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In a stark break with diplomatic protocol, President Trump used a cadre of associates to conduct back-channel communications with Ukraine to pressure its government to investigate Democrats, according to witnesses testifying in the impeachment hearings. Heres what key witnesses say happened:

Mr. Trump leaned heavily on his personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, and a handful of other officials to carry out his wishes regarding Ukraine.

Rudolph W. Giuliani

Mr. Trumps personal lawyer

Gordon D. Sondland

Donor turned E.U. ambassador

Kurt D. Volker

Former special envoy to Ukraine

Rick Perry

Energy secretary

Mick Mulvaney

Acting White House chief of staff

George P. Kent

Senior State Department official

Marie L. Yovanovitch

Former ambassador to Ukraine

William B. Taylor Jr.

Top American diplomat in Ukraine

Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman

White House Ukraine expert

John R. Bolton

Former White House national security adviser

Fiona Hill

Former White House Russia expert

Tim Morrison

Former senior White House national security aide

William B. Taylor Jr., top American diplomat in Ukraine

I found a confusing and unusual arrangement for making U.S. policy toward Ukraine. There appeared to be two channels of U.S. policy-making and implementation, one regular and one highly irregular.

Oct. 22 opening statement

Fiona Hill, former White House Russia expert

Mr. Giuliani was asserting quite frequently on television in public appearances that he had been given some authority over matters related to Ukraine, and if that was the case, we hadnt been informed about that.

Oct. 14 testimony

Mick Mulvaney, acting White House chief of staff

You may not like the fact that Giuliani was involved. Thats great. Thats fine. Its not illegal. Its not impeachable. The president gets to use who he wants to use.

Oct. 17 White House briefing

Marie L. Yovanovitch, former ambassador to Ukraine

I do not know Mr. Giulianis motives for attacking me. But individuals who have been named in the press who have contact with Mr. Giuliani may well have believed that their personal financial ambitions were stymied by our anti-corruption policy in Ukraine.

Oct. 11 opening statement

George P. Kent, senior State Department official

His assertions and allegations against former Ambassador Yovanovitch were without basis, untrue, period.

Oct. 15 testimony

Marie L. Yovanovitch, former ambassador to Ukraine

It sounded like a threat.

Nov. 15 testimony

According to some witnesses, the group operated outside of the governments official policy channel, which is made up of national security aides in the White House and diplomats at the State Department.

In testimony, some witnesses disputed the idea that there was an irregular channel. Gordon D. Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union, pointed to messages and phone calls in which he kept the White House and State Department, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, informed of his actions.

Many members of the official channel were dismayed that Mr. Giuliani was playing a direct role in policy toward Ukraine.

Dr. Hill was in charge of coordinating Ukraine policy across the federal government.

Mick Mulvaney, who several witnesses said gave directives related to Ukraine, has defended Mr. Giulianis involvement.

Beginning in late 2018, Mr. Giuliani and his associates conducted a months-long smear campaign that resulted in the ouster of Marie L. Yovanovitch, a longtime diplomat who had been serving as ambassador to Ukraine.

In a July call with the president of Ukraine, Mr. Trump brought up Ms. Yovanovitch, describing her as bad news, adding, Shes going to go through some things. Ms. Yovanovitch testified that she was devastated when she found out.

Soon after Volodymyr Zelensky was elected president of Ukraine, Mr. Trump appeared to use a highly sought White House visit as leverage.

Gordon D. Sondland, donor turned E.U. ambassador

Mr. Giuliani demanded that Ukraine make a public statement announcing investigations of the 2016 election/DNC server and Burisma. Mr. Giuliani was expressing the desires of the President of the United States, and we knew that these investigations were important to the President.

Nov. 20 opening statement

Gordon D. Sondland, donor turned E.U. ambassador

Was there a quid pro quo? As I testified previously, with regard to the requested White House call and White House meeting, the answer is yes.

Nov. 20 opening statement

Fiona Hill, former White House Russia expert

This is a direct quote from Ambassador Bolton: You go and tell Eisenberg that I am not part of whatever drug deal Sondland and Mulvaney are cooking up on this.

