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Mainstream media outlets are in fire over US President Donald Trump’s lack of supporting the Kiev regime in its fight aganist ‘Russian agression’. They are ‘concerned’ that the US leader seeks to achieve more practical goals.
US President Donald Trump acknowledged that he actually spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in an attempt to persuade him to look into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son.
“The conversation I had was largely congratulatory, was largely corruption – all of the corruption taking place – it was largely the fact that we don’t want our people like Vice President Biden and his son creating to the corruption already in the Ukraine,” Trump told reporters en route to Texas and Ohio.
Biden, whose son Hunter had business interests in Ukraine, said Trump is using his job as president to get a foreign government to dig for dirt on a political rival.
“He’s doing this because he knows I’ll beat him like a drum,” Biden told reporters. “And he’s using an abuse of power and every element of the presidency to try to smear me.”
Biden, in a statement, called for the White House to release the transcript of the president’s call with Zelensky.
“Such clear-cut corruption damages and diminishes our institutions of government by making them tools of a personal political vendetta,” he said
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who has expressed skepticism about impeachment of Trump, but this sort of incident would be a sort of “new low.”
“They will be entering a grave new chapter of lawlessness which will take us into a whole new stage of investigation,” Pelosi said in a letter to the US Congress.
Trump said he would have “no problem” if his attorney Rudy Giuliani testified before Congress about Ukraine and Biden.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke with Ukraine’s foreign minister, Vadym Prystaiko, on September 17th, five days after Trump released $250 million in American military aid to the country.
Pompeo “affirmed U.S. support for Ukraine as it advances critical reforms to tackle corruption, strengthen the rule of law, and foster an economic environment that promotes competition and investment.”
On September 21st, Prystaiko said that Trump didn’t pressure Zelensky into anything.
“I know what the conversation was about, and I think there was no pressure,” he told Hromadske.
Internal US politics aside, this is rather showing of why exactly Ukraine is getting additional military funding and the Trump administration appears so keen on assisting Zelensky’s.
Of course, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin also denied that there was any connection into the possible investigation and conversation with the Ukrainian whistle-blower and the security aid.
“Well, that I can tell you, that there was no connection,” Mnuchin said on “Meet the Press.” “I have been involved with Secretary Pompeo and others on the national security team on the issue.”
Back when Biden was vice president, he urged Ukraine’s then-government to fire its chief prosecutor, tying the decision to U.S. aid.
According to Trump, his lawyer Rudy Giulianni said that the prosecutor was investigating a company of which Hunter Biden was a board member.
Trump himself calls the reports of pressuring Ukraine “fake news,” furthermore repeating the claims of the Ukrainian Foreign Minister that Ukraine wasn’t pressured into anything.
..Breaking News: The Ukrainian Government just said they weren’t pressured at all during the “nice” call. Sleepy Joe Biden, on the other hand, forced a tough prosecutor out from investigating his son’s company by threat of not giving big dollars to Ukraine. That’s the real story!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 23, 2019
Trump furthermore said that Joe Biden was being protected by the media and that was the only scandal in the situation.
“Ukraine Foreign Minister disputes reports of any pressure from Trump. This conversation was long, friendly, and it touched on many questions.” @NBCNews Correct. If your looking for something done wrong, just look at the tape of Sleepy Joe. He is being protected by the Media!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 21, 2019
This is further reinforced in an interview with Andriy Yermak, a lawyer and a longtime friend of Volodymyr Zelensky, who was sent to Washington for meetings with Trump Administration officials in June 2019.
Yermak also said that no such offers for a deal of any sort, were proposed by the Trump administration and no pressure was exerted on Ukraine.
“On such a political level, no one talks about these things in plain text.” Yermak said that his mission was to “change our image and for us to be seen as a new team, to explain who is Zelensky and how he differs from his predecessors.” He added, “I think the whole problem is that we are some new people who came to power. They don’t know us yet in Washington—they are still figuring us out. It’s a normal working process.”
The facts are quite unclear, but if what media are claiming is true, that means the US President is using the Ukrainian justice system for his own political (and personal) agenda. Which is allegedly a tad bit more serious if it turns out that Joe Biden, as vice president, did the same but to guarantee his son’s success in Ukraine.
It simply shows that Ukraine, in the eyes of Washington is simply a pawn to be used to gain an advantage on the international or internal political scene.
US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky are to meet on September 25th in New York, on the sidelines of the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly. The meeting is planned to last 45 minutes.
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