CNN has obtained exclusive access to new audiotapes of Donald Trump’s attorney and adviser, Rudolph Giuliani, attempting in 2019 to cajole Ukrainian officials into manufacturing false allegations designed to impugn the candidacy of Joe Biden, who Trump feared presented the gravest threat to his reelection prospects. The extortion of Ukrainian officials, under the implicit threat of withholding military and other aid, was the key element underlying Trump’s first impeachment trial.
As reported by Matthew Chance and Marshall Cohen for CNN:
(CNN)Never-before-heard audio, obtained exclusively by CNN, shows how former President Donald Trump's longtime adviser Rudy Giuliani relentlessly pressured and coaxed the Ukrainian government in 2019 to investigate baseless conspiracies about then-candidate Joe Biden.
The audiotapes confirm a July 2019 telephone conversation between Giuliani, U.S. Special Representative to Ukraine Kurt Volker, and Andriy Yermak, an adviser to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. In the 40-minute recording Giuliani clearly demonstrates his complicity in Trump’s plan to smear Biden by urging an investigation of false corruption allegations ginned up by right-wing media against Hunter Biden, and, implicitly, his father, the current president of the United States.
"All we need from the President [Zelensky] is to say, I'm gonna put an honest prosecutor in charge, he's gonna investigate and dig up the evidence, that presently exists and is there any other evidence about involvement of the 2016 election, and then the Biden thing has to be run out," Giuliani said, according to the audio. "... Somebody in Ukraine's gotta take that seriously."
As Chance and Cohen’s report notes, this effort by Giuliani was an “opening salvo” into a multi-year effort to delegitimize and damage Joe Biden in the eyes of the American public “by soliciting foreign meddling, lying about voter fraud, attempting to overturn the results, and inciting the deadly January 6 assault on the Capitol.”
Giuliani also played the perennial antisemitic card by alluding to conspiracy theories about anti-Trump activities by U.S. embassy officials, allegedly masterminded by the fever-dream bogeyman of every right-winger, George Soros:
"Another one was involved with (George) Soros ... Soros apparently is behind a lot of this," Giuliani said, referring to the liberal billionaire philanthropist who is the subject of many GOP conspiracies.
During the call, Giuliani held out the prospect of improved diplomatic relations between the U.S. and and Ukraine, contingent upon the initiation of this investigation.
"That would clear the air really well," Giuliani said, according to the recording. "And I think it would make it possible for me to come and make it possible, I think, for me to talk to the President (Trump) to see what I can do about making sure that whatever misunderstandings are put aside ... I kinda think that this could be a good thing for having a much better relationship."
According to CNN’s report, like any weasel well aware of what he was doing, Giuliani ”peppered in several disclaimers throughout the conversation, like saying he wasn't sure if the corruption claims against Biden were true and that he only wants ‘the truth’ to come out.”
Yermak, acutely aware of the difficult position Giuliani was putting his boss, Zelensky, in by extorting him to make such false claims, gave a pleasant but noncommittal response to Giuliani, expressing his agreement to “discuss all the questions, all this investigation which Giuliani listed” in his conversation with the two upon Zelensky’s upcoming visit to the U.S.
The rest is literally history, culminating in Trump’s infamous, mob-boss assertion during his own call three days later with Zelensky, namely that “I would like you to do us a favor...”. This call led to the whistleblower complaint asserting that Trump had abused his office and trust of the American people by attempting to coerce a foreign government to assist him in perpetrating a fraudulent and (ultimately) failed effort to get himself reelected.
One can hope that we never see the likes of this sleazy corruption in any American administration again. But since Trump and his cronies’ actions since that time have, in their magnitude, all but consigned this episode to a quaint sort of history, there’s certainly no guarantee of that.