The Editorial Board

USA TODAY

Conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was no isolated incident.

Trump wanted one investigation into the Biden family and another that would lend credence to his conspiracy theories about the 2016 election.

Ukraine, moreover, is no ordinary country but rather a vital piece of America's national security interests in containing a belligerent Russia.

When Donald Trump was revealed to have urged Ukraine's president in a phone call to mount a politically motivated investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden, Washington gasped. Here, after all, was the U.S. president using the power, prestige and leverage of his office to pressure a dependent head of state to do his political dirty work. Even in an era when deviancy has been defined downward, it was shocking. And, it turns out, not the whole story.

In the ensuing days, it has become clear that the conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was no isolated incident but rather part of a months-long campaign to trade arms and prestige for political dirt.

Trump wanted one investigation into the Biden family and another that would lend credence to his conspiracy theories about the 2016 election. In return, he dangled the chance for a much-wanted face-to-face meeting between the two leaders, and he suspended $391 million in military aid to Ukraine in an apparent bid to apply further pressure.

Text messages provided to Congress by a former U.S. diplomat back up the initial account from an intelligence community whistleblower.

Bill Taylor, the U.S. representative in Kyiv, states that a decision to withhold the military aid to Ukraine was driven by Trump’s determination to put the squeeze on Zelensky: "As I said on the phone, I think it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.”

REP. JIM JORDAN:Democrats trying to impeach President Trump are misusing authority

On top of all of that, last week Trump publicly asked China to investigate the Bidens as well. That’s a bit like being accused of robbing a liquor store and then going out and holding up another one in broad daylight, arguing that if you do it all the time it must be OK.

The bigger picture coming into focus is an extended campaign to strong-arm Ukraine into validating Trump’s criticism of Biden by launching a well-publicized investigation. That amounts to Trump asking a foreign country to interfere in a U.S. election to his benefit.

Ukraine, moreover, is no ordinary country but rather a vital piece of America's national security interests in containing a belligerent Russia. In 2014, Russia mounted an invasion from the Black Sea to occupy and annex Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. That same year, it began a proxy war in Ukraine’s east in an effort to wrest even more territory from the fledgling nation, created in 1990 after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the 1990s, the United States and other Western powers persuaded Ukraine to give up its nuclear weapons and provided security assurances against Russian aggression.

Ukraine is far from perfect. A string of inept governments and widespread corruption have enabled Russian intervention. But the nation needs American help, including military assistance. And it is clearly in America’s security interests to provide such help.

Trump's effort to subordinate these vital U.S. interests to his desire to smear a potential 2020 political rival is by far the most troubling aspect of what appears to be a global campaign to misuse U.S. government resources and lean on foreign powers to do Trump’s political bidding.

No less than the U.S. attorney general, William Barr, was dispatched to roam the world trying to convince foreign governments of investigate aspects of the 2016 election. Trump is trying to advance a bogus narrative that Russia’s well-documented meddling in the election was minimal, and that the real story is that U.S. intelligence services were conspiring against Trump.

In a matter of a few short weeks, so many damning disclosures of malfeasance by Trump and his administration have emerged that they are hard to keep track of. The evidence of the president’s misuse of his powers is extensive, well-documented and growing by the day.

If you can't see this reader poll, please refresh your page.