Bob Livingston thrust back in impeachment glare after grabbing headlines in Clinton era

Bob Livingston performed a memorable position the final time a president was impeached. Now he’s been swept up in one other impeachment effort.

As a Republican congressman, Livingston announced that he would resign his seat hours before the House voted to question President Invoice Clinton in 1998. Hustler magazine had found that Livingston had been unfaithful in his marriage, and Livingston resigned and challenged Clinton to do the same. The transfer shocked House Republicans, since Livingston was set to switch Newt Gingrich as speaker the subsequent month.

On Wednesday, Livingston turned the newest Washington figure to be talked about in testimony before Home impeachment investigators. Catherine Croft, a former Nationwide Security Council director liable for Ukraine, stated she “acquired a number of calls” from Livingston while she was on the NSC. Livingston, who’s now a lobbyist, informed her he thought Marie Yovanovitch, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, ought to be fired.

“He characterised Ambassador Yovanovitch as an ‘Obama holdover’ and related to George Soros,” Croft stated in her opening assertion. “It was not clear to me on the time — or now — at whose course or at whose expense Mr. Livingston was in search of the removing of Ambassador Yovanovitch.”

Livingston’s lobbying disclosure filings shed little mild on who — if anybody — paid Livingston to push for Yovanovitch’s ouster. Her removing has turn into a focus of investigators analyzing Ukraine shadow diplomacy carried out by President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and his associates. Trump finally recalled Yovanovitch in Might.

However the filings do show that Livingston and his firm, the Livingston Group, represented a number of Ukraine-related shoppers during Trump’s presidency. And Croft’s testimony has thrust the former congressman into the highlight of the impeachment inquiry, as House Democrats extra broadly look at Trump’s attempts to strain Ukraine to research his political rivals.

Livingston didn’t reply to a request for touch upon Wednesday.

It’s unclear when Livingston’s conversations with Croft about Yovanovitch befell. However a Justice Division disclosure filed by his firm exhibits that Livingston spoke with Croft and another White Home aide, Virginia Boney, by telephone on Might 17, 2018, as part of his lobbying work for a Ukrainian affiliation of metal corporations. They discussed Trump’s steel tariffs and the upcoming visit to Washington of Natalia Mykolska, Ukraine’s deputy minister of economic improvement and commerce.

Livingston worked for the trade group, referred to as the Affiliation of Enterprises UKRMETALURGPROM, for less than two months. He and other staffers at his agency referred to as and emailed administration officials and members of Congress concerning the tariffs and Mykolska’s trip to Washington however didn’t accompany her to meetings once she arrived.

Livingston’s agency was paid $40,000 — a modest charge in the lucrative realm of overseas lobbying.

Livingston made far extra money lobbying for an additional Ukrainian shopper, Progressive Know-how and Business Consulting LLC, which employed his firm final yr shortly earlier than he stopped working for the metal commerce group in early July. The limited-liability company, which reported an tackle in suburban Baltimore, paid Livingston’s agency greater than $450,000, in line with disclosure filings.

Livingston lobbied on behalf of “concerned residents of Ukraine” who supported Yulia Tymoshenko, a former Ukrainian prime minister operating to be the country’s president, in accordance with a disclosure submitting. When Tymoshenko lost the presidential race earlier this yr, Livingston’s firm talked her up as a possible prime minister.

Livingston and others accompanied Tymoshenko in December to meetings in Washington with members of Congress and administration officials, including Kurt Volker, Trump’s special representative for Ukraine negotiations at the time. Former Rep. Bob McEwen (R-Ohio), who was working with Livingston, launched Tymoshenko to Giuliani, who has urged Ukraine to research former Vice President Joe Biden.

McEwen didn’t reply to a request for remark.

It’s unclear whether either of Livingston’s Ukrainian shoppers had any cause to need to oust Yovanovitch.

Livingston’s agency isn’t one of many largest on Okay Road, however it represents a number of well-known shoppers, including the software giants Oracle and Adobe and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in accordance to disclosure filings. Livingston has also lobbied in recent times for the governments of Iraq and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Livingston has defended his work, writing in a memoir revealed last yr that he’d “made a lot of money” after leaving Congress, “solely to narrowly avoid bankruptcy in current years.”

In the guide, titled “The Windmill Chaser: Triumphs and Less in American Politics,” Livingston wrote, “For many who view the phrase ‘lobby’ as a four-letter word, I’ll simply say everyone has the Constitutional right to petition his or her elected representatives.”

Article initially revealed on POLITICO Magazine

Src: Bob Livingston thrust back in impeachment glare after grabbing headlines in Clinton era
==============================
New Smart Way Get BITCOINS!
CHECK IT NOW!
==============================