Oct. 14 testimony

Kurt D. Volker, former special envoy to Ukraine

Heard from White Houseassuming President Z convinces trump he will investigate / get to the bottom of what happened in 2016, we will nail down date for visit to Washington.

Text message to Mr. Yermak

Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman, White House Ukraine expert

The parts that were particularly troubling was the references to conducting an investigation.

Oct. 29 testimony

William B. Taylor Jr., top American diplomat in Ukraine

The member of my staff asked Ambassador Sondland what President Trump thought about Ukraine. Ambassador Sondland responded that President Trump cares more about the investigations of Biden.

Nov. 13 opening statement

Gordon D. Sondland, donor turned E.U. ambassador

I recall no discussions with any State Department or White House official about Former Vice President Biden or his son, nor do I recall taking part in any effort to encourage an investigation into the Bidens.

Oct. 17 opening statement

Kurt D. Volker, former special envoy to Ukraine

Had a good chat with Yermak last night. He was pleased with your phone call. Mentioned Z making a statement. Can we all get on the phone to make sure I advise Z correctly as to what he should be saying?

Text message to Mr. Giuliani

Gordon D. Sondland, donor turned E.U. ambassador

Do we still want Ze to give us an unequivocal draft with 2016 and Boresma?

Text message to Mr. Volker

Kurt D. Volker, former special envoy to Ukraine

At no time was I aware of or took part in an effort to urge Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Biden.

Oct. 3 opening statement

Fiona Hill, former White House Russia expert

It is not credible to me at all that he was oblivious.

Nov. 21 testimony

In a meeting after Mr. Zelenskys inauguration, Mr. Trump directed three officials, whom some referred to as the three amigos, to work through Mr. Giuliani about his concerns related to Ukraine.

Burisma is a Ukrainian gas company that hired Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., to serve on its board.

Dr. Hill testified that Mr. Sondland was involved in a domestic political errand, diverging from the regular Ukraine policy.

John R. Bolton, then Mr. Trumps national security adviser, was furious when he found out on July 10 that Mr. Trumps meeting with Mr. Zelensky was being predicated on the Ukrainian president announcing investigations, according to Dr. Hills testimony.

Mr. Bolton, who is waiting for a judge to rule on whether he should testify, was referring to John A. Eisenberg, the chief legal adviser for the National Security Council.

On the morning of the call at the center of the whistle-blower complaint, Mr. Volker texted one of Mr. Zelenskys top advisers, Andrey Yermak.

During the July 25 call, Mr. Trump asked Mr. Zelensky to do us a favor and find out what happened. Two White House officials who listened in on the call were concerned by what they had heard.

Mr. Trump has repeatedly said he did nothing wrong and that his call with Mr. Zelensky was perfect.

The day after the phone call, an aide to Mr. Taylor overheard a telephone conversation in Kyiv between Mr. Trump and Mr. Sondland in which they appeared to discuss the investigations. Mr. Sondland did not mention the conversation in his original testimony, but he later confirmed that it had occurred.

Text messages written by Mr. Volker and Mr. Sondland over the summer show that the two men attempted to get the Ukrainian president to make a statement about the investigations.

In testimony, Mr. Volker later claimed he did not realize Burisma was connected to the Biden family.

Mr. Sondland testified that until as late as September, he also did not realize that Burisma was linked to the Bidens. Other witnesses said that they had understood in the spring and summer that Burisma was code for the Bidens.

National security officials learned in a July meeting that Mr. Trump had directed Mr. Mulvaney to hold up $391 million in aid to Ukraine. The meeting was described in the whistle-blower complaint and corroborated by several witnesses.

William B. Taylor Jr., top American diplomat in Ukraine

In an instant, I realized that one of the key pillars of our strong support for Ukraine was threatened. The irregular policy channel was running contrary to the goals of longstanding U.S. policy.

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A 'Threat,' a 'Drug Deal' and a 'Troubling' Call: Key Testimony in the Impeachment Inquiry - International New York Times

A former adviser to US president Donald Trump has warned members of Congress not to propagate a debunked conspiracy theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election.

