DONALD TRUMP'S CALL WITH ZELENSKY WAS RECKLESS

Donald Trump.
Photo credit: Aljazeera

Donald John Trump is the most popular Republican president of modern history, and could also well be the most successful president that the US has had within the past 50 years at least.

His political style is very unconventional, his methods are more commonsensical and result oriented, and one thing that any dispassionate observer can quickly agree upon about him is that the man loves the United States of America too much.

The Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, has just announced the launch of an Impeachment enquiry against Mr. Trump due to facts that have emerged about his July phone call with the new President of Ukraine, Mr. Volodymyr Zelensky.

A whistleblower had raised a red flag about the call recently, prompting the House to make enquires about what transpired during the call. It has also been reported, however, that the whistleblower's lead attorney donated to the Biden Presidential Campaign earlier this year.

Facts have emerged that during the call, Trump asked Zelensky to investigate a former US Vice President and now Democratic frontrunner for the office of President, Mr Joe Biden, over concerns that there may have been a quid pro quo between him and Ukraine when he was Vice President. At the time, an investigation was being carried out by Ukraine's government on a company which Mr. Hunter Biden, Joe Biden's son, was a board member in.

The disclosure about Trump's phone call with Zelensky came yesterday, one day after Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, announced an official impeachment inquiry against the president following a whistleblower’s complaint regarding alleged misdeeds by Trump. This has set the stage for a long and hard fight in the build-up to next year's presidential election.

While I view Trump's action as reckless, I hardly think it is grounds for impeachment at all, and I will give my reasons in the later part of this article. But first, let me give a background to the events in the story.

How it all happened
18 July - President Trump orders White House aide to hold back almost $400m in military aid to Ukraine, report US media.

25 July - President Trump speaks with Ukraine's leader in a 30-minute phone call.

9 September - Congress learns of a whistleblower's complaint about the call, but is blocked by the Trump administration from viewing it.

11 September - Military aid for Ukraine is cleared for release by the Pentagon and US Department of State.

23 September - Trump confirms he withheld Ukrainian aid, saying it was due to concerns about "corruption".


24 September - Trump says the aid was withheld so that other countries would pay more

Some details of the call
The White House released a summary of the call in a memo which basically contained notes of the call that was taken by White House staff who listened-in during the call.

According to the BBC, Trump is quoted as saying in the half-hour call: "I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that's really unfair.

Zelensky and Trump at UNGA 2019.
Photo credit: The Guardian

"A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved."

He continues: "The other thing, there's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution [of Mr Biden's son] and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the [US] Attorney General would be great.

"Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it... It sounds horrible to me."

Mr Zelensky says in response: "We will take care of that and we will work on the investigation of the case."

Thanking Mr Trump, Mr Zelensky says he stayed in Trump Tower in New York City during a previous visit to the US.

On the call, the US president also asks Mr Zelensky to work with US Attorney General William Barr and Mr Trump's personal lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani, to look into the matter, according to the notes.

Meanwhile, the Department of Justice said on Wednesday that Mr Trump had not spoken with the attorney general about having Ukraine investigate Mr Biden, and Mr Barr had not communicated with Ukraine.

In the summary of the call, Mr Trump does not tell the Ukrainian president that US aid hinges upon him investigating Mr Biden.

But Mr Trump stresses the importance of US financial support, before pressing Mr Zelensky for action on the Democratic candidate.

"I will say that we do a lot for Ukraine," Mr Trump says.

You can read a more detailed record of the call here.

Allegation against Biden
A former General Prosecutor (Attorney-General) of Ukraine, Mr. Viktor Shokin had opened an investigation into Burisma, a natural gas company on which Mr Biden's son, Hunter Biden, was a board member.

Republicans have continued to allege that in 2016, then US Vice President Biden had successfully lobbied Ukraine to fire Mr. Shokin.
Western officials had called for Mr Shokin to be fired because of the perception that he was soft on corruption.

Last year, while speaking at a foreign policy event, Mr. Biden had told of how he threatened to withhold $1 billion in aid to Ukraine unless Mr Shokin was fired. He said he gave them six hours to get him fired, and he got fired.

Reactions to the call
On Wednesday morning at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City, Mr Trump said it was the "single greatest witch hunt in American history".

"The way you had that built up that call, it was going to be the call from hell," said Mr Trump, "it turned out to be a nothing call."

Speaking alongside Mr Trump at the event, Mr Zelensky told reporters: "You heard that we had a, I think, good phone call.

"It was normal. We spoke about many things, so I think you read it that nobody pushed me."

"In other words, no pressure," interjected Mr Trump.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
Photo credit: The New York Times

However, while many Democrats have described the president's actions as a gross abuse of power, Republicans have maintained a wall of support for the president saying that he clearly did nothing wrong. According to them, details of the call as released by the White House are a vindication for the president, and showed no evidence of a quid pro quo. The only exception for now is Republican Senator Mitt Romney who describes the details of the call as "deeply troubling".

Meanwhile, in a Tweet yesterday, President Trump says he has told both House GOP leader and all House Republicans that he "fully supports transparency on so-called whistleblower information, but also insists on transparency from Joe Biden and his son Hunter". He alleges that millions of dollars have been received by the Bidens from Ukraine and China. He also says that he demands transparency from Democrats who he claims "went to Ukraine and attempted to force the new president to do things that they wanted under the form of political threat".

My Take
Donald Trump is at this time a sitting US President who is vieing for reelection next year. Hence, on one hand, he is the president, and reserves the right to seek an enquiry into the facts when an accusation has been made against no less a person as a former vice president over his actions in the foreign arena (possibly involving a quid pro quo), especially when the former VP himself has publicly corroborated the accusation.

However, I question the propriety of asking a foreign government to conduct that investigation. Perhaps, it may be because a former chief prosecutor of that foreign government is involved too. Or a testament to the fact that Trump does not trust the FBI to handle it.

But when I consider that the accused in this case is a political opponent of the president who is also contesting for president, I immediately find Trump's actions to be reckless. Even if there is a case here to be pursued, I don't think this was the best time for the president to have talked to Zelensky about it. A sense of propriety and decency of action is expected of a leader at all times.

However, I do not think Trump's actions warrant impeachment because since he is in fact carrying out his duty by asking for an enquiry where there should be one, he has not broken the law.

Also, while Biden is seen as a frontrunner for the office of president in the build-up to next year's elections, he has yet to secure the Democratic nomination and become Trump's challenger. In fact, current polling data show Elizabeth Warren likely to beat Biden to secure the nomination.

Since taking office, however, Trump has consistently faced attacks from Democrats in their bid to have him removed from office. With this development, he just handed them another chance to do that. But I think this chance is not worth what the Democrats think it's worth.