None of which applies to Trump's discussions with Zelenski. Where's the threat? All that's there is two heads of state discussing cooperation in investigating corruption. The fact that one on the persons of interest MAY be a political opponent a year from now is immaterial. That person admitted to the extortion you quote above.
Ukraine had their aid frozen specifically because Trump wanted it that way. It's must easier to 'convince' a newly elected Ukrainian president to do him "a favor though"when he knew very well that the Ukrainians were desperate people under continual assault by Russian troops -- and with little defense against them. In that respect, knowing people's vulnerabilities and weaknesses, Trump was a Master. Congress was pushing Trump, demanding answers to why the money wasn't given to Ukraine immediately after the bill was approved by congress, they all knew how vulnerable and anguished the Ukrainians were -- having had more than 13,000 of their people killed by the Russians already.
Where's the threat you ask? Here's the threat. Trump wants a foreign government to help him create a fake scandal against the Democrat who is most likely to oppose and defeat him in the 2020 elections. In other words, Trump wants a foreign government to interfere with the American elections. How do we know that was a threat? As Michael Cohen has stated in his sworn testimony, Donald Trump never 'ordered' him to do illegal things but he always knew what it was that Trump wanted. He did this same type of subtle coercion with Zelensky on that phone call.
He told the Ukranian President how much the U.S.has done for his country, then asks a favor right after. Zelensky: Yes, we want to buy Javelins. If someone did that with you, wouldn’t you feel a slight bit of pressure or an obligation to do what they wanted in return? "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. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike ... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine… There are a lot. of things that went on, the whole situation .. I think you are surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it." Really? Now William Barr is a part of this extortion as well.
Trump trashed a career diplomat and former U.S. Ambassador to the Ukraine, calling her “bad news.” Since when do President’s trash a respected career U.S. diplomat to a foreign leader? Shouldn’t the President be supporting our State Department and Ambassadors?
He asked the Ukrainian leader to search for the missing DNC server, which conspiracy theorists have claimed is in the Ukraine. There is no credible evidence the server is there. In fact, there is no server. The alleged server was in fact 140 mostly-cloud based systems. Trump also mentions CloudStrike (although how it’s used in context makes no sense), a cybersecurity firm based in California that investigated the hack of the DNC systems Trump in the past claimed CrowdStrike was owned by a Ukrainian; it’s not.
Mixed in at various stages is mention of Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudi Guiliani, being involved. Why the hell is Trump’s personal lawyer involved in diplomatic matters with foreign governments? And why does he keep mentioning Barr being involved in pursuing these favors? Do you really think it’s appropriate for the AG to look into finding dirt on political opponents for the President?
This is extortion at the deepest levels of government. Actually forcing a foreign government who is highly vunverable and at their weakest point in their attempts at creating and keeping their country a democracy, to interfere in our 2020 election but even more than that go back to 2016 to prove he helped by the Ukraine government to win and Putin is all free and clear of those allegations if Ukraine agreed to doing that.
