If concerns about Donald Trump’s actions toward Ukraine seemed all too familiar when the whistleblower complaint emerged, it’s because Trump’s actions have been destructive to Ukraine since before he took office.
● Trump’s campaign stepped in to weaken support for Ukraine in GOP platform.
Going into the 2016 election, offensive arms sales to Ukraine had been limited out of concerns over creating a proxy war in the country between the U.S. and Russia. But as Republicans drew up their 2016 platform document, they added a plank to allow more extensive arms sales to Ukraine. Or they tried to. Because the Trump campaign stepped in to soften the language. The new language moved from “arming Ukraine to fight against Russia” to providing “appropriate assistance” and “greater coordination with NATO.” Trump denied making this request personally, while admitting his campaign had moved to soften the language in an interview on Aug. 1, 2016.
In that interview, Trump also made clear his stance on Ukraine, saying, “The people of Crimea, from what I’ve heard, would rather be with Russia than where they were” and denying that Putin had any interest in going into Ukraine. It wasn’t until after it became obvious that giving Putin a free invasion was unpopular that the Trump campaign started blatantly lying about the platform.
And Trump campaign co-chairman Sam Clovis explained the pro-Russia language by saying that telling Ukraine that the U.S. was going to come to its aid wasn’t prudent. “What are the costs going to be to the United States,” said Clovis, “not just in Ukraine but also in NATO and also around the world?" Trump doubled down with another defense of Putin. He declared that Putin was “highly respected within his own country and beyond,” and that he had “always felt fine about Putin.”
Whatever that cost might have been, the cost of following the weak Trump tactic and delaying funds to Ukraine is that Russia has now taken most of another Ukrainian region. And that was just the start.
● Trump’s campaign chair was forced to leave when Ukraine opened investigations.
Donald Trump may not have managed to extort Ukraine into announcing investigations into Joe Biden, but no one had to twist any arms to get an investigation of Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. Manafort, who had brought “Western-style campaigning” to Ukraine to help secure a victory for pro-Russian politicians, had engaged in such tactics as spreading violent propaganda and paying for “spontaneous protests,” including one in which rocks were thrown at U.S. Marines.
In August of 2016, ongoing investigations into disgraced former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who had already fled to Russia, led to the discovery that Manafort had collected much more under-the-table money than he had reported in either Ukraine or the United States. Manafort also helped a pro-Russian party slip over $2 million into the U.S. for lobbying, in direct violation of the law.
The actual, totally real investigation into $12.7 million in off-the-books payments was the primary reason that Manafort fled the spotlight. And trying to get Ukraine to deny that Manafort did anything wrong is absolutely part of what Trump wants when he tells Ukraine that he wants an investigation into the 2016 election.
● Trump’s team crafted a “peace plan” that surrendered Ukrainian territory to Russia.
Less than a month after taking office, Trump already had a “peace plan” for Ukraine. But that plan didn’t come from the Pentagon or from the State Department. It came from a meeting between Trump attorney Michael Cohen, Trump business partner Felix Sater, and a pro-Russian former Ukrainian MP named Andriy Artemenko. Naturally, the plan was also blessed by the not-then-jailed Paul Manafort.
This plan acknowledged Russian control of Crimea and other territory occupied by pro-Russian forces. And while it didn’t provide any additional aid to Ukraine, it did lift all the sanctions against Russia that had been put in place when Russia invaded Crimea.
So it wasn’t so much a “peace plan for Ukraine” as a “piece plan.” As in, Russia could have this piece, and that piece, and walk away free and clear.
● Ukraine was pressured into stopping cooperation with the Mueller investigation.
In every statement, Trump and the White House have expressed concern about corruption in Ukraine. But when it came to investigating the one known instance of major corruption by a U.S. citizen in Ukraine—the actions of Paul Manafort—Trump put the screws on to halt investigations.
As Manafort was facing prosecution in the U.S., members of Robert Mueller’s team were attempting to talk with Ukrainian officials. But then, so were Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and his oligarch-provided “associates,” who were also going around the country, making Trump’s position clear.
In May 2018, Ukrainian officials announced that they would no longer cooperate with the Muller investigation. And in fact, the anticorruption prosecutor would inspect investigations into Manafort. And the reason was clear enough: “The decision to halt the investigations by an anticorruption prosecutor was handed down at a delicate moment for Ukraine, as the Trump administration was finalizing plans to sell the country sophisticated anti-tank missiles, called Javelins.” Trump promised those missiles early in 2018, but few actually arrived.
Asking Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden in exchange for military assistance is a quid pro quo. But it wasn’t the first quid pro quo that Trump demanded of Ukraine. A year before Volodymyr Zelensky was even elected president of Ukraine, the outgoing government was already very aware of what Trump wanted. As one Ukrainian official stated in closing down the corruption probe into Manafort, “In every possible way, we will avoid irritating the top American officials.”
A nation struggling for survival was absolutely aware that Trump had repeatedly made statements favoring Russia and demeaning Ukraine. And it was absolutely dependent on U.S. arms for defense. That made it a pushover for someone demanding real corruption. Like Manafort, Giuliani, and most of all, Trump.