Eight is apparently not enough as Individual-1’s “pattern of misconduct” now begins to appear. It begins to appear that the quid pro quo may have included leveraging Ukraine on behalf of Putin to aid a new offensive by rebels in eastern Ukraine.
President Trump in a July phone call repeatedly pressured the president of Ukraine to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden ’s son, urging Volodymyr Zelensky about eight times to work with Rudy Giuliani, his personal lawyer, on a probe, according to people familiar with the matter.
“He told him that he should work with [Mr. Giuliani] on Biden, and that people in Washington wanted to know” whether allegations were true or not, one of the people said. Mr. Trump didn’t mention a provision of foreign aid to Ukraine on the call, said this person, who didn’t believe Mr. Trump offered the Ukrainian president any quid-pro-quo for his cooperation on an investigation.
www.wsj.com/...
If the speculation is accurate, Maguire’s actions, and the legal defense of those actions by Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) General Counsel Jason Klitenic, may have a firmer legal foundation than has so far been apparent. (For those who care about such things, as Klitenic’s predecessor I do have some interest in defending his office, but this piece reflects my own views and not those of the government.)
Some reports suggest that the complaint related, at least in part, to promises President Trump may have made to a foreign leader, involving Ukraine. Many have assumed that the allegation is that the president promised Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, that he would release $250 million in arms to Ukraine if that country would open an investigation of the family of the leading Democratic candidate to oppose Trump in the 2020 election, Joseph Biden.
The Wall Street Journal reported today that Trump brought up the matter of investigating Biden’s son eight times in a single call with Zelensky in July 2019. Contrary to other reports, however, the Journal said that Trump promised the Ukrainians nothing. This apparent discrepancy underlines the confusion of the situation. While such an offer, if made, would raise serious questions—and indeed might violate federal bribery statutes, though the application of those criminal statutes to the president is unclear—the argument that the law did not require the DNI to transmit the complaint to Congress, set out in Klitenic’s letters to Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff, is not a frivolous one.
Make no mistake about it. This allegation is a grave one. Even if there is a plausible legal basis to defend withholding the whistleblower’s complaint, if the president has offered financial incentives in an attempt to enlist a foreign power against his political opponents, the public needs to know—by one means or another.
www.lawfareblog.com/...
This is where lives will be lost