Facing growing momentum behind a full House impeachment inquiry, President Trump evidently concluded that releasing a memorandum of his phone call on July 25 with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine would quiet the investigative fervor. He could not have been more wrong.
The memorandum, which the White House released Wednesday morning, is far worse than we could have imagined. It demonstrates that Mr. Trump sought multiple favors from a foreign leader for his personal political gain and in doing so violated his solemn oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.
The memorandum gives the game away. After the two leaders exchanged pleasantries and agreed that European countries should provide more aid to Ukraine, Mr. Zelensky stated that Ukraine was ready to discuss “next steps” and specifically raised his desire to buy weapons from the United States. In response, Mr. Trump asked Mr. Zelensky to “do us a favor” and proceeded to request that Mr. Zelensky “find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike,” before telling Mr. Zelensky that he would “like to have the attorney general call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it.”
This appears to be nothing short of a request for Ukraine’s help in undermining stories and proceedings that are damaging to the president, including the federal criminal prosecution of Roger Stone. “CrowdStrike” is a reference to a private cybersecurity firm that the Democratic National Committee brought in to investigate the 2016 hack of its servers. Although federal investigators independently verified that Russia was behind the attacks, Mr. Stone and other Trump allies have asserted a conspiracy theory that the government relied on “an inconclusive and unsubstantiated report” prepared by CrowdStrike. If, as it appears, Mr. Trump was effectively asking a foreign power to help undermine a federal criminal prosecution of his political ally, he was engaging in impeachable conduct by violating his oath to take care that the laws are faithfully executed.
Mr. Zelensky got the message. He explained that one of his assistants spoke with Mr. Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and that he hoped Mr. Giuliani would be able to travel to Ukraine to meet in person. Mr. Zelensky also guaranteed that “all the investigations will be done openly and candidly.”
But Mr. Trump did not stop there. He asked Mr. Zelensky for a second favor. He referred to Joe Biden, a 2020 presidential candidate, and unsubstantiated claims that when Mr. Biden was vice president he “stopped the prosecution” of a Ukrainian company tied to his son Hunter. Mr. Trump added that “a lot of people want to find out about that, so whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great.”
Mr. Trump’s meaning was perfectly clear: He wanted Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden. Mr. Zelensky’s reaction shows that he got the message. He assured Mr. Trump that he would be appointing a loyal prosecutor general and that “he or she will look into the situation.”
Mr. Zelensky also invited Mr. Trump to send him “any additional information that you can provide to us.” Mr. Trump confirmed their understanding: “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.”
Mr. Trump and his defenders may claim that he was not abusing the powers of the presidency because he did not mention the fact that the United States was at the time withholding $391 million in military aid to Ukraine. That is beside the point. It was a betrayal of the American people and our free and fair elections to ask a foreign power to investigate a rival candidate. Simply by asking a foreign leader to take this action, Mr. Trump committed an impeachable offense.
Furthermore, Mr. Trump had already mentioned to Mr. Zelensky that “the United States has been very very good to Ukraine.” There was no need to mention the withholding of funds explicitly. The leader of a country recently invaded by Russia would notice if the United States withheld funds amounting to 5 percent of its defense budget.
Indeed, while asking for a foreign country’s aid in going after a political rival is a monstrous abuse of power on its own, the memorandum is also strong evidence that Mr. Trump was offering an implicit quid pro quo. The course of the conversation makes clear the extent to which Mr. Zelensky sought Mr. Trump’s favor and assistance; in that environment, the president’s request for favors could not help being coercive.
Mr. Trump made a point of framing the conversation by saying, “we do a lot for Ukraine” and “I wouldn’t say that it’s reciprocal necessarily,” suggesting Ukraine could do more for the United States and afterward asking for favors. The implication is unmistakable: We do a lot for you, and I now expect you to do something for me.
Although there will undoubtedly be more shoes to drop, particularly when Congress receives the whistle-blower complaint that brought this scandal to light — the Senate on Tuesday unanimously approved a resolution demanding it — the memorandum is unequivocally damning. The conversation does not end with it, though. Congress’s need for other materials substantiating this apparent impeachable offense is paramount. News reporting suggests that several senior officials tried to prevent Mr. Trump from holding a meeting or call with Mr. Zelensky because they were worried that Mr. Trump would use the conversation to do precisely what he did — ask for damaging information about Mr. Biden. Congress has every right to obtain additional evidence and testimony that places the president’s conversation in appropriate context.
Mr. Trump’s pattern of betraying his country for his own personal gain stretches far beyond the favors he requested of the Ukrainian president. Toward the end of their conversation, Mr. Zelensky told Mr. Trump that the last time he traveled to the United States he “stayed at the Trump Tower.” Mr. Trump’s acceptance of Mr. Zelensky’s business may not have been an unconstitutional emolument because Mr. Zelensky was not a foreign official at the time, but the underlying problem is the same: Like others who seek to get in the president’s good graces, Mr. Zelensky patronized his businesses. The president’s profiting off the presidency and putting out his businesses as centers for cultivating influence is, and must continue to be, an important component of the impeachment inquiry.
Unfortunately, the president we see in this memorandum is not a stranger to us. It is the same man who asked a former White House counsel, Don McGahn, to fire the special counsel, Robert Mueller, and then falsely deny it later.
It is the same man whose 2016 presidential campaign was “receptive” to Russian offers of assistance, including supposed dirt about his political rival.
It is the same man who used his personal attorney to perpetrate and conceal campaign finance violations.
It is the same man who has dangled pardons to his associates to prevent them from cooperating with federal investigators trying to get to the bottom of Russia’s attack on our election.
It is a man who has his own interests at heart — not the American people’s. It is a man who has repeatedly violated the Constitution and his oath to preserve, protect and defend it. We have let him get away with it for far too long. But not anymore.
Noah Bookbinder
Noah Bookbinder is executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, Washington, D.C.