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KYIV, Ukraine Washington may be obsessed with the impeachment inquiry over President Trumps dealings with Ukraine, but it was far from the minds of a few thousand protesters who gathered on a recent frosty night in Kyiv to vent their anger at their own countrys president, Volodymyr Zelensky, over his peace overtures to Russia.

If he struggled to resist demands by Mr. Trump for investigations affecting next years United States elections, some protesters said, imagine what will happen when he meets President Vladimir V. Putin on Monday for talks on ending the war in eastern Ukraine. As speakers derided Mr. Zelensky as soft on Russia, the crowd answered with cries of No to capitulation! and Treason!

Mr. Zelensky campaigned for the presidency on a two-plank platform of fighting corruption and ending a grinding war with Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine that has killed at least 13,000 people.

While the peace effort has received less notice, it is undoubtedly the more politically treacherous of the two undertakings. Everyone is against corruption, in theory at least, but there are sharp divides over how to deal with Russia, which is widely despised by Ukrainians outside the breakaway eastern territories.

Domestic political opponents are concerned that Mr. Zelensky, having no clear American diplomatic backing, may be too willing to make concessions to Moscow in the talks. Any widespread perception that he has done so could weaken him politically, hampering his ability to follow through with his anticorruption efforts.

If the president signs anything granting Russian influence in Ukraine, it would cause riots, said Volodymyr Ariev, a member of Parliament in the party of former President Petro O. Poroshenko, which is in opposition to Mr. Zelensky.

Mr. Ariev said that the talks with the Trump administration over opening investigations related to the family of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. were unprofessional, and that is why we are concerned about what will come in talks with Russia.

Already, the critics say, Mr. Zelensky has made unilateral concessions intended to pave the way for the peace talks. And they are alarmed at comments by Ihor Kolomoisky, a businessman with ties to Mr. Zelensky, suggesting that Ukraine should swivel toward Russia amid the chaos in Ukraine policy in the United States.

In the worst-case scenario, they say, Mr. Zelensky would give amnesty to rebel leaders and grant sweeping autonomy to the breakaway regions, while allowing Russian forces to linger in or just outside Ukraine even after any political settlement.

In the peace talks, scheduled for Monday in Paris, most analysts see Russia seeking at a minimum to trade de facto control over the two separatists zones in eastern Ukraine for influence in domestic Ukrainian politics, including a veto on membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

In its post-independence history, Ukraine has twice tilted from pro-Western to pro-Russian governments, in 1994 and 2010. Its a back-and-forth common to many former Soviet states as they have tried to play the powerful east-west geopolitical forces off against each other for advantage at home. In Ukraines case, on both occasions the country lurched back into the Western orbit, most recently in the Maidan revolution of 2014.

In recent years, Belarus, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Moldova have all at some point pivoted to closer ties with Russia and then back, in some cases. In an interview, Mr. Kolomoisky said that Ukraine should do just that if America tries to pressure Kyiv again.

Analysts saw the comments as self-serving, in that Mr. Kolomoisky stands to lose billions of dollars under a banking sector overhaul backed by Western governments. Mr. Zelensky issued a statement distancing himself from the comment.

Working as an actor in Moscow in 2014 as Russian troops invaded his country, Mr. Zelensky joked that Russian soldiers were not moving inside Ukraine, but were just standing on the border, and the Ukrainian border is just slightly pushed forward.

But through the summer, Mr. Zelensky sought a White House visit to urge Mr. Trump to press Russia and side with Ukraine in the negotiations. It never materialized.

To the contrary, at a news conference in New York in September, Mr. Trump backed away from Mr. Zelensky and his troubles in the war, telling the Ukrainian leader, I really hope you and President Putin get together and can solve your problem.

By distancing himself from Mr. Zelensky in the negotiations, as stressed by many of the security professionals who testified in the recent impeachment hearings, Mr. Trump has raised doubts about how far he will go to support Ukraine and made it harder for the Ukrainian government to defend the concessions it is making to end the war.

