Democrats in the House of Representatives have opened an impeachment inquiry because a whistleblower warned that the president offered to release $400 million in financial aid to Ukraine if its government investigated Joe and Hunter Biden. The whistleblower’s warning was verified when the White House released the contents of a conversation in which Trump asked the president of Ukraine to investigate his 2020 rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter, as well as to investigate whether Ukraine—not Russia—hacked the 2016 election. This would enable him to discredit the leading Democratic candidate and to discredit the findings of the CIA and the Mueller report.

Trump insists the conversation included no “quid pro quo.” He has said repeatedly that it was a “perfect” conversation.

What is a “quid pro quo”?

Definition:

quid pro quo
/ˌkwid ˌprō ˈkwō/
noun
A favor or advantage granted or expected in return for something.
“the pardon was a quid pro quo for their help in releasing hostages”

Another definition:

In common law, quid pro quo indicates that an item or a service has been traded in return for something of value, usually when the propriety or equity of the transaction is in question. A contract must involve consideration: that is, the exchange of something of value for something else of value.

The following article appeared on the Brookings website. It was written by Steven Pifer, the former ambassador to Ukraine.

 

Editor’s Note: Steven Pifer’s takeaways from what we’ve learned about President Trump’s approach to Ukraine’s Zelenskiy administration through the White House record of a presidential phone call, a whistleblower’s complaint to Congress, and diplomats’ published text messages. This piece originally appeared on FSI Stanford’s Medium.

 

Over the past two weeks, a CIA whistleblower’s complaint, a White House record of a July 25 telephone conversation between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and texts exchanged by American diplomats have dominated the news and raised questions about the president’s handling of policy toward Ukraine. Here are five observations:

First, President Trump was not doing the nation’s business on July 25. Trump has described the call as “perfect,” but the memorandum of conversation shows that he did not seek to advance U.S. interests. He did not ask Zelenskiy about progress in ending Russia’s war against Ukraine. He did not propose steps to facilitate more American trade. He did not raise how U.S. liquified natural gas might strengthen Ukraine’s energy security (something of interest to Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, whom Trump now says instigated a call that he did not want to make).

Instead, Trump posed two requests to his Ukrainian counterpart: check CrowdStrike (even though nothing suggests a Ukrainian link to the company that examined the Democratic National Committee’s servers in 2016), and investigate a thoroughly-debunked charge that Vice President Joe Biden sought to have a Ukrainian prosecutor general fired to protect his son, Hunter Biden. Neither ask advances U.S. national goals. Both are about Trump’s personal interest in undermining his potential Democratic rival in 2020.

Second, the president sounds poorly briefed on Ukraine. The fact that Trump did not raise any issues of interest to the United States — as opposed to issues of personal interest — suggests he took no briefing from National Security Council staff before the call. He raised discredited stories similar to those that his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has been peddling for months on cable news. Giuliani seems to have received much of his information, including his claim about the Bidens, from a former Ukrainian prosecutor general who held a grudge against the U.S. embassy in Kyiv — and who has since recanted or denied most of the stories he fed Giuliani.

Third, there was a quid pro quo. The president claims there was no quid pro quo in his call to Zelenskiy. From texts released late on October 3, however, senior U.S. diplomats believed there was. Consider the following text exchanges:

  • July 25 text from Ambassador Kurt Volker (U.S. special envoy on Ukraine) to Zelenskiy aide Andrey Yermak (just prior to the Trump-Zelenskiy call): “Heard from White House — assuming President Z convinces trump he will investigate/‘get to the bottom of what happened’ in 2016, we will nail down date for visit to Washington.”
  • August 9 text from Ambassador Gordon Sondland (U.S. representative to the European Union) to Volker: “To avoid misunderstandings, might be useful to ask Andrey [Yermak] for a draft statement (embargoed) so that we can see exactly what they propose to cover.”
  • From August 13 text from Volker to Sondland describing possible Ukrainian statement: “Special attention should be paid to the problem of interference in the political processes of the United States especially with the alleged involvement of some Ukrainian politicians. I [Zelenskiy] want to declare that this is unacceptable. We intend to initiate and complete a transparent and unbiased investigation of all available facts and episodes, including those involving Burisma [the company on whose board Hunter Biden sat] and 2016 U.S. elections, which in turn will prevent the resurgence of this problem in the future.”
  • August 13 text from Sondland in response to above Volker text: “Perfect.”

In his statement to the House Committees on Intelligence, Oversight and Reform, and Foreign Affairs on October 3, Volker said that he and Sondland talked with Giuliani on August 16. In that conversation, Giuliani had noted that a more generic anti-corruption statement offered by the Ukrainians was insufficient and should specifically mention Burisma and 2016.

Ambassador William “Bill” Taylor, U.S. ambassador to Ukraine from 2006–2009 and currently the charge d’ affairs in Kyiv, was clearly uncomfortable with all this:

  • September 1 text from Taylor to Sondland: “Are we now saying that security assistance and WH meeting are conditioned on investigations?”
  • September 9 text from Taylor to Sondland: “As I said on the phone, I think it’s crazy to hold security assistance for help with a political campaign.”

It is hard to read these texts and conclude that there was no quid pro quo. To his great credit, Taylor questioned the very idea and in a separate text even suggested that he would resign (full disclosure: Taylor is a former colleague and good friend whom I admire).