Trump says he was concerned about corruption in Ukraine. The evidence indicates he was focused on Biden.
By
Paul Sonne and
Rosalind S. Helderman
Jan. 27, 2020 at 10:24 a.m. PST
Mounting evidence released amid the ongoing presidential impeachment hearings indicates that the pressure President Trump and his aides put on Ukraine was driven by a focus on his political rivals, even as Trump’s defenders say the president was acting out of general concern about corruption in that country.
The White House is emphasizing that argument anew as the defense makes its case in the Senate trial.
“Asking a foreign leader to get to the bottom of issues of corruption is not a violation of an oath,” Jay Sekulow, an attorney for Trump, told the senators Monday.
But that assertion was dramatically undercut by reports Sunday about a draft book manuscript by former national security adviser John Bolton. In it, he recounts that Trump told him he was holding up military aid to Ukraine until the country’s leaders agreed to open investigations into Democrats, including former vice president Joe Biden, according to people familiar with the book.
Romney: It's 'increasingly likely' Republicans will call Bolton to testify
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said on Jan. 27 that Republican senators might call on former national security adviser John Bolton to testify in impeachment trial. (Reuters)
Trump has denied that account, which was first reported by the New York Times, tweeting Monday, “I NEVER told John Bolton that the aid to Ukraine was tied to investigations into Democrats, including the Bidens.”
“The transcripts of my calls with President Zelensky are all the proof that is needed,” he added.
Democrats call for Bolton to testify in Trump impeachment trial after new report on aid to Ukraine
But a rough transcript of the July call released by the White House shows that Trump specifically urged the Ukrainian president to pursue two investigations: one into the Bidens and the other into a discredited theory involving an Internet security company that probed the Democratic National Committee hack in 2016.
He never mentions the word “corruption,” the transcript shows.
Text messages and congressional testimony also show that, behind the scenes, the president’s envoys repeatedly rejected efforts by Ukrainian officials to commit to broadly cracking down on corruption — insisting instead that their public statements mention the Ukrainian gas company where Biden’s son was on the board and allegations about Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
In exchange, the Ukrainians were hoping to secure a coveted meeting at the White House for President Volodymyr Zelensky, which has still not occurred.
Trump’s allies have suggested that a president concerned about corruption would be irresponsible to ignore the allegations of wrongdoing about Biden. However, the president only began speaking out about the role of Biden’s son on the board of a Ukrainian gas company after the former vice president emerged as a potential 2020 rival.
While Trump has fixated on Biden, he has expressed sympathy for his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, who pleaded guilty to failing to pay taxes on $30 million he earned in political consulting fees in Ukraine, where he worked with an array of officials around former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych who fled the country amid corruption accusations.
Trump has repeatedly said in recent months that he was urging Ukraine to look at corruption broadly.
“I don’t care about Biden’s campaign, but I do care about corruption,” he told reporters outside the White House in October.
The president reiterated that in recent weeks, telling reporters at his Florida resort on Jan. 1, “We did nothing wrong,” adding: “We have to check corruption.”
His Republican allies have echoed that argument.
“A president always has the constitutional authority and in fact, the responsibility to investigate serious evidence of corruption,” Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) said Monday. |