Some analysts say that despite Mr. Zelenskys weak hand going into the talks, worries of a pivot to Russia are overblown and mostly whipped up by domestic political opponents.

Accommodation with Russia would be a very hard sell inside Ukraine, Steven Pifer, a former United States ambassador to Ukraine, said in a telephone interview.

Ivan Yakovina, a foreign policy columnist with Novoye Vremya magazine, concurred, saying that allies of Mr. Poroshenko, the former president, were fanning fears of a geopolitical pivot to undermine Mr. Zelensky.

They dont think he is worthy of being president, Mr. Yakovina said of Mr. Zelensky, who before his election as Ukraines leader played a president in a television series. They see him as a clown from a television show. They are doing everything so he fails.

To pave the way for talks, Mr. Zelensky rebuilt a bridge across the de facto border with the breakaway republics, pulled troops back from the front line in three locations, negotiated a prisoner exchange and agreed to the outlines of a political formula for an eventual settlement.

Mr. Zelensky has said that each step was worthwhile in its own right. He secured the return of Ukrainian captives, eased hardship for people living in separatist areas and ended some of the senseless skirmishing along the front.

In the settlement road map signed in early October, Mr. Zelensky agreed to a timeline for local elections and to other political steps needed to reintegrate the breakaway regions with Ukraine without any corresponding timeline for Russia to withdraw its troops. Mr. Zelensky says the Russian troop withdrawal is implied.

Three protests ensued on Independence Square the largest of which drew about 20,000 people, far fewer than the gigantic crowds that gathered on the square in the 2014 revolution and drove the pro-Russian leader Viktor F. Yanukovych into exile in Moscow.

There are clear red lines that Ukrainian society, and especially the active part of Ukrainian society, is not willing to cross and not willing to let anybody cross, including the leaders of the country and the president, said Svyatoslav Vakarchuk, the leader of the opposition Holos political party.

Mr. Vakarchuk pointed to polls showing that a majority of Ukrainians oppose a settlement on terms of the so-called Minsk agreements, the framework deal under which Mr. Zelensky will negotiate in Paris.

Under 20 percent of Ukrainians support the political framework that Mr. Zelensky is pursuing, about 25 percent want to continue fighting to free the separatists territory, and about 35 percent want to declare the regions as occupied by Russia but not pursue military efforts to recover them for now, according to a poll by Rating Group, which conducts social surveys.

Mr. Vakarchuk says he is consulting with Mr. Zelenskys party in Parliament and would support any agreement that emerges from the Paris talks if it defends Ukrainian interests.

That will be harder to pull off with America distracted, though.

For a long time, the United States was considered the leader of the free world, and I think that was fair enough, Mr. Vakarchuk said. But remember the Bob Dylan song The Times They Are a-Changin.

Maria Varenikova contributed reporting.

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Zelenskys Opponents Fear He Is Ready to Capitulate to Russia - The New York Times

A former Ukrainian member of parliament who has claimed to have dirt on a company linked to the Bidens was arrested earlier this week in Germany, The Daily Beast has confirmed. Oleksandr Onyshchenko, who worked closely with Ukraines previous president before fleeing the country after being accused of embezzlement, has been living in Europe for several years. German authorities arrested him in Aachen on Friday.

Oleg Ishemko, an attorney for the former member of parliament, confirmed the arrest.

We are analyzing information in particular about the fact and basis for the detention of our client, Ishemko said in a text. According to our information, Oleksandr was in the process of seeking international protection and could not be arrested in accordance with Article 33 of the international convention relating to the status of refugees. Attorneys for Oleksandr are doing everything so that his rights, both in Ukraine and outside, are upheld in the necessary manner.

