Ukraine, Burisma, and the Bidens: Everything you need to know about the clash between Donald Trump and Joe Biden
As the US inches towards another presidential election, the country’s competing parties have found themselves in the middle of an ugly bout. With Donald Trump around, controversies are not surprising and the latest to rock America’s political stage is a whistleblowing complaint involving the maverick president. The controversy in the run-up to the 2020 presidential elections has also seen another country getting dragged in and like it was Russia in 2016, it is Ukraine this time.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, a comedian-turned-politician who got elected a few months ago, is expected to meet Trump at the UN General Assembly session in New York starting Monday, September 23, and the meeting is expected to take place at a time when a political scandal, that involves Ukraine, has broken out in the US.
Now, what is the controversy that has seen Trump crossing swords with his opponent Democrats, about?
What is the whistleblower complaint?
Two big boys of American media industry -- The Washington Post and The New York Times -- reported that a whistleblower complaint was filed with the intelligence community’s inspector-general. It focused on a promise Trump made during a phone call with his Ukrainian counterpart on July 25. Trump reportedly asked Zelensky to conduct a probe into one of his political opponents Joe Biden, the former US vice-president who is running for the highest office in next year’s election, and his son Hunter over the junior Biden’s business dealings in the East European country. He promised continued military support in return, reports say. The Wall Street Journal even said that Trump had asked Zelensky to open the probe at least eight times.
The complaint against Trump was made on August 12 by an intelligence official and it has kicked off a fight between Congress and the executive. Two people familiar with the issue have confirmed this, according to a report in The Washington Post. The complaint was perceived to be so alarming that an intelligence official who had worked at the White House earlier went to Michael Atkinson, the inspector general of the intelligence community, the Post cited two former US officials as saying.
The call, which was made a few weeks before the complaint was filed, was already under investigation by House Democrats who were trying to understand whether Trump and his attorney Rudolph Guiliani, former New York mayor, tried to manipulate the Ukrainian government in a bid to facilitate the Republican president’s re-election campaign. The lawmakers have sought a full transcript and the name of participants that took part in the call.
However, the intelligence heads have refused to make the complaint public. Atkinson said he was not authorized to do so. The acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, also refused to share the details of the complaint with Congress.
What has Donald Trump to say on the matter?
Last week, Trump, in his now familiar zigzag style, first denied the report about him making a promise to Zelensky that led to the complaint being filed. In a tweet, the president rubbished the news as “fake”.
On Sunday, September 22, before he headed to meet Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a rally in Texas, Trump then acknowledged having had a discussion with Zelensky about the Bidens. He defended his phone call with the Ukrainian leader saying: “We had a great conversation. The conversation I had was largely congratulatory, was largely corruption -- all of the corruption taking place, was largely the fact that we don’t want our people like vice-president Biden and his son [adding to the corruption].”
He said he had done “absolutely nothing wrong; it was perfect”. He also said that “there was no quid pro quo, there was nothing”.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on ABC News that he saw a statement from the Ukrainian foreign minister on Saturday that there was no pressure applied on Kiev during the Trump-Zelensky talks. He also added that if Biden had tried to protect his son and intervened with the Ukrainian government in an inappropriate way, it is important to get to the bottom of the case. He also said that transcripts of the calls with foreign leaders are not released unless the circumstances are extreme. Secretary of Treasury Steven Mnuchin seconded Pompeo’s thoughts on releasing transcripts and added the bigger story is what had happened with Biden and his son.
What is Rudy Giuliani's role in the scandal?
Trump’s personal attorney Giuliani was at his confused best during an interview with CNN on Thursday, September 19, when asked whether he had asked Ukraine to look into the Bidens. When the host asked the 75-year-old if he had sought a probe into Biden, he said “No, actually I didn’t. I asked the Ukraine to investigate the allegations that there was interference in the election of 2016 by the Ukrainians for the benefit of Hillary Clinton.”
The anchor then asked him if he ever asked about Hunter or Joe and to that Giuliani said: "The only thing I asked about Joe Biden is to get to the bottom of how it was that Lutsenko ... dismissed the case against AntAC.”
General Yuriy Lutsenko is a former Ukrainian prosecutor and AntAC is the Ukrainian-based Anti-Corruption Action Centre.
Giuliani’s controversial interviews in the past have left Trump red-faced but this time the president is not too bothered. On Sunday, he said that he would have zero problem with Giuliani testifying before Congress about his involvement in a controversy related to corruption in Ukraine as well as the Bidens.
“I would have no problem with [it],” Trump told DailyMail.com, adding that his attorney is a “very straight shooter”.
The Joe Biden problem with Ukraine
Joe Biden has lashed out at Trump saying he was abusing his power by asking the Ukrainian president to investigate his son only to derail his presidential campaign. He asked Congress to probe Trump’s links with Zelensky.
The issue is whether Biden used his office as the vice-president of the US (2009-17) to help a Ukrianian energy company Burisma -- in which his son had a plum post (drawing a salary of $50,000 per month) -- to oust Ukrainian prosecutor-general Viktor Shokin who was probing the oligarch, Mykola Zlochevsky, who owned the company. Reports indicated Biden never used methods that would impede efforts taken by the then Barack Obama administration to back British and Ukrainian probes against Zlochevsky for alleged money laundering and abuse of office. Trump alleged that Biden had threatened to withhold $1 million in loan guarantees if Ukraine did not remove the prosecutor.
