Ex-Donald Trump adviser arrives to testify in impeachment inquiry
President Donald Trump’s former top adviser for Russian and European affairs arrived on Capitol Hill Thursday to testify to House impeachment investigators, a day after leaving his job at the White House. Tim Morrison, the first White House political appointee to testify, didn’t respond to reporters’ questions about his testimony, which takes place behind closed doors, but his information might be central to a push to remove the president from office. Morrison, who served on the National Security Council, stepped down from that post Wednesday, and a senior administration official said he “decided to pursue other opportunities.” The official, who was not authorized to discuss Morrison’s job and spoke only on the condition of anonymity, said Morrison has been considering leaving the administration for “some time.” He has been in the spotlight since August when a government whistleblower said multiple U.S. officials had said Trump was “using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election.” Morrison will be asked to explain that “sinking feeling” he got when Trump demanded that Ukraine’s president investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and meddling in the 2016 election. Morrison was brought on board by then-national security adviser John Bolton to address arms control matters and later shifted into his current role as a top Russia and Europe adviser. It was there that he stepped into the thick of an in-house squabble about the activities of Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, who had been conversing with Ukrainian leaders outside of traditional U.S. diplomatic circles. Known as a “hawk” in national security circles, Morrison is the first political appointee from the White House to testify before impeachment investigators. The probe has been denounced by the Republican president, who has directed his staff not to testify. Regardless of what he says, GOP lawmakers will be hard-pressed to dismiss Morrison, formerly a longtime Republican staffer at the House Armed Services Committee. He’s been bouncing around Washington in Republican positions for two decades, having worked for Rep. Mark Kennedy, Republican-Minnesota, Sen. Jon Kyl, Republican-Arizona, and as a GOP senior staffer on the House Armed Services Committee, including nearly four years when it was chaired by Rep. Mac Thornberry, Republican-Texas. Morrison’s name appeared more than a dozen times in earlier testimony by William Taylor, the acting U.S. ambassador in Ukraine, who told impeachment investigators that Trump was withholding military aid unless the new Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, went public with a promise to investigate Trump’s political rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Taylor’s testimony contradicts Trump’s repeated denials that there was any quid pro quo. Taylor said Morrison recounted a conversation that Gordon Sondland, America’s ambassador to the European Union, had with a top aide to Zelenskiy named Andriy Yermak. Taylor said Morrison told him security assistance would not materialize until Zelenskiy committed to investigate Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company that once employed Biden’s son. A White House meeting for Zelenskiy also was in play. “I was alarmed by what Mr. Morrison told me about the Sondland-Yermak conversation,” Taylor testified. “This was the first time I had heard that the security assistance — not just the White House meeting — was conditioned on the investigations.” Taylor testified that Morrison told him he had a “sinking feeling” after learning about a Sept. 7 conversation Sondland had with Trump. “According to Mr. Morrison, President Trump told Ambassador Sondland that he was not asking for a quid pro quo,” Taylor testified. “But President Trump did insist that President Zelenskiy go to a microphone and say he is opening investigations of Biden and 2016 election interference, and that President Zelenskiy should want to do this himself. Mr. Morrison said that he told Ambassador Bolton and the NSC lawyers of this phone call between President Trump and Ambassador Sondland.” Morrison told people after Bolton was forced out of his job that the national security adviser had tried to stop Giuliani’s diplomatic dealings with Ukraine and that Morrison agreed, according to a U.S. official, who was not authorized to discuss Morrison’s role in the impeachment inquiry and spoke only on condition of anonymity. The official said Morrison told people that with the appointment of Robert O’Brien as Bolton’s successor, his own future work at the NSC was in a “holding pattern.” Bolton had brought Morrison into the NSC in July 2018 as senior director for weapons of mass destruction and biodefence. He’s known as an arms control expert or an arms treaty saboteur, depending on who you ask. Morrison, who earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Minnesota and a law degree from George Washington University, keeps nuclear strategist Herman Kahn’s seminal volume on thermonuclear warfare on a table in his office. Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, said Bolton and Morrison are likeminded. Kimball said both have been known for calling up GOP congressional offices warning them against saying anything about arms control that didn’t align with their views. “Just as John Bolton reportedly did, I would be shocked if Morrison did not regard Giuliani’s activities as being out of bounds,” said Kimball, who has been on opposite sides of arms control debates with Morrison for more than a decade. By Deb Riechmann Associated Press Associated Press writers Zeke Miller and Matthew Lee contributed to this report. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Women of Influence: Alabama Ronald McDonald House CEO Katherine Billmeier
Few women in the world have had as much of an impact on their city’s space as Katherine Billmeier. A member of the Birmingham, Ala. community since birth, Billmeier graduated from Mountain Brook High School and attended Mount Vernon College, now under the name George Washington University in Washington D.C., earning her bachelors degree in Arts & Humanities in 1987. She then pursued and earned a post-graduate certificate in fine and decorative art at Sotheby’s Institute of Art in London. Although her background is in art, Billmeier found her true passion in the non-profit sector; serving for nearly two decades in non-profits in Birmingham — literally shaping her community along the way. She began serving as the Executive Director of Birmingham’s Vulcan Park in 2000 during the icon’s $20 million capital campaign to restore the Vulcan statue and the park surrounding it. She also co-edited the Vulcan Park: Celebrating 100 years of Birmingham’s Colossal Icon book. She left the park in 2004, and began her work with Ronald McDonald House Charities of Alabama (RMHCA) where she served as Capital Campaign Counsel before the $7.5 million house was completed in 2007. In 2008, she became a Board member serving until January of 2012 when the non-profit named her Executive Director. “What we do is provide a home away from home for families whose children are being treated at area hospitals. It’s so much more, though. Our families find other voices and other bodies going through similar situations. They’re able to lean on each other, support each other, pray with each other and help each other,” Billmeier told the Alabama Newscenter. “We achieve our mission by providing a fabulous room for families to sleep in, and just being there with a smile and hug,” Billmeier continued. “Our families come from all over the state of Alabama, and the world, actually. Children’s of Alabama is the third-largest children’s hospital in the nation and continues to grow, and we will continue to grow to meet that need.” RMHCA’s first CEO leads around town Billmier demonstrated so much passion, and achieved so much success at the RMHCA, they named her their first ever Chief Executive Officer in February of 2016 where she still serves today. But her involvement in her community doesn’t stop there. Throughout her time at the RMHCA, Billmier served as a non-profit consultant to several other groups, specializing in development and project management. She was responsible for the board development and project management of the $16.5 million Railroad Park. Completed in 2010, the park has become an award-winning staple and hub of activity in the Birmingham community. “Railroad Park has become and indeed exceeded the reality that so many dreamed it would be,” Billmeier wrote to The Birmingham News. “City and business leaders, teachers and students, residents and designers — people with vision came together and took a risk, ignored the naysayers, and built a beautiful urban park for the long term good of the community.” In her letter to what was then The Birmingham News, Billmeier predicted new developments along First Avenue South, an area which, since the park opened, has been revitalized and is now teeming with businesses, breweries, coffee shops, and apartment buildings. Billmeier is a woman who knows how to grow and develop, not just families in need of support, but whole communities. For her service to Alabama families dealing with their children’s health issues, her astounding work to revitalize critical Birmingham parks and neighborhoods Katherine Billmeier is absolutely an Alabama woman of influence.