Onyshchenkos arrest comes as efforts by Trumps American allies to find information about Burisma Groupwhere former Vice President Joe Bidens son was once a board memberhave reached a fever pitch. Rudy Giuliani, Trumps personal attorney, is currently in Kyiv, Ukraine, holding meetings on the subject. Efforts by Giuliani and other Trump administration officials to win political goodies from Ukrainian government officialsincluding an announcement of an investigation into Burismaare a central focus of Democrats impeachment investigation of President Donald Trump. Democrats next impeachment hearing is scheduled for Dec. 9.

German authorities arrested Onyshchenko based on a request from Ukraines National Anti-Corruption Bureau and Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutors Office (SAPO). According to a report from the UNIAN news agency, Ukrainian officials are awaiting a ruling from a German court on whether or not to extradite Onyshchenko.

After fleeing Ukraine in 2016, Onyshchenko claimed to have evidence of widespread corruption by then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, and he said hed contacted the FBI with his claims. Two sources familiar with the events confirmed that he did meet with U.S. law enforcement officials in 2016 in an effort to build goodwill. The sources said Onyshchenko appeared to want to share information in hopes of obtaining a visa to travel to the U.S. The U.S. Justice Department confirmed meeting with him at the time but said it had no plans to have further meetings or communications with him after that, according to RFE/RL. His allegations were widely seen in Ukraine as part of a Kremlin-orchestrated disinformation campaign meant to undermine the Ukrainian government as it sought to strengthen ties with the West.

As the impeachment proceedings against President Trump took hold in October, Onyshchenko claimed to have inside information about Hunter Biden and his work for Burisma. He told Reuters that his friend Mykola Zlochevsky, who founded Burisma, had placed the vice presidents son on Burismas board as insurance against criminal investigations. The claim echoes those made by Rudy Giuliani and former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko. It was to protect (the company), he said.

In early November, Onyshchenko told the obscure right-wing news site CD Media that there were official and unofficial payments to the Biden family made by Burisma and that an FBI agent directed the coverup of the Biden scandal at the time, in concert with the U.S. embassy in Kyiv, and other Deep State American government assets in-country. The claim resembled the same conspiracy theories spun by Giuliani in his successful campaign to oust former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch.

In subsequent interviews, Onyshchenko made other fantastic claims, including that Burisma had paid $10 million to Hillary Clintons presidential campaign through big bags of cash sent instead of wire transfers.

On Tuesday, as news of Onyschenkos arrest broke, CD Media published a report claiming he was heading to the U.S. to testify against Biden when he was arrested in Germany. The report was accompanied by a screenshot of a U.S. visa application the Ukrainian politician had purportedly submitted last week to the U.S. embassy in Budapest, Hungary.

The fugitive Ukrainian was stripped of parliamentary immunity in 2016 and accused of embezzling some $64 million from a subsidiary of Naftogaz, Ukraines state-owned gas company. A former member of ousted Kremlin-backed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanuykovychs Party of Regions, Onyshchenko was also accused by Ukraines Security Service of treason in late 2016 of allegedly helping Russian intelligence destabilize Ukraine.

He has long denied the allegations, insisting they are the result of his criticism of Poroshenkos administration. Shortly after fleeing Ukraine in 2016, Onyshchenko publicly claimed to have recordings with damning evidence of corruption by Poroshenko. Onyschenko even published a book with his allegations titled Peter the Fifth: True Story About Ukrainian Dictator.

Onyshchenko changed tack after the election of President Volodymyr Zelensky, writing on his personal website that he intends to return to Ukraine and help President Zelensky in fighting the corrupt structures put into place by the old government.

Onyshchenko is known in Ukraine as a vocal critic of financier George Soros and of the Obama administration. In his latest posts on Facebook he defends former Ukrainian prosecutors Lutsenko and Viktor Shokinboth of whom have faced criticism at home for working with Giuliani on his Burisma investigative endeavors. He has also echoed claims made by Giuliani that the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv worked against Trumps campaign in the 2016 election, claiming evidence against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was fabricated. The whole thing was made up in advance," he said in an interview for 112 Ukraine television channel. The U.S. Embassy helped to stage it.