Reports, however, say that it was not just Biden, but the US and other western powers, that were all for Shokin’s ouster as he was perceived to be harmful to Ukraine’s own interests and a protector of pro-Russian interests. Shokin, who was appointed in 2015, was eventually removed the next year. It may be mentioned here that the US was caught up in a diplomatic struggle with Russia over the latter’s annexation of the Crimea in 2014. Zlochevsky was a close associate of Ukraine’s pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych who was forced into exile in 2014. Shokin was accused of taking allegations against Zlochevsky lightly.
Joe Biden later claimed that he had never spoken to Hunter over the latter’s foreign business dealings. Hunter though said in an interview with New Yorker that he had spoken to his father about Burisma in December 2015. Joe was preparing to go to Ukraine then and he had reportedly asked his son, who was on the board of directors at Burisma, whether he knew what he was doing. Hunter said he knew.
The senior Biden was suspected of trying to help his son’s case by pushing for Shokin’s removal, hence impeding the investigation against Burisma. Shokin was replaced by Lutsenko and Joe referred to called him as “someone solid” and even the Zlochevsky camp was pleased. Lutsenko initially took a hard line against Burisma but after almost a year the company announced that Lutsenko and the courts had “fully closed” all legal proceedings and pending criminal charges against the oligarch and his companies. He returned to the country later after being removed from a 'wanted' list according to this report, Lutsenko’s office has moved to resume the probe against Zlochevsky.
The Times reported that Lutsenko was in contact with Giuliani, who accused the Bidens, and friends of Bidens and Zlochevsky accused both Lutsenko and Giuliani of politicizing the whole affair. Lutsenko was replaced last month by Ruslan Riaboshapka. In May, Lutsenko told Bloomberg News there was no evidence of any wrongdoing by either Joe or his son.
What are the Democrats saying?
While Trump said he hadn’t done anything wrong by having a conversation with Zelensky, the Democrats are livid and are building pressure to impeach the president. His opponents are concerned that the president might use his power to get foreign help to influence the 2020 elections in lieu of aid.
Adam Schiff, Representative from California who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, had a strong reaction saying impeachment “may be the only remedy”. He has also threatened to take legal action against the administration. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also reacted strongly on the matter. In a letter to the lawmakers on Sunday, September 22, she warned about the Trump administration’s blocking Maguire from turning over a whistleblower complaint that reportedly features the chief executive himself.
"If the Administration persists in blocking this whistleblower from disclosing to Congress a serious possible breach of constitutional duties by the President, they will be entering a grave new chapter of lawlessness which will take us into a whole new stage of investigation,” she said.
The Democrats do not have enough ammunition to trigger Trump’s downfall but they are not giving up their fight either. Schiff has also said that if Maguire didn’t comply, he will ask him to testify in an open session where he could be asked tough questions. Maguire is set to testify on Thursday, September 26.
How does this affect Ukraine?
For Ukraine, America’s internal political war creates a whole lot of challenges. The Kiev leadership has to treat the problem with utmost care for a little slip could see it getting aligned with one or the other political party and leaving its diplomatic relations with the ally in tatters. Ukraine’s problem is compounded by the fact that it always finds itself in a proxy war with the Russians and it cannot afford to see its ties with the US endangered.
That Ukraine 's caution is seen from the fact that Zelensky hasn’t spoken about his controversial telephonic talk with Trump. His office has just issued a readout summarizing the talk which said: “Donald Trump is convinced that the new Ukrainian government will be able to quickly improve image of Ukraine, complete investigation of corruption cases, which inhibited the interaction between Ukraine and the USA.”
Ukraine’s foreign minister Vadym Prystaiko, who was President Zelensky’s adviser on foreign affairs in July, said in an interview that he knew about the conversation between the two presidents but denied that Trump put pressure on Zelensky.
In August, the US froze a military aid package to Ukraine worth $250 million which was supposed to be used to improve Ukraine’s defense against Russia.
For Trump’s critics, this was a part of the pressure tactics adopted against Kiev. The hold was lifted earlier in September, along with that on an additional $141.5 million.
In February, the then Ukrainian Ambassador to the US Valeriy Chaly said the total US aid to Ukraine in 2019 would touch almost $700 million. But the current issue, if not treated with the right balance, can derail Ukraine’s fortunes -- economically, diplomatically and strategically. Zelensky is likely to have peace talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin through the mediation of France and Germany and the effect of America’s internal political problems can jeopardize Kiev’s interests before the crucial talks.
According to former American ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, Washington has allocated over $1 billion in defense aid to Kiev since Russia’s aggression kicked off in 2014 and the aid includes lethal weapons system.
Zelensky had sought meeting with Trump for months after his election but the latter was reluctant. Finally, Trump spoke with him but the discussion was more on Biden than Russia or Crimea. And observers see the current situation not going too much in favor of Ukraine. “It’s a diplomatic disaster for our relations with the United States,” Alyona Getmanchuk, the director of the New Europe Center, a Kiev-based foreign policy think tank, said. “I don’t know what could be the way out of this story.”