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:
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).
“No Quid Pro Quo” (or more stupidly “No Pro Quo”) will become the new “No Collusion”. This will be a tough ask for our dotard-in-chief Gorge Hamilton. It’s been many moons since someone’s done his Latin homework.
The Trump Presidency is teaching Latin and Greek to a new generation: emolument, quid pro quo, and narcissism.
Ha!!! I suspect that Trump, is, in fact, serving as a lesson to us all about a great many matters. One day this Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Employee of the Month, Don the Con, Moscow’s Asset Governing America, will be the ugly “before” picture.
Yes to all this. And USA Today’s 10/3 article explain in clear English why Biden joined international pressure for Ukranian prosecutor Shokin’s firing, which had nothing to do w/ Shokin’s investigation of Burisma [which was before H Biden, about other stuff].
However I have no problem at all w/ investigation into H Biden’s taking that lucrative position while his father was VP. It smells. According to The Hill, “A stepson of former Secretary of State John Kerry also was asked to serve as a [Burisma] director but reportedly declined and warned Hunter Biden not to do it; Biden didn’t listen.” Not a good look when your dad is taking the lead on the Ukraine-corruption crackdown & wielding foreign aid as cudgel—maybe son should have sat out the Ukraine gold rush, ya think? (Meanwhile pop claims he never discussed his son’s foreign dealings w/him, yeah right.)
Bipartison influence-peddling is the thing that’s wrong w/govt today. Sure, Trump is whole hay-ell of a lot worse, undivested of his corp holdings/ raking it in while sitting Prez, & importing dghter-soninlaw to WWing to do likewise. But that’s what-aboutism, & no pbm here w/revealing the filthy neoliberal revolving-door sludge on both sides of the aisle. JBiden doesn’t get a pass. Let the chips fall where they may.
What do you speculate Trump thinks he is going to get from the Russians?
Harlen, he was bankrupt. He had mismanaged the half a billion dollars Daddy left him. No American bank would loan to him. And suddenly, he goes to Moscow, and Deutsche Bank, which had big deposits from Russian oligarchs, starts making ENORMOUS loans to him, and Russian oligarchs start showing up in the US with suitcases full of cash to buy condos and other properties from Trump. And then there’s the kompromat described in the Steele dossier. He got a LOT, and they got all they need to sink him. But surely you know all of this if you haven’t been asleep for the past three years. And, BTW, this Russian connection goes back further, even, than any of this: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/19/trump-first-moscow-trip-215842
Vlad’s Agent Orange, aka Moscow’s Asset Governing America (MAGA)
And what about all the help that Trump got from the Russians in his 2016 campaign? The flooding of US social media with pro-Trump pieces, specifically targeted based on hacking and surveys on platforms like Facebook? And how about the massive amounts of money that Parnas and Furman contributed to Don’ the Con’s campaign, for which they are now sitting in prison? https://www.wsj.com/articles/two-foreign-born-men-who-helped-giuliani-on-ukraine-arrested-on-campaign-finance-charges-11570714188
And then Trump proceeds to withdraw the US from the INF and Open Skies treaties, to entreat his staff about withdrawing from NATO, to make US defense policy unilaterally by tweet at 2:00 in the morning, to withdraw US support for our allies, the Kurds, in Northern Syria, leaving Syria to the Russians. Sounds like Vlad’s agenda to me. It’s breathtaking how blind you Trumpeteers can be. Where there is such stench, there is significant rot.
https://newrepublic.com/article/143586/trumps-russian-laundromat-trump-tower-luxury-high-rises-dirty-money-international-crime-syndicate
What is an old Cold Warrior like you, Harlan, doing making excuses for all this? Please.
How else do you explain Trump’s unilateral move on Syria? I suspect that Vladimir knows that his puppet, Don the Con, is going down and is calling in his chits before that happens. https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/09/world/russia-syria-turkey-kurd-oct-9-intl/index.html
Or perhaps Vlad got tired of waiting last week and put the squeeze on Donald to deliver Syria. Turkey was just the method of delivery.
Perhaps. But Vlad is considerably smarter than most US Repugnican Senators are, so I’m sure he sees the writing on the wall for his Asset Orange.
Unfortunately, there is no good reason for him to reveal the kompromat he has on Don the Con. A lot of it may remain hidden for a long, long time or even never be revealed, but forensic accounting will make more an a bit of it known, I suspect, within the next few years.