. She has worked as a Middle East correspondent for Newsweek Media Group and as a freelance journalist in Iraq, Egypt, Turkey, and Syria. Her work can be found in The New York Times, Newsweek Magazine, CNN, and The Intercept. Send her tips: erin.banco@thedailybeast.com or tips@thedailybeast.com. You can also use our anonymous document submission system, SecureDrop. Click here to find out how.
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NOT JUST UKRAINE
Sources say the ambassador grew increasingly close to a Romanian politician with a worrisome record on corruption.
RED FLAG?
Rudy Giuliani told The Daily Beast “everyone” thought that Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Bohdan, was “a very crooked lawyer.”
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HELLO, KYIV?
After a White House meeting that was thrown into chaos by Ambassador Gordon Sondland, senior National Security Council officials took matters into their own hands, sources say.
BRIDGES BURNED
Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland named names and left few in the upper echelons of the federal government unscathed.
‘THE HAND WE WERE DEALT’
“We weren’t happy with the president’s directive to talk with Rudy,” he said. “We did not want to involve Mr. Giuliani.”
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IN CONTACT
On the eve of the ambassador’s public testimony before House impeachment investigators, two sources say he was pushing for the probes earlier than was previously known.
NO AMIGO
Kurt Volker’s testimony has complicated what was supposed to be an opportunity to amplify the GOP’s impeachment counter-narrative.
KNEE-SLAPPER
Vindman was pressed by Republicans about whether he was secretly loyal to Ukraine because of a job offer he’d received. But the offer itself was just a lighthearted joke.
‘DID NOT GIVE A SH-T’
David Holmes testified, “Ambassador Sondland agreed that the President did not give a shit about Ukraine.”
