Attorney General William Barr's Justice Department was well aware of Donald Trump's phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his request for a "favor," and it decided that it would just pass on investigating Trump for a potential campaign finance violation.
A statement from department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec says that DOJ's Criminal Division "reviewed the official record of the call and determined, based on the facts and applicable law, that there was no campaign finance violation and that no further action was warranted." She said that all of the "relevant components of the Department agreed with this legal conclusion, and the Department has concluded the matter." Which could explain why Trump thought that this extremely damning memo could be released with no repercussions: Barr didn't see any problem with it.
At one point in the discussion, Zelensky brings up the subject of further military aid from the U.S. Trump replies directly, "I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it." That's when he gets to the first favor, to "get to the bottom" of the origins of Robert Mueller's Russia probe which, Trump said, "started with Ukraine."
He added that Zelensky should "find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine" as well as the supposedly missing (but not actually not missing) DNC server, about which "they say Ukraine has it." There are several ellipses around that part of the conversation, a red flag given Trump's tendency to edit and obfuscate. "Whatever you can do, it's very important that you do it if that's possible," he said, concluding this part of his "favor" request.
The other favor is the Biden dirt request, asking Zelensky to talk to Barr and to Rudy Giuliani about the Hunter Biden investigation. "There’s a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that, so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great," Trump said, according to the memo. "I will have Mr. Giuliani give you a call and I am also going to have Attorney General Barr call and we will get to the bottom of it. I'm sure you will figure it out."
Gosh, hard to imagine why Barr didn't think this was worth investigating. In actuality, campaign finance law prohibits foreign nationals—including governments—from providing "anything of value … in connection with" an election. Soliciting that assistance is also illegal. Violation of these laws is a criminal act.