Fiona Hill, testifying on the fifth full day of the public hearings in the ongoing impeachment inquiry into Mr Trumps policy on Ukraine, said it was beyond dispute that Russia systematically attacked our democratic institutions in 2016.

Based on questions and statements I have heard, some of you on this committee appear to believe that Russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country and that perhaps, somehow, for some reason, Ukraine did, Ms Hill said in her opening statement before the House intelligence committee on Thursday.

This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves, she said.

Mr Trump is accused by Democrats ofpressuring the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to announce investigations into the alleged Ukrainian interference as well as the business activities in Ukraine ofHunter Biden, a son of former vice-president Joe Biden, a potential rival to Mr Trump in next years election.

The US president raised the matters with Mr Zelenskiy in a phone call on July 25th. Democrats say the president withheld nearly $400 million of military aid as part of his effort to secure a public statement about the investigations from Mr Zelenskiy. Mr Trump has denied any wrongdoing.

In her testimony, Ms Hill said the unfortunate truth was that Russia was the foreign power that had interfered in the 2016 election. This is the public conclusion of our intelligence agencies, confirmed in bipartisan Congressional reports. It is beyond dispute, even if some of the underlying details must remain classified, she said.

Ms Hills warning about Russia threw down the gauntlet to Republican members of the committee who have urged the impeachment inquiry to investigate alleged interference by Ukraine in the 2016 election.

On Wednesday, the top Republican on the committee, Devin Nunes, said that Democrats got campaign dirt from Ukrainians in the 2016 election and were heavily involved, working with Ukrainians, to dirty up the Trump campaign, though on Thursday he nuanced his argument to suggest that both Ukraine and Russia could have interfered in the election.

British-born Ms Hill is a Russian expert who left a position at the Brookings Institution in Washington to join the Trump administration, where she worked closely with former national security adviser John Bolton. She departed the White House in July.

Under questioning on Thursday, she said Mr Trumps personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, the US ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland, and others had been conducting an alternative foreign policy in relation to Ukraine. She described how she realised that Mr Sondland was involved in a domestic political errand, and we were being involved in national security, foreign policy, and those two things had just diverged.

She was questioned about a July 10th meeting attended by Mr Bolton, Mr Sondland and others, during which Mr Sondland allegedly told Ukrainian officials that they should open investigations into former vice president Joe Biden in exchange for an oval office meeting.

She told the committee on Thursday that she saw Mr Bolton stiffen after the comments. He then told her to report her concerns to the National Security Council lawyers and to state that she was not part of whatever drug deal Sondland and [acting White House chief of staff Mick] Mulvaney are cooking up.

Also on Thursday, David Holmes, a US official who overheard a phone conversation between Mr Trump and Mr Sondland in a restaurant in Kiev the day after Mr Trumps July 25th phone call with Mr Zelenskiy, testified before the committee.

While ambassador Sondlands phone was not on speakerphone, I could hear the presidents voice through the earpiece of the phone, he said, saying he had a clear recollection of the call. The presidents voice was very loud and recognisable, and ambassador Sondland held the phone away from his ear for a period of time, presumably because of the loud volume.

He said Mr Trump asked during the call about the investigation, and Mr Sondland replied that Mr Zelenskiy was gonna do it, adding that he would do anything you ask him to.

Shortly before Mr Holmes testified, Mr Trump tweeted that he had been watching people making phone calls my entire life and that his hearing is, and has been great.

Never have I been watching a person making a call, which was not on speakerphone, and been able to hear or understand a conversation, he wrote. Ive even tried, but to no avail. Try it live!

Thursdays testimony by Ms Hill and Mr Holmes may be the last public hearings held by the House intelligence committee as it continues its impeachment investigation into Mr Trump. Congress is scheduled to break for Thanksgiving on Friday, and is not due to reconvene until December.

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Former Trump adviser warns over Ukraine conspiracy theory - Irish Times

More than a thousand young protesters linked arms and tried to physically block people from entering a speech by the far-right pundit Ann Coulter at the University of California, Berkeley campus on Wednesday night.