--with additional reporting from Allison Quinn and Anna Nemtsova

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Ukrainian Fugitive Who Claimed to Have Dirt on Biden Firm Is Arrested - The Daily Beast

Since 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine, the United States has provided Ukraine with $3 billion in reform and military assistance and $3 billion in loan guarantees.U.S. troops in western Ukraine train their Ukrainian colleagues.Washington, in concert with the European Union, has taken steps to isolate Moscow politically and imposed a series of economic and visa sanctions on Russia and Russians.

The furor over President Donald Trumps sordid bid to extort the president of Ukraine into investigating his potential 2020 political opponent raises an obvious question:Why should the United States care so much about Ukraine, a country 5,000 miles away?A big part of the reason is thatU.S. officials told the Ukrainians the United States would care when negotiating the Budapest Memorandum on security assurances, signed 25 years ago this week.

In the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, the United States, Russia, and Britain committed to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine and to refrain from the threat or use of force against the country.Those assurances played a key role in persuading the Ukrainian government in Kyiv to give up what amounted to the worlds third largest nuclear arsenal, consisting of some 1,900 strategic nuclear warheads.

When the USSR broke up in late 1991, there were nuclear weapons scattered in the resulting post-Soviet states. The George H. W. Bush administration attached highest priority to ensuring this would not lead to an increase in the number of nuclear weapons states. Moreover, as it watched Yugoslavia break apart violently, the Bush administration worried that the Soviet collapse might also turn violent, raising the prospect of conflict among nuclear-armed states. Ensuring no increase in the number of nuclear weapons states meant that, in practice, only Russia would retain nuclear arms. The Clinton administration pursued the same goal. With the prospect of extending the Non-Proliferation Treaty indefinitely looming, an alternative course that allowed other post-Soviet states to keep nuclear weapons would have set a bad precedent.

Eliminating the strategic nuclear warheads, intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and strategic bombers in Ukraine was a big deal for Washington.The ICBMs and bombers carried warheads of monstrous size all designed, built, and deployed to attack America.The warheads atop the SS-19 and SS-24 ICBMs in Ukraine had explosive yields of 400-550 kilotons each that is, 27 to 37 times the size of the atomic bomb that devastated Hiroshima.The 1,900 strategic nuclear warheads more than six times the number of nuclear warheads that China currently possesses could have destroyed every U.S. city with a population of more than 50,000three times over, with warheads left to spare.

Before agreeing to give up this nuclear arsenal, Kyiv sought three assurances.First, it wanted compensation for the value of the highly-enriched uranium in the nuclear warheads, which could be blended down for use as fuel for nuclear reactors.Russia agreed to provide that.

Second, eliminating ICBMs, ICBM silos, and bombers did not come cheaply.With its economy rapidly contracting, the Ukrainian government could not afford the costs.The United States agreed to cover those costs with Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction assistance.

Third, Ukraine wanted guarantees or assurances of its security once it got rid of the nuclear arms.The Budapest Memorandum provided security assurances.

Unfortunately, Russia has broken virtually all the commitments it undertook in that document.It used military force to seize, and then illegally annex, Ukraines Crimean peninsula in early 2014.Russian and Russian proxy forces have waged war for more than five years in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas, claiming more than 13,000 lives and driving some two million people from their homes.

Some have argued that, since the United States did not invade Ukraine, it abided by its Budapest Memorandum commitments.True, in a narrow sense.However, when negotiating the security assurances, U.S. officials told their Ukrainian counterparts that, were Russia to violate them, the United States would take a strong interest and respond.

Washington did not promise unlimited support.The Budapest Memorandum contains security assurances, not guarantees.Guarantees would have implied a commitment of American military force, which NATO members have.U.S. officials made clear that was not on offer.Hence, assurances.

