Tim Morrison | |
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Senior Director for Europe and Russia on the United States National Security Council | |
In office July 15, 2019 –October 31, 2019 | |
President | Donald Trump |
Preceded by | Fiona Hill |
Succeeded by | Andrew Peek |
Personal details | |
Born | Timothy Aaron Morrison c. 1978 (age 45–46) |
Political party | Republican |
Education | University of Minnesota (BA) George Washington University (JD) |
Timothy Aaron Morrison (born c. 1978) is an American Republican political adviser. He was briefly the top U.S. adviser to President Trump on Russia and Europe on the White House National Security Council,a position he took over from his predecessor Fiona Hill in August 2019, [1] and from which he resigned on October 31,2019. [2] [3] [4]
Before that,he served as senior director for countering weapons of mass destruction -- "arms control and biodefense issues" [5] -- on the US National Security Council,a position he assumed on July 9,2018. [6] For about a year he was also responsible for pandemic response planning with the former staffers of the Council Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense,but was elevated to deputy assistant to the president. [7] Prior to his administration positions,he had been policy director for the Republican staff on the House defense panel. [6] Morrison entered politics as a professional staff member to Rep. Mark Kennedy,from 2000 to 2007. [8] One day before his scheduled testimony to the impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump on October 31,2019,Morrison was reported to be leaving his post soon as the senior director for European and Russian affairs on the National Security Council. He was to be replaced by Andrew Peek,at the time Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq and Iran in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. [5] [9]
Morrison holds a Juris Doctor from George Washington University and a BA in political science from the University of Minnesota. [10]
Trump–Ukraine scandal |
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Events |
People |
Companies |
Conspiracy theories |
Morrison was among the people listening in on the July 25, 2019 phone conversation between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that is central to the impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump. [11] He was a primary source of information regarding the matter to William B. Taylor, Jr., the acting US ambassador to Ukraine. [12]
Morrison's deposition in the impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump, given behind closed doors on October 31, partially corroborated the earlier deposition by Taylor, in particular that U.S. Ambassador to the E.U. Gordon Sondland had told Andrey Yermak , an aide to Zelensky via telephone that military aid to Ukraine, and a White house meeting with Trump, were conditional on a Ukrainian public announcement of an investigation into Burisma, and the Ukraine involvement in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Morrison also testified that his concerns regarding the Trump–Zelensky call, which he promptly communicated to White House lawyers, were about repercussions if the transcript of the call was to be leaked, not about the legality of its content or quid pro quo. [13] [14] [15] According to official transcripts of Morrison's closed door testimony, Morrison stated, "I want to be clear, I was not concerned that anything illegal was discussed," in the telephone call between Trump and Zelensky. [16]
External videos | |
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Testimony of Morrison and Kurt Volker to the House Intelligence Committee, November 19, 2019, C-SPAN |
During public testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives on November 19, 2019, Morrison stated that Sondland confirmed to him that there was indeed a quid pro quo requirement for US aid to Ukraine, and again brought up the telephone conversation between Sondland and Yermak, which took place on September 1, 2019. [17]
Morrison is serving as a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. [18] [19] [20]
William Brockenbrough Taylor Jr. is an American diplomat, government official, and former military officer. He served as the 6th United States ambassador to Ukraine from 2006 to 2009 under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and as chargé d’affaires to Ukraine from June 2019 to January 2020 under President Donald Trump.
Marie Louise "Masha" Yovanovitch is a Canadian-American former diplomat and retired senior member of the United States Foreign Service. She served in multiple State Department posts, including Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs (2004–2005), U.S. Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan (2005–2008), U.S. Ambassador to Armenia (2008–2011), Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs (2012–2013), and Ambassador to Ukraine (2016–2019). Yovanovitch is a diplomat in residence at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University. On January 31, 2020, it was reported that she had retired from the State Department.
Kurt Douglas Volker is an American diplomat who served as George W. Bush's last U.S. Ambassador to NATO. Later he served as executive director of the McCain Institute for International Leadership and in a volunteer capacity as Donald J. Trump's U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine until his resignation on September 27, 2019.
Ronald Harold Johnson is an American politician serving as the senior United States senator from Wisconsin, a seat he has held since 2011. A Republican, Johnson was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 2010, defeating Democratic incumbent Russ Feingold. He was reelected in 2016, defeating Feingold in a rematch, and in 2022, narrowly defeating Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes.
Gordon David Sondland is an American businessman. He is the founder and chairman of Provenance Hotels. He also served as the United States Ambassador to the European Union from 2018 to 2020. In November 2019, Sondland testified as a witness at the impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump. After refusing to resign, he was fired by Trump on February 7, 2020, two days after the conclusion of Trump's impeachment trial.
Thomas Ulrich Brechbuhl is a Swiss-American businessman and former government official, having held the position of Counselor of the United States Department of State from May 1, 2018, to January 20, 2021. He was appointed by and reported to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and replaced Maliz E. Beams. Along with the role of Counselor, he served as the Acting Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs at the Department of State from March to September 2020.
The following is a timeline of the presidency of Donald Trump during the fourth and last quarter of 2019, from October 1 to December 31, 2019. To navigate quarters, see timeline of the Donald Trump presidency.