Rows of students chanted Go home Nazis!, Shame! and Youre not getting in, while behind them, hundreds of law enforcement officers, many in riot gear, guarded the building where Coulter was slated to speak.

Despite the massive protest, the events organizers said hundreds of people made it inside to hear Coulter talk about her anti-immigrant views. Some of the attendees had to push and climb over student protesters to get into the building, sometimes with the help of security or law enforcement.

One protester who started yelling at Coulter inside the event was handcuffed and dragged out, a journalist for KPIX TV reported.

In all, there were six to seven arrests during the protest, and all but one of the people arrested would be cited and released, university officials said late on Wednesday night, according to a reporter for Berkeleys student newspaper, the Daily Cal.

A university spokesman did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Compared with the protests in Berkeley in early 2017, which included pitched street fights, and a campus event featuring far-right activist Milo Yiannopoulos that was cancelled after counter-protesters shot fireworks, threw rocks, and set fires around the venue, Wednesdays protest was largely peaceful.

However, several protesters who were blocking the entrances to the event described being assaulted by people who wanted to get inside to hear Coulters speech. One Berkeley graduate student said that an attendee choked him in his attempt to get inside and that, at a different moment, a law enforcement officer grabbed his neck and called him a loser as he helped someone across the barrier. Another Berkeley student said a man grabbed her wrist and would not let go when she tried to stand in his way. A third young man said that he saw an older man punch a young woman in the face, and that she was detained by law enforcement while he was allowed to continue inside the event. None of these protesters would give their names.

Two years ago, Coulter called off a planned appearance at Berkeley at the last minute, amid concerns her visit would spark new violent clashes between white supremacists and anti-fascists, who had battled on campus and in downtown Berkeley multiple times that year.

The many hundreds of students and other young activists outside Coulters speech Wednesday night chanted, yelled insults and stood in the way, but they did not throw punches. Often, they raised their hands in the air, emphasizing that they were not touching anyone. Hundreds of students stayed outside the speech for the duration of the event, ensuring that even latecomers would not be able to get in.

Coulter, a bestselling conservative author since the late 1990s, has used her large public platform to advance extreme anti-immigrant views, including some white nationalist conspiracy theories. Last November, she suggested that soldiers at the US border deal with migrants by shooting them. You cant shoot Americans, you can shoot invaders, Coulter told a Fox News host.

Coulter has suggested that Trumps speech calling Mexican immigrants rapists, which he used to launch his presidential campaign, was shaped in part by her 2015 book Adios America: The Lefts Plan to Turn Our Country Into a Third-World Hellhole, which was released weeks before Trump launched his campaign, and which includes multiple chapters about rapes committed by undocumented immigrants.

In 2018, Coulter referred to children weeping at the border after being separated from their parents as child actors and said that Trump should not fall for it.

Berkeley, one of the most famously progressive universities in the US, has more than 500 undocumented students enrolled on campus. Nearly 6,000 Berkeley students are Latino.

Coulters speech at Berkeley was sponsored and paid for by the Berkeley College Republicans, a student club. Ticket sales from Coulters speech would benefit the club, according to the groups president, Matt Ronnau. The group was charging $45 to $75 for tickets for the general public. Hopefully, we get a lot of money, he said.

In an interview the day before the event, Ronnau, 21, said he hoped undocumented students would come listen to Coulters speech and then use the question-and-answer session to push back on her views.

Anns not rounding people up and sending them over to Ice [Immigrations and Customs Enforcement] at this event, he said.

A spokesman for the College Republicans said that 450 people made it inside Wheeler Hall for Coulters speech.

A Berkeley spokesman could not immediately provide an estimate for how much security for the event had cost the public university. In 2017, it spent $800,000 on security for the campus appearance that Coulter cancelled at the last minute.