Beyond that, U.S. and Ukrainian officials did not discuss in detail how Washington might respond in the event of a Russian violation.That owed in part to then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin.He had his flaws, but he insisted that there be no revision of the boundaries separating the states that emerged from the Soviet collapse. Yeltsin respected Ukraines independence and territorial integrity.Vladimir Putin does not.

U.S. officials did assure their Ukrainian counterparts, however, that there would be a response.The United States should continue to provide reform and military assistance to Ukraine.It should continue sanctions on Russia.It should continue to demand that Moscow end its aggression against Ukraine.And it should continue to urge its European partners to assist Kyiv and keep the sanctions pressure on the Kremlin.

Washington should do this, because it said it would act if Russia violated the Budapest Memorandum.That was part of the price it paid in return for a drastic reduction in the nuclear threat to America.The United States should keep its word.

Original post:
Why care about Ukraine and the Budapest Memorandum - Brookings Institution

Impeachment by its nature, its a political process. What people think is going to happen can turn out to be very different from what happens. Because it has to do with elected officials holding another elected official to account for their conduct. When the framers of the Constitution created a process to remove a president from office, they were well kind of vague. So to understand how its going to play out, the past is really our best guide. I think were just all in for a really crazy ride. Collectively, these New York Times reporters have covered U.S. politics for over 150 years. Im also a drummer in a band, so Theyve reported on past impeachment inquiries. Yea, Im lost in Senate wonderland. And they say that the three weve had so far have been full of twists and turns. The president of the United States is not guilty as charged. In short, expect the unexpected. First, the process. Impeachment is technically only the initial stage. Common misconceptions about impeachment are that impeachment by itself means removal from office. It doesnt. The impeachment part of the process is only the indictment that sets up a trial. The Constitution describes offenses that are grounds for removing the president from office as bribery, treason and They say high crimes and misdemeanors, which, really, is in the eye of the beholder. The framers didnt give us a guidebook to it. They simply said, that the House had the responsibility for impeachment and the Senate had the responsibility for the trial. One of the things missing from the Constitution? How an impeachment inquiry should start. And that has generally been a source of drama. Basically, anything goes. In fact, in the Andrew Johnson case they voted to impeach him without even having drafted the articles of impeachment. For Richard Nixon, his case started with several investigations that led to public hearings. That part of the process went on for two years, and yielded revelation after revelation, connecting Nixon to a politically-motivated burglary at D.N.C. headquarters located in the Watergate office building. and its subsequent cover-up. Mr. Butterfield, are you aware of the installation of any listening devices in the Oval Office of the president? I was aware of listening devices. Yes, sir. This was a shocker. Everybody in the White House recognized how damaging this could be. As the House drafted articles of impeachment, Nixon lost the support of his party. O.K., I shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow. I was asked to write the farewell piece that ran the morning after Nixon resigned. And this is what I wrote: The central question is how a man who won so much could have lost so much. So for Nixon, it more or less ended after the investigations. But for Bill Clinton, that phase was just the beginning. This is the information. An independent counsels investigation into his business dealings unexpectedly turned into a very public inquiry about his personal life. The idea that a president of the United States was having an affair with a White House intern and then a federal prosecutor was looking at that, it was just extraordinary. That investigation led to public hearings in the House Judiciary Committee. When the Starr Report was being delivered to Congress it was a little bit like the O.J. chase, only a political one. There were two black cars. They were being filmed live on CNN. They were heading towards the Capitol. We were watching it and a little bit agog. Public opinion is key. And the media plays a huge part in the process. This was definitely true for Clinton. You know it was just a crazy time. We worked in the Senate press gallery. All your colleagues are kind of piled on top of each other. We had crummy computers, the fax machine would always break. The printer would always break. After committee hearings, the House brought formal impeachment charges. It was very tense. I thought that the Saturday of the impeachment vote in the House was one of the most tense days Id experienced in Washington. And it turned out, also, full of surprises. The day of impeachment arrived, everyones making very impassioned speeches about whether Bill Clinton should or should not be impeached and Livingston rises to give an argument for the House Republicans. He started to talk about how Clinton could resign. You, sir, may resign your post. And all of a sudden people start booing and saying, Resign, resign! So I must set the example. He announced he was resigning because he had had extramarital affairs and challenged President Clinton to do the only honorable thing, in his view I hope President Clinton will follow. to resign as well, so there was all this drama unfolding even in the midst of impeachment. Then it went to the Senate for trial. The Constitution gets a little more specific about this part. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is supposed to preside over that trial. Rehnquist, he showed up in this robe he had made for himself, which had gold stripes on the sleeves because he liked Gilbert and Sullivan. The Senate is the actual jury. You will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws. So help you, God. This is a copy of the rules of the Senate for handling impeachment. Theyre actually very specific. Meet six days a week. Convene at noon. The senators have to sit at their desks and remain quiet in their role as jurors. And not talk, which trust me, is going to be a problem for some of the senators who are used to talking all the time. Its just like a courtroom trial. There are prosecutors who present the case against the president. That was perjury. Only, theyre members of the House, and theyre called managers. Then the senators, or the jurors, vote. And things are still, unpredictable. The options are guilty or not guilty. But there was one senator Arlen Specter, a moderate Republican from Pennsylvania. Under Scottish law, there are three possible verdicts: guilty, not guilty and not proved. which is not a thing. And everybody just looks, you know, how do you even record that vote? In the end, there were not enough votes to oust Clinton. Whats amazing about this whole thing to me wasnt so much the constitutional process. It was that it felt to me like the beginning of really intense partisanship, the weaponization of partisanship. And heres the thing: An impeachment charge has never gotten the two-thirds majority it needs in the Senate to actually oust a president from office. So you could end up having a situation where the president is impeached, acquitted and runs for re-election and wins re-election. And that would be a first. This is my ticket to the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton. I dont think youll find these on StubHub.

