Todd Chrisley, wife Julie settle $2 million Georgia tax-evasion case

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Todd Chrisley, wife Julie settle $2 million Georgia tax-evasion case "Chrisley Knows Best" stars Julie and Todd Chrisley have reached a settlement after allegedly failing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in income taxes to the state of Georgia.
October 09, 2019 at 09:43AM

White House Refusing to Participate in Impeachment Inquiry

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White House Refusing to Participate in Impeachment Inquiry

The White House says it will not participate in what it calls the unconstitutional impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.

White House lawyer Pat Cipollone sent an eight-page letter to House Democratic leaders, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who are looking into whether Trump broke the law by urging Ukraine to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.

FILE - White House counsel Pat Cipollone, center, arrives for an immigration speech by President Donald Trump in the Rose Garden at the White House, May 16, 2019.

Cipollone accuses the Democrats of violating "fundamental fairness and constitutionally mandated due process."

He says they are denying Trump the opportunity to question witnesses and see the evidence they are using to decide whether he should be impeached.

"All of this violates the Constitution, the rule of law, and every past precedent," Cipollone wrote, adding that inquiry is baseless, partisan, and an attempt to toss out the results of the 2016 presidential election.

A whistleblower complaint about a July 25 call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy helped trigger a House of Representatives impeachment investigation of Trump last month.

The White House has demanded Pelosi bring the impeachment inquiry to a full vote before the entire House of Representatives if the committees want any cooperation from Trump officials.

But there is no rule preventing the House from looking into allegations of illegal activity of a president before deciding whether to bring actual articles of impeachment to a vote.

The White House letter comes after another move by the Trump administration that Democratic leaders call obstruction.

FILE - Gordon Sondland, the United States Ambassador to the European Union, addresses the media at the U.S. Embassy to Romania in Bucharest, Sept. 5, 2019.

The State Department refused to let U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland answer questions from House committee members Tuesday.

Sondland had flown from Europe and was willing to appear. But his attorney, Robert Luskin, said Sondland "is a sitting ambassador and employee of State and is required to follow their direction."

Luskin said Sondland was "profoundly disappointed" at not being given the chance to talk.

Subpoena

The Democratic chairs of the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight Committees have now subpoenaed Sondland to testify.

Trump tweeted that Sondland would have appeared before a "totally compromised kangaroo court where Republican rights have been taken away, and true facts are not allowed out for the public to see."

Sondland, a Trump donor, was one of several diplomats who advised the Ukrainian leadership about how to carry out Trump's demands after his July phone call with Ukraine's Zelenskiy. During that call, Trump urged Zelenskiy to investigate Biden for alleged corruption tied to his son, Hunter Biden's job with a Ukrainian gas company

FILE - Then-U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden attend an NCAA basketball game in Washington, Jan. 30, 2010.

According to a U.S. intelligence whistleblower, Sondland and other diplomats exchanged a series of text messages in which the diplomats wondered why roughly $400 million in badly needed aid to Ukraine was frozen.

Reports say there was a five-hour-long gap between text messages, during which Sondland telephoned Trump.

The next message assured one diplomat there was no "quid pro quo" of any kind with Ukraine, followed by Sondland writing, "I suggest we stop the back and forth by text."

Democrats want to know what happened in those five hours and why the text messages came to a sudden halt.

Also at the heart of the inquiry is whether Trump was freezing the aid in an exchange for a Biden investigation.

Trump alleges that when Biden was vice president, he threatened to hold up loan guarantees to Ukraine unless it stopped a corruption probe of the gas company where Hunter Biden worked.

Hunter Biden was not the target of that investigation, and there has been no evidence of any wrongdoing by Joe Biden or his son.

October 09, 2019 at 08:39AM

Experts: Prospects for Future US, North Korea Talks Grow Dim

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Experts: Prospects for Future US, North Korea Talks Grow Dim

North Korea's insincerity toward denuclearization and its demand for greater U.S. concessions are making the possibility of serious working-level talks with Washington dim, experts say.

"I don't think there is much prospect for real progress in dismantling (North Korea's) nukes," said Robert Manning, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. "It's possible Kim Jong Un will order (his negotiating team) back to the table, have several more sessions, so there's an appearance of sincerity."

The long-stalled working-level talks between Washington and Pyongyang resumed Saturday in Stockholm and ended unsuccessfully without making any progress toward denuclearization.