Among the people who had bought tickets to Coulters speech on Wednesday were two Berkeley juniors from Orange county, who said they believed in free speech and were frustrated by the universitys hypocrisy on the issue; Catherine, a San Francisco resident and wife of a police officer, who said she was Trump voter and had read Coulters books and wanted to see her speak in person; and Peter Kuo, the vice-chair of the California Republican party, who posed happily for a photograph by the barricades.

Inside, Coulters speech was briefly interrupted by protesters a few times, including twice when protesters stood and shouted at her, Lang said.

Not all the young people clustered outside the barriers in front of Coulters events supported the protesters.

One young man came over to apologize to an older man who had been surrounded by angry protesters, and say he was ashamed of the students behavior.

This makes me want to join the Republican club, said Landon, 18, a Berkeley freshman who would not give his last name. It seems that the Republican club is the only group behaving themselves.

Dave, a junior at Berkeley who did not give his last name, was one of the students blocking entry to the event. I feel good about it, he said. People still obviously got in, but some weve prevented.

While he understands the principle of free speech, he said, he believed that Coulters rhetoric has real, harmful consequences. For example, he said: Ice raids. Or the kids growing up now who are hearing that they dont belong in the place they consider home.

Berkeley, a liberal university that was also the home of the student free speech movement in the 1960s, has been a popular target for rightwing activists.

Last year, the university settled a lawsuit filed by campus Republicans, who claimed its treatment of Coulter and others showed bias against conservative speakers.

In the past two years, the university has hosted a slew of controversial conservative speakers without incident, and without much media coverage, including Candace Owens, Heather Mac Donald, Ben Shapiro, Charlie Kirk and the former White House press secretary Sean Spicer, spokesman Dan Mogulof said in an interview in advance of the Coulter event.

Wednesdays huge student protest against white supremacy at Berkeley came as college students at Syracuse University in New York continued to stage a sit-in to demand that university officials do more to address racist incidents on campus. The incidents included reports of several students having a white nationalist manifesto airdropped to them while they were in a campus library this week.

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Arrests made after more than a thousand protest Ann Coulter speech - The Guardian

Conservative commentator and author Ann Coulter claimed she was embarrassed to be a WASP after watching the Foggy Bottom witnesses with cush jobs during the first day of the impeachment hearings against President Donald Trump last week.

These Democrat witnesses have to stop thinking this is Queen For a Day.I dont mean in the indictment sense, I mean an old TV show even before my time where women would come on and tell sad stories and then win, like, a washing machine. Its all these sad stories, declared Coulter in a video for the Daily Caller. The first day of impeachment, to paraphrase Michelle Obama for the first time in my life, I was embarrassed to be a WASP. Oh my good lord, these Foggy Bottom We dont need foreign emissaries We dont need ambassadors!

It used to take three months to sail from New York to London. We have telephones now. We have the internet. Really dont need them, they get these cush jobs, just eliminate the whole thing. Theyre wrong about everything. They didnt know about 9/11, they didnt know Iraq was about to invade Kuwait. They famously said the Shah was just fine, five minutes before he fled the country in the middle of the student revolution that took hundreds two hundred Americans hostage, she continued. They have never seen anything coming. Never, never, never, We just pay them to go around and be these great poobahs. They think the inter-agency runs foreign policy. Um, no, check the Constitution. The president does.

But that isnt my main objection to Marie Yovanovitch or whatever her name is. She begins with her Queen For a Day story, saying she came here and became a nationalized American citizen from the Soviet Union at age 18, Coulter complained. Fantastic! Lets bring in a lot of people from other countries, with ancient ethnic grievances, and put them in our State Department so they can, you know, take revenge on their ancient rivals. Lets get the Turks and Armenians going too. No! Were America. America It used to be that to be in Army intelligence you could not have a parent born in a foreign country. Foreign countries including Canada.

Coulter concluded, This is the whole problem with putting immigrants, first generation, second generation, into government positions. They are pursuing ancient ethnic rivalries that have nothing to do with America.

Watch above via the Daily Caller.