The Trump–Ukraine scandal was a political scandal that arose from the discovery of U.S. President Donald Trump's attempts to coerce Ukraine and other countries into providing damaging narratives about 2020 Democratic Party presidential candidate Joe Biden and giving misinformation relating to Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. Trump enlisted surrogates in and outside his administration, including personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr, to pressure Ukraine and other governments to cooperate in supporting conspiracy theories concerning US politics. Trump blocked payment of a congressionally-mandated $400 million military aid package, in an attempt to obtain quid pro quo cooperation from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Contacts were established between the White House and government of Ukraine, culminating in a call between Trump and Zelenskyy on July 25, 2019.
The inquiry process which preceded the first impeachment of Donald Trump, 45th president of the United States, was initiated by then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on September 24, 2019, after a whistleblower alleged that Donald Trump may have abused the power of the presidency. Trump was accused of withholding military aid as a means of pressuring newly elected president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky to pursue investigations of Joe Biden and his son Hunter and to investigate a conspiracy theory that Ukraine, not Russia, was behind interference in the 2016 presidential election. More than a week after Trump had put a hold on the previously approved aid, he made these requests in a July 25 phone call with the Ukrainian president, which the whistleblower said was intended to help Trump's reelection bid.
John A. Eisenberg is an American lawyer who served as a deputy counsel to the President of the United States and legal advisor to the U.S. National Security Council during the presidency of Donald Trump. He was selected by former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. Earlier in his career, from 2006 to 2009, he served in the Department of Justice.
Laura Katherine Cooper is an American civil servant. Ms. Cooper is the 2023 Federal Employee of the Year, awarded by the nonprofit, nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service to celebrate excellence in the U.S. federal civil service. She is Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russian, Ukrainian, and Eurasian affairs in the office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, and a career member of the Senior Executive Service (SES). In 2023, she was honored with the Presidential Rank Distinguished Executive Award, the highest annual award for career SES members. She previously served as principal director in the office of the Homeland Defense and Global Security Affairs.
Alexander Semyon Vindman is a retired United States Army lieutenant colonel who was the Director for European Affairs for the United States National Security Council (NSC) until he was reassigned on February 7, 2020. Vindman is currently director for the think tank the Institute for Informed American Leadership (IIAL).
Jennifer Leigh Williams is an American United States Department of State official who has served as a special advisor to U.S. vice president Mike Pence on European and Russian affairs. Williams testified under subpoena, in the impeachment hearings of Donald Trump, in closed-door hearings before the House intelligence, Oversight, and Foreign Affairs committees on November 9, 2019. She gave public testimony to the House of Representatives ten days later.
David Holmes is an American diplomat who served as a counselor for political affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine circa 2019-2020. He is at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service as Senior State Department Fellow, as of 2022.
The first impeachment of President Donald Trump occurred on December 18, 2019. On that date, the House of Representatives adopted two articles of impeachment against Trump: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. On February 5, 2020, the Senate voted to acquit Trump on both articles of impeachment.
The first impeachment trial of Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States, began in the U.S. Senate on January 16, 2020, and concluded with his acquittal on February 5. After an inquiry between September and November 2019, President Trump was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives on December 18, 2019; the articles of impeachment charged him with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. It was the third impeachment trial of a U.S. president, preceded by those of Andrew Johnson and of Bill Clinton.
The Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory is a series of false allegations that Joe Biden, while he was vice president of the United States, improperly withheld a loan guarantee and took a bribe to pressure Ukraine into firing prosecutor general Viktor Shokin to prevent a corruption investigation of Ukrainian gas company Burisma and to protect his son, Hunter Biden, who was on the Burisma board. As part of efforts by Donald Trump and his campaign in the Trump–Ukraine scandal, which led to Trump's first impeachment, these falsehoods were spread in an attempt to damage Joe Biden's reputation and chances during the 2020 presidential campaign, and later in an effort to impeach him.
Suriya Evans-Pritchard Jayanti is a British-American energy entrepreneur and energy policy expert, journalist, and lawyer. She is a regular contributor to TIME Magazine and other print and television media outlets on energy issues and Ukraine topics. She is the co-founder and managing director of Eney LLC, a U.S.-Ukrainian diversified clean energy company, along with former long-time CEO of Naftogaz of Ukraine Andriy Kobolyev. She is also a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank. She came into the public eye during the first impeachment of President Donald J. Trump after being subpoenaed to testify in her capacity as a U.S. diplomat at the U.S. Department of State who served as the Energy Unit Chief at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine. She did not ultimately testify. With the February 24, 2022 invasion of Ukraine by Russia, she became a regular commentator on Ukrainian and energy affairs, known for her pro-Ukrainian viewpoint.
This is a timeline of major events in second half of 2019 related to the investigations into the myriad links between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies that are suspected of being inappropriate, relating to the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. It follows the timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections before and after July 2016 up until election day November 8, and the transition, the first and second halves of 2017, the first and second halves of 2018, and the first half of 2019, but precedes that of 2020 and 2021.
"There was no quid pro quo" was a phrase frequently employed by Donald Trump and his supporters in reference to the Trump–Ukraine scandal during the first impeachment of Donald Trump, denying that a quid pro quo extortion attempt had taken place.