FILE - People watch a TV showing a file image of North Korea's missile launch during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Oct. 2, 2019.

Evans Revere, a former State Department official who had negotiated with North Korea extensively, thinks the talks broke down because Pyongyang intended to reject a U.S. offer and demand greater concessions.

"North Korea came to the Stockholm talks planning to listen to the U.S. proposal, reject them as inadequate and then leave for home with a demand that the U.S. make a fundamental shift in its position if it hopes for talks to resume," he said.

Exploiting Washington

Pyongyang's goal, according to Revere, is to pressure the U.S. to make more concessions by exploiting Washington's desire to hold denuclearization talks more than it does.

While it is uncertain what specific offers Washington made and concessions Pyongyang demanded at their Stockholm meeting, the U.S. said in a statement released shortly after the abrupt end of the talks that it brought "creative ideas" and presented "a number of new initiatives."

In a statement issued through its official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Sunday, Pyongyang said, "At the negotiations, the U.S. side maintained its former stand, seemingly showing that it has brought no new package."

Ken Gause, director of the Adversary Analytics Program at CNA research center, thinks Pyongyang will not reopen negotiations unless the U.S. makes substantial concessions.  

"The U.S. did not put anything on the table," said Gause. "Without upfront concessions, North Korea has nothing to negotiate over. It will not make the first concessions."

FILE - U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un meet during the second U.S.-North Korea summit at the Sofitel Legend Metropole hotel in Hanoi, Feb. 28, 2019.

The Stockholm talks were held after months of an impasse between the two sides since the failed Hanoi Summit in February. In Hanoi, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un conveyed that he wanted sanctions relief, and offered to dismantle a part of North Korea's nuclear facilities.

U.S. President Donald Trump denied Kim's offer and asked for full denuclearization in return for sanctions relief.  

Working-level talks had been stalled since the Hanoi summit, until the countries met in Stockholm as Kim promised that North Korea would resume talks when he met with Trump at the inter-Korean border of the demilitarized zone (DMZ) in June.

Manning thinks North Korea met with the U.S. in Stockholm to show that it held up to its promise but never intended to make any serious negotiations on denuclearization.

"I think this was about Kim having to keep his DMZ pledge to allow working-level talks," said Manning. "So, the talks (are a way) to check the box."

To gain concessions

Dennis Wilder, the National Security Council's senior director for East Asian Affairs during the George W. Bush administration, believes Pyongyang walked away from the talks believing it could gain more concessions from Trump.  

Wilder said Pyongyang thinks Trump will likely grant more concessions because it believes he is in a vulnerable position domestically, being under an impeachment probe while campaigning for reelection.

FILE - This photo taken Feb. 8, 2018, and released on Feb. 9, 2018, by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) shows Hwasong-15 ballistic missile during the military parade in Pyongyang, North Korea.

"The U.S. side apparently placed a new proposal on the table, and the North may believe that by rejecting it out of hand and making new threats, it can strong-arm President Trump," said Wilder. "The North may be overestimating the Trump administration's vulnerability at this time and could make a serious miscalculation."

Washington and Pyongyang gave two different views of their meeting and future talks hosted by the Swedish government. The U.S., in its statement, said it had "good discussions" with North Korea. The U.S. said it has accepted the Swedish government's invitation to return to Stockholm to meet with Pyongyang in two weeks.

By contrast, North Korea, in its statement, threatened it will not meet with Washington until it took "a substantial step" toward its "withdrawal of hostile policy" that "threatens the security of the country."  

Pyongyang refused the Swedish invitation for another round of working-level talks. Referring to the talks as "sickening," Pyongyang said Washington was "misleading the public opinion" by calling the talks productive.

Revere said the difference highlights Pyongyang's unwillingness to denuclearize.

"This difference, in my view, is driven by the fact that North Korea has no intention of agreeing to Washington's definition of denuclearization, because it has no intention to denuclearize," said Revere.

Differing denuclearization definitions

Washington's definition of denuclearization has been the complete dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear arsenal and program, which is different from North Korea's definition of removing the U.S. nuclear umbrella from the Korean peninsula.

Bruce Klingner, former CIA deputy division chief of Korea and current senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said, "While some will dismiss North Korea's comments as diplomatic maneuvering, they are consistent with repeated missives this year, and indeed, decades of resistance to abandoning its nuclear arsenal."

North Korea said several times this year it will give the U.S. until the end of the year to change its position that it can accept.

October 09, 2019 at 07:34AM