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ABC News obtains potential smoking gun tape of Trump demanding the firing of Marie Yovanovich

ABC News obtains potential smoking gun tape of Trump demanding the firing of Marie Yovanovich

New evidence of President Trump’s corrupt intent in his impeachment trial just emerged from one of his personal lawyer’s heretofore silent fixers who taped a private dinner with Trump at the Trump International Hotel D.C, and it’s already drawing comparisons to the surprise “smoking gun” tape which brought down Richard Nixon’s presidency.

Belarussian-American businessman Igor Fruman, one of Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s two indicted associates, is the source of the new recording. If so, it could mean that he has been silently cooperating against the impeached President Trump for some time now, itself a new fact in the case.

The new recording of Donald Trump demanding the firing of Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch takes place almost one year before she was actually recalled from her post in Ukraine, and it strikes at the heart of the House impeachment managers’ narrative of the President’s corrupt intent. ABC News reports:

“Get rid of her!” is what the voice that appears to be President Trump’s is heard saying. “Get her out tomorrow. I don’t care. Get her out tomorrow. Take her out. Okay? Do it.”

“Another clip seen on the recording, according to the sources, is of individuals entering what appears to be a suite at the Trump Hotel for the intimate dinner,” reports ABC’s team of journalists. “The phone that was recording the Trump conversation appears to be placed down on a table with the audio still recording the conversation between the commander-in-chief and other guests, according to the sources. The image of the president does not appear on the video reviewed by ABC News.”

Ukrainian-American lawyer Lev Parnas is Giuliani’s other associate whose linguistic skills created the bridge for Trump’s lawyer to conduct high-level negotiations to demand a sham investigation of the Bidens.

Last week, Parnas described the above-taped conversation in an extraordinary interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, stretching across two-hours on back to back nights, and how Trump made multiple efforts to fire the Ambassador before her ultimate termination last April.

However, the president’s men Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former National Security Advisor John Bolton refused to carry out Trump’s earlier orders.

“I mean, that was becoming comical because I couldn’t understand: You’re the president” and no one was firing her, Parnas explained while he noted that the corruption-fighting Ambassador could’ve stopped Giuliani’s scheming. “So that’s where I think the smear campaign started coming about. I think it was like a boost to them to help him if the media started, like, egging him on that there was really something there, he’d just tweet and fire her.”

The new tape ABC reports that Fruman possesses already appears to corroborate that portion of Parnas’ representations to Maddow.

Igor Fruman’s new tape could go a long way towards proving that impeached President Trump’s corrupt intent stretched back well over a year before the infamous July 25th phone call where he finally revealed his true plans with Ukraine to the rest of the executive branch and national security council.

Original reporting by Katherine Faulders, John Santucci, Allison Pecorin, and Olivia Rubin.

Grant Stern
is the Executive Editor of Occupy Democrats and published author. His new Meet the Candidates 2020 book series is distributed by Simon and Schuster. He's also mortgage broker, community activist and radio personality in Miami, Florida., as well as the producer of the Dworkin Report podcast. Grant is also an occasional contributor to Raw Story, Alternet, and the DC Report, and an unpaid senior advisor to the Democratic Coalition and a Director of Sunshine Agenda Inc. a government transparency nonprofit organization. Get all of his stories sent directly to your inbox here:

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