Trump-Ukraine Bribery Case: Details of Secret Communications Released
Trump was personally running a smear campaign against Ms. Yovanovitch because she was trying to oppose Trump’s undue influence on Ukraine to take political advantage in the 2020 election.
By Rakesh Raman
As the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump’s alleged attempt to take Ukrainian help to win 2020 election is entering the next phase, in a stunning revelation the communications related to the case have appeared in the public domain.
American Oversight – a non-partisan, nonprofit ethics watchdog – has released the records obtained from the Department of State in response to its request for external communications with Trump’s personal attorneys, including Rudy Giuliani, regarding efforts to influence the Ukrainian government to investigate the president’s political opponents. Strangely, the Trump administration had refused to share these records with the Congress.
According to American Oversight, these records – obtained under the Freedom of Information Act – also contain any final directives related to the recall of Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, a career official, from Ukraine.
Trump was personally running a smear campaign against Ms. Yovanovitch because she was trying to oppose Trump’s undue influence on Ukraine to take political advantage in the 2020 election. Ultimately, the Trump administration removed Ms. Yovanovitch from the job surreptitiously.
American Oversight says it has combed through thousands of pages of public records to find instances in which different officials met with key figures in the Ukraine investigation. It has also compiled a list of those figures, from U.S. government officials to private citizens and Rudy Giuliani allies to foreign officials.
American Oversight reveals that the investigation into Trump administration’s contacts with Ukraine and the House’s impeachment inquiry have involved a number of names, from those of U.S. government officials and Ukrainian oligarchs to Rudy Giuliani who has been working as Trump’s personal lawyer.
IMPEACHMENT PROCEEDINGS
Of late, a transcript of a call between Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart reveals that Trump asked for Ukraine help to investigate a case related to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden who is expected to be his rival in the 2020 presidential election.
In the phone call that took place between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25, Trump asked the Ukrainian leader to work with the U.S. attorney general to investigate the Biden case.
Trump and his accomplices such as Rudy Giuliani (who is also facing criminal investigation in this case) and a slew of Republicans are making unsubstantiated claims that Joe Biden – as the former U.S. Vice President – had improperly influenced Ukraine to protect his son, Hunter Biden, in a corruption case.
As Trump was trying to take Ukraine help to intervene in the 2020 election so that he could attack his rival Biden with corruption allegations, a whistleblower reported the matter to a State Department inspector general.
The whistleblower’s complaint has become the basis of a new impeachment inquiry against Trump announced by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Pelosi says Trump’s actions amount to betrayal of the national security and betrayal of the integrity of U.S. elections.
It is alleged that in order to take Ukraine’s illegal help for investigating an already closed Biden case, Trump withheld nearly $400 million of U.S. aid to Ukraine. Democrats allege that Trump has misused U.S. foreign policy and taxpayer dollars for personal gain which is an obvious offence of bribery.
Trump is currently facing bribery charges for bribing Ukraine to take political advantage in the 2020 presidential election scheduled to take place on Tuesday, November 3, 2020.
By Rakesh Raman, who is a national award-winning journalist and social activist. He is the founder of the humanitarian organization RMN Foundation which is working in diverse areas to help the disadvantaged and distressed people in the society. He also creates and publishes a number of digital publications on different subjects.
