Beginning the Ukraine Affair

I had initially hoped that the Ukraine scandal would come to some kind of quick closure before I wrote about it.  Obviously, however, that’s not going to happen, and the case has gotten so sprawling and complex that it can be difficult to follow.  So this will be a one-post, simple summary of how it got started.  I’ll get to some of the many complications in future posts. 

How did this all begin?  (Much of the following is contained in an intelligence officer’s whistleblower report, most of which has been corroborated by many sources in the ensuing investigation.) 

First Indications

The first public indication of a problem was a September 5, 2019, editorial in the Washington Post stating there were some “reliable reports” that, in a July 25 phone call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, President Trump had attempted to 

force Mr. Zelensky to intervene in the 2020 U.S. presidential election by launching an investigation of the leading Democratic candidate, Joe Biden, [for alleged corruption].

According to emails between top American officials in Ukraine, the July 25 phone call was not an off-the-cuff decision by President Trump but the result of months of elaborate preparation, including the removal of the American ambassador to Ukraine, apparently for non-cooperation with the preparations.

Quid pro quo

Then without explanation, President Trump froze almost $400 million in military funds to Ukraine.  The funds had previously been appropriated by Congress to support Ukraine in its efforts to root out government corruption and limit Russian military and political intervention. 

Although it is never explicit in the emails or in the rough transcript of the phone call, Trump is clearly pressuring Zelensky: After mentioning the assistance the US has given Ukraine and suggesting that he could invite Zelensky for a state visit to Washington (a high priority for Zelensky), Trump asks for a "favor": that Ukraine re-open an investigation of Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden and their relationship with a Ukrainian energy company for which Hunter Biden had done consulting.  Ukrainian prosecutors, however, had already thoroughly investigated and exonerated the Bidens.  Trump gave no new reasons for reopening the investigation.

Adding to the incriminating evidence, the only substantive matter Trump brought up during the call was the request for this “favor” from Zelensky.

There is no explicit quid pro quo mentioned in the call, but, reading the preparatory emails and the rough transcript of the call, it is obvious the President was threatening to freeze the funds designated for Ukraine if the “favor” was not granted. 

Trump was using the power of his presidency to withhold government funds until Zelensky would assent to Trump's “request” for a new investigation of Vice President Biden. 

This is an illegal and unconstitutional use of presidential power.

Transcript of the phone call inappropriately classified

As is customary with such calls, many people listened in on it, and stenographers created a word-for-word transcription.  Afterwards, White House officials were so concerned by the call that they arranged for that transcription to be stored in a highly classified computer that was ordinarily used only for documents of the highest national security value.  As can be seen from the transcript, however, nothing of high security value was discussed in the phone call.  It's hard to avoid the conclusion there's a cover-up afoot.

The whistleblower’s complaint and what happened then

In his complaint, the anonymous whistleblower acknowledges he or she did not listen in on the phone call directly but did talk with six different people, some of whom did listen to it themselves.  All told the same story.  (In the last two weeks several other potential whistleblowers have reported to the Inspector General that they do have firsthand knowledge, but none of them has yet come forward publicly.)  On August 12, the whistleblower submitted an extensive, well-documented complaint regarding the matter to the Intelligence Inspector General (IG).  The IG found the documents and its charges “credible and urgent,” which automatically required him to forward the complaint within fourteen days to the House Intelligence Committee.  Instead, he unnecessarily submitted it to the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), who sent it to the Justice Department, who sent it on to its Office of Legal Counsel where it lay dormant until weeks later when the whistleblower contacted the House Intelligence Committee directly.

In addition to providing extensive information about the July 25 telephone call, the whistleblower’s transcript reports that both Attorney General William Barr and the President’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani were involved and that White House officials who had witnessed the call were “deeply disturbed by what had transpired in the phone call.”

This attempt by President Trump to instigate an investigation by a foreign power into a political opponent is an impeachable action.  It is so clear-cut that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has decided, for the time being, that the impeachment proceedings will be limited to that event rather than adding to it a combination of various other impeachable offenses (such as the many instances of obstruction of justice documented in the Mueller report).

In the next post, we’ll begin to look at the President’s frenzied response to the events that seem to be inexorably closing in on him.