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A Mysterious -1 and Other Call Records Show How Giuliani Pressured Ukraine - The New York Times

Donald Trump Photo: Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images

The House Intelligence Committees impeachment inquiry report demonstrates in exhaustive detail that President Trump and numerous aides pressured Ukraine to open investigations for Trumps political benefit. The report describes this as a months-long effort by President Trump to use the powers of his office to solicit foreign interference on his behalf in the 2020 election.

But the effort almost certainly took place over years, not months. Indeed it grew directly out of the ties developed between Trumps campaign and Russian intelligence during the 2016 campaign.

The Ukraine scandal burst into the view of Congress and the public this summer when the House Intelligence Committee obtained a whistle-blowers report. The report focused on a July 25 phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, and Trumps plot to withhold military aid as leverage. But the fact that this sequence of events was exposed does not mean it is the entirety of the plot. The sequence of events instead suggests that Trump has been extorting Ukraine for his own political gain not only in 2017, but during the previous two years as well.

Begin with Trumps notion that Ukraine, not Russia, hacked Democratic emails. This is the idea he raises in his call with Zelensky, asking his befuddled Ukrainian counterpart to locate a server that, according to this bizarre conspiracy theory, was handed by Democrats over to Ukrainians and that would prove Russia had been framed. American intelligence officials have described the theory as a Russian-backed disinformation campaign.

Where did Trump get this idea from? He seems to have first heard it in the summer of 2016, from Paul Manafort, his campaign manager. Manaforts deputy, Rick Gates, told Robert Mueller that Manafort had been spouting the theory that Ukrainians framed Russia since the summer of 2016, and that the theory seemed to come from Manaforts partner, Konstantin Kilimnik, who American officials believed was a Russian intelligence operative.

