Yesterday I offered up five possible foreign leaders that could have been the subject of Donald Trump's whistleblower-triggering "promise" that's dominated the news for the last cycle or so. Now the Washington Post is confirming that it was indeed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky who was the winning contestant, and yes, this all goes back to Trump threatening to cut off military aid to the country unless they offered up "evidence" on Joe Biden's son Hunter.
A whistleblower complaint about President Trump made by an intelligence official centers on Ukraine, according to two people familiar with the matter, which has set off a struggle between Congress and the executive branch.
The complaint involved communications with a foreign leader and a “promise” that Trump made, which was so alarming that a U.S. intelligence official who had worked at the White House went to the inspector general of the intelligence community, two former U.S. officials said.
Two and a half weeks before the complaint was filed, Trump spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, a comedian and political newcomer who was elected in a landslide in May.
That call is already under investigation by House Democrats who are examining whether Trump and his attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani sought to manipulate the Ukrainian government into helping Trump’s reelection campaign. Lawmakers have demanded a full transcript and a list of participants on the call.
A White House spokesperson declined to comment.
The Democrats’ investigation was launched earlier this month, before revelations that an intelligence official had lodged a complaint with the inspector general. The Washington Post first reported on Wednesday that the complaint had to do with a “promise” that Trump made when communicating with a foreign leader.
On Thursday, the inspector general testified behind closed doors to members of the House Intelligence Committee about the whistleblower’s complaint.
Over the course of three hours, Michael Atkinson repeatedly declined to discuss with members the content of the complaint, saying he was not authorized to do so.
He and the members spent much of their time discussing the process Atkinson followed, the statute governing his investigation of the complaint and the nature of an “urgent concern” that he believed it represented, according to a person familiar with the briefing, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Now we don't know for sure this all involves Rudy's adventures in Kiev, but the timeframe is certainly right, and well, this is Trump we're talking about here. We go back a couple weeks to when the Ukraine pressure story broke.
The strong-arming of Mr. Zelensky was openly reported to the New York Times last month by Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, who said he had met in Madrid with a close associate of the Ukrainian leader and urged that the new government restart an investigation of Mr. Biden and his son. Hunter Biden served on the board of a Ukrainian gas company, while Joe Biden, as vice president, urged the dismissal of Ukraine’s top prosecutor, who investigated the firm.
Mr. Giuliani also wants a probe of claims that revelations of payments by a Ukrainian political party to Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, were part of a plot to wreck Mr. Trump’s candidacy. In other words, Trump associates want the Ukrainian government to prove that Ukraine improperly acted against Mr. Trump in the 2016 election; but they also want it to meddle in his favor for 2020.
Mr. Zelensky is incapable of delivering on either demand. The revelations about Mr. Manafort came from a Ukrainian legislator who was fighting for domestic reform, not Hillary Clinton. And the Biden case, which has already been investigated by Ukrainian authorities, is bogus on its face. The former vice president was one of a host of senior Western officials who pressed for the dismissal of the prosecutor, who was accused of blocking anti-corruption measures.
So again, the "Biden scandal" is nothing, completely made up, and Trump sent Rudy to lean on Ukraine's newbie president in order to get him to come up with "the goods". Whatever Trump said to Zelensky was so shocking that again, somebody filed a whistleblower complaint knowing full well the House Judiciary would see it.
Something like "If you help me bury Joe Biden, I'll give you X, if you don't I promise you'll regret it." Hell, who knows what Trump promised. Probably super illegal though. Probably involving Putin, who you know, illegally annexed the Crimea region of Ukraine a few years back.
Stay tuned, this one's not going away anytime soon.
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