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Ann Coulter Rips Impeachment Hearing Witnesses For Telling Sad Stories: They Made Me Embarrassed to be a WASP - Mediaite

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In September, the former darling of the alt-right, Milo Yiannopoulos, used the messaging app Telegram to complain to his followers that he was talking to the same 1,000 people, none of whom buy books, tickets or anything or donate and that he cant put food on the table that way. A case can be made that Yiannopoulos complaints display a bitterness at his shrinking audience and a diminished reach, following a period of relative fame as the alt-rights charismatic bad boy.

The main complaint Yiannopoulos is making, however, is that he is not creating enough revenue to financially keep afloat. Like other alt-right figureheads, he apparently relies on donations. Requests for donations are common across the far-right web. And while far-right personalities are not the only people asking for donations online, the constant, public referral to ones financial troubles is recurring.

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Within the far-right, requests for money include crowdfunding via donations through sites like Patreon, the constant reiterations by InfoWars host Alex Jones to buy his products and lengthy, emotional YouTube videos made by far-right activists and media personalities.

Begging for money is a well-known device of far-right agitators, and it by far exceeds the simple request to donate a few dollars every once in a while. Constant begging is not an indicator of mere grifting but has a number of different functions and benefits. For one, if people pay money for something instead of getting it for free, they tend to ascribe a higher value to it. So, besides the obvious benefit of generating revenue, the increased commitment of followers to figureheads alone could justify the permanent request for donations.

It stands to reason, however, that repeated and personal requests for money transcends this aim. To shine a light on todays far-right media personalities strategies, it helps to look at their ideological ancestors.

In the late 1930s, Theodor Adorno wrote in The Psychological Technique of Thomas Radio Addresses about the Christian fundamentalist Martin Luther Thomas. Adorno described the psychological tricks Thomas employed for his political, personal and financial gains. While a few of the devices seem like common rhetoric, such as referencing the good old times, some of them are rather unusual. One of these is what Adorno calls the great little man device.

The great little man is both weak and strong: weak insofar as each member of the crowd is convinced as being capable of identifying himself with the leader who, therefore, must not be superior to the follower; strong insofar as he represents the powerful collectivity which is achieved through the unification of those whom he addresses.

Requesting money, or begging, as Adorno puts it, is an important tool to construct this image: Financial worries are relatable to most people. Raising the issue of financial struggles in Yiannopoulos case that he allegedly cannot put food on the table is part of this great little man strategy. Adorno writes about Thomas: the way in which he discusses money with them is rather unusual. No consideration of dignity inhibits him from asking for money again and again All his speeches are interspersed with whining and pointedly shameless appeals for funds; one may say that he plays the beggar.

This, of course, contradicts the usual image as a leader that far-right figureheads often seek to convey. Yiannopoulos combines this begging attitude with personal disappointment in his followers who dont buy books and tickets and have thus failed him.

Yiannopoulos is by far not the only alt-right personality to use this strategy in his social media appearances. Richard Spencer, the most prominent figure of the alt-right, published a video requesting money for a legal fund for himself. These donations would help fund the lawsuit resulting from the deadly Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville in August 2017.

Likewise, Christopher Cantwell, depicted in a Vice documentary about the rally, begged for money in the aftermath of the event. Cantwell, often mockingly referred to as the crying Nazi, embodies the great little man in the performance which brought about his nickname. His crying is not a break in the performance, but a crucial part of it.

Adorno describes several other strategies that are tied in with the great little man device. For example, there is the indefatigability device, or claiming that the great little man works tirelessly for the cause, and that the opposition never stops, or the prosecuted innocence device claiming to have done no harm and yet being prosecuted by foes regardless.

What all of these methods have in common, and which make the great little man device quite effective, is the mixture of pettiness and grandeur, a combination commonly found throughout the far-right, where a sense of superiority (or supremacy) goes hand in hand with victim narratives. With these great little men making prominent comebacks, being aware of its implications and effectiveness is crucial for understanding far-right online culture.

*[The Centre for Analysis of the Radical Rightis a partner institution ofFair Observer.]

The views expressed in this article are the authorsown and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observers editorial policy.

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Great Little Men: Why the Alt-Right Begs for Money - Fair Observer