By April 2017, Trump was repeating this theory in public, falsely telling an Associated Press reporter that a Ukrainian-based company had taken the Democratic server with the stolen emails. A few months after that, Rudy Giuliani began meeting with Ukrainian officials. Giuliani recently explained that he pursued the theory that Ukraine, not Russia, had hacked Democratic emails because it would exonerate Trump. Obviously, Trump could not have colluded with Russia to exploit stolen emails if Russia hadnt stolen the emails in the first place. I knew they were hot and heavy on this Russian collusion thing, even though I knew 100 percent that it was false, he told Glenn Beck. I said to myself, Hallelujah. Ive got what a defense lawyer always wants: I can go prove someone else committed this crime.

Giuliani undertook what appear to be two previous episodes of trading diplomatic favors to Ukrainians in return for steps to protect Trump from the Mueller investigation. The first apparent trade involved a meeting between Trump and Ukraines then-president Petro Poroshenko in return for a Ukrainian investigation that would exonerate Manafort, then a prime target of Muellers.

Washington Post reporter Aaron Blake summarizes the timeline:

June 8, 2017: Trump ally Rudolph W. Giuliani meets with Poroshenko and then-Prosecutor General Yuri Lutsenko.June 9, 2017: Lutsenkos office joins an existing investigation into the black ledger, which implicated former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. The investigation had previously been handled only by Ukraines independent National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), and critics alleged the new move was meant to bury the scandal.June 14, 2017: Reports in Europe indicate Poroshenko will meet with Trump.June 19, 2017: Spicer says Poroshenko will meet with Vice President Pence, but doesnt confirm a meeting with Trump.June 20, 2017: Poroshenko gets a brief drop-in visit with Trump.This is either a direct trade, or an exchange of mutually-beneficial actions that coincidentally occurred in very rapid succession.

The next apparent quid pro quo took place the next year. The U.S. sold desperately needed Javelin missiles to Ukraine that year, and the New York Times reported at the time that Ukraine suspended cooperation with the Mueller investigation. (This is another one of those Trump-era episodes where a credible report of shocking misconduct immediately sinks without a trace into the vast ooze of other Trumpian outrages.) In every possible way, we will avoid irritating the top American officials, one Ukrainian lawmaker and close ally of President Poroshenko explained to the Times.

The benefit of this move to Trump was immense. Manafort and Kilimnik were key figures in the Mueller probe. Mueller found that Manafort had slipped Kilimnik 75 pages of polling data during a meeting in the summer of 2016. Here you have proof that Trumps campaign manager gave valuable, detailed information to a known Russian spy, at a time when the Russians were running a pro-Trump media operation. But Mueller never determined what the polling was for. And Kilimnik was able to leave Ukraine and escape to Russia, where Mueller could not interview him. A State Department document concluded that Lutsenko, who had met with Giuliani, allowed Kilimnik to leave the country.

Neither of these episodes has been investigated in anything like the depth of the 2019 episodes. But both bear all the same superficial hallmarks to what occurred this year. In both instances, Giuliani had contacts with Ukrainian officials, and traded the same things (a presidential meeting and military aid). Also in both cases, Ukraine put its famously corrupt judicial system at the disposal of Trumps domestic interests.

In 2017 and 2018, Trump was consumed by the Mueller investigation, and seems to have pushed Ukraine to take steps to stymie it. By 2019, Giuliani had taken an interest in claims of wrongdoing by Joe Biden, and added demands for a Biden probe to his push for investigations that would exonerate Russias (and therefore Trumps) behavior in 2016.

By 2019, Trump and Giuliani were barely hiding their actions. Giuliani was boasting about his activities to every reporter who would listen. And Trump was directing a growing array of officials to follow Giulianis lead, despite the obvious impropriety of placing American foreign policy in the hands of his private attorney who was openly working on his political behalf.

Why did they flaunt their scheme so widely and carelessly? Most likely because they had already been doing the same thing for two years.

Analysis and commentary on the latest political news from New York columnist Jonathan Chait.

Original post:
Trump Extorted Ukraine in 2017 and 2018 Before Getting Caught This Year - New York Magazine