With citations!

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There’s a lot going on with the impeachment inquiry and even as someone who follows this stuff closely, it can be super confusing. In this post, I think I suitably cover all the basics about Trump’s phone call, why the Ukraine is involved in all this, the allegations against the Biden family, and how impeachment even works in the first place.

1. On September 18th, the Washington Post broke a story that an unnamed “whistleblower” had filed a complaint in July about a “promise” President Trump made to a foreign leader over the phone.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trumps-communications-with-foreign-leader-are-part-of-whistleblower-complaint-that-spurred-standoff-between-spy-chief-and-congress-former-officials-say/2019/09/18/df651aa2-da60-11e9-bfb1-849887369476_story.html

2. A whistleblower is someone who puts themselves at risk by exposing wrongdoing within their affiliated group or government. Political whistleblowers have been around since forever, but became a more publicly acknowledged thing in the 60s and 70s with The Pentagon Papers and the Watergate scandal. Edward Snowden, who released secret papers from the NSA about a decade ago, is a more recent example.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUFtqyzotmA

3. The Whistleblower Protection Act was passed in 1989 to help allow this freedom of speech, as well as to have some legal protections for those who do.

People were upset that the New York Times decided to share some details about the whistleblower, identifying that he is a male CIA agent, amongst other details. This was seen as damaging to the professional integrity of the paper, although the Times defended itself by saying that they were trying to let readers determine their own thoughts about the credibility of the whistleblower. The whistleblower is now under federal protection from serious threats to their safety.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/new-york-times-criticized-article-details-about-whistleblower-n1059331

https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-103/pdf/STATUTE-103-Pg16.pdf

4. After it was written up, the whistleblower’s complaint was then given to the Director of National Intelligence, Joseph Maguire. Maguire decided to turn in this report in to the White House, even though it contained concerns about the president. The original word-for-word transcript and all other records about the call were put immediately into a private server for highly classified documents.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/acting-intelligence-chief-maguire-testifies-on-whistleblower-complaint-11569501934

https://www.wsj.com/articles/acting-intelligence-chief-maguire-testifies-on-whistleblower-complaint-11569501934

5. In the past few days, there has been criticism as to how this server has been used. Transcripts of presidential phone calls are typically kept on a computer system that, at most, a few dozen people have access to. This newly discovered server–the one that has the full call transcript–requires a much higher level of authority to access it. Now it’s been discovered that the Trump administration has hidden lots of documents and call transcripts on there without explanation.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-whistleblower-server/a-computer-server-haunted-clinton-in-2016-now-it-may-be-trumps-turn-idUSKBN1WB2NE

6. At first, no one knew which foreign leader President Trump had talked to, because he had made phone calls to five foreign leaders in the timespan being considered. The Washington Post once again did the deep digging and discovered that the call in question was to the president of the Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky.

https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/462464-timeline-the-trump-whistleblower-complaint

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/whistleblower-complaint-about-president-trump-involves-ukraine-according-to-two-people-familiar-with-the-matter/2019/09/19/07e33f0a-daf6-11e9-bfb1-849887369476_story.html

7. The details started pouring out and continue to tumble out with every passing day. The Post revealed that the call had Trump encouraging an investigation about Hunter Biden, Vice President Joe Biden’s son. The New York Times found out that Trump had told Zelensky (the Ukranian president) to speak to Rudy Guilini, Trump’s attorney, about the Bidens. And The Wall Street Journal found out that this push to investigate Biden’s son was made by Trump at least eight times during the call.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-pressed-ukrainian-leader-to-investigate-bidens-son-according-to-people-familiar-with-the-matter/2019/09/20/7fa39b20-dbdc-11e9-bfb1-849887369476_story.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/19/us/politics/intelligence-whistle-blower-complaint-trump.html

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-defends-conversation-with-ukraine-leader-11568993176

8. What could the Biden family have done? Well, let’s go back to 2014. President Obama was trying to establish better relations with the Ukranian government at the time. (The Ukraine also had a different president in 2014, by the way.) Joe Biden was sent to the Ukraine to help encourage their government to get more natural gas from the US instead of Russia.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-arrives-in-ukraine-to-show-us-support-as-crisis-with-russia-continues/2014/04/21/e4a77800-c960-11e3-a75e-463587891b57_story.html

9. Okay, time for some brief history. Sooo the nature of the Ukraine’s relationship to other European countries, Russia, and the US is too much to get into on a single Facebook post, but TL: DR the country had a very rough time in the 20th century. Stalin accepted them into the USSR and treated them absolutely horribly, starving their citizens. The country finally became independent again in 1991 when the Cold War ended.

10. The Ukraine became part of the EU. However, at this point, lots of Russians and Russian sympathizers were still there from the USSR years. Ever since then, it’s been a tug of war between Ukraininans on the west side of the country who mostly still want to be part of Russia, and the eastern-bound people who mostly want the country to remain independent. Both sides have taken power at one point or another, and both sides have had their share of corrupt politicians.

11. And then in 2013, the pro-Russia government decided to turn its back on the EU. The anti-Russian Ukrainians were livid. They didn’t want to go back to how things were under Stalin. They started a revolution and successfully got that government taken out of power, which only made Russia furious. Putin sent in troops to take down the anti-Russia protesters. Russia completely took over the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea in 2014.

12. Peace talks were attempted in 2015. They failed. Putin didn’t want them to have a relationship with the European Union or anybody that threatened Russian power. And so the bloodfest continues to this day. Hundreds of thousands have died.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fb9U1uoYCOc

13. So you can see why the US wanted to calm the waters . Asking the Ukraine to buy more natural gas from us over Russia was our way of showing allyship, an offense that Russia did not take lightly.

14. Now here’s where Joe Biden’s son comes in. It just so happened that Hunter Biden joined the board of directors of a Ukranian natural gas company called Burisma around the same time this happened. And the person running that company was very criminal. He laundered money and faced tax evasion, amongst other crimes.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/22/us/politics/biden-ukraine-trump.html

15. There was a Ukrainian investigator looking into Burisma’s owner, but he was moving verrry slowly about it, using poor tactics. He wasn’t trusted by many outside of the Ukraine, the Obama administration included. They wanted to build some positive ties to the Ukraine, and this wasn’t a great start. Joe Biden declared that $1 billion dollars would be held back in U.S. aid to the Ukraine unless the investigator was removed and replaced. The investigator was removed.

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2019/may/07/viral-image/fact-checking-joe-biden-hunter-biden-and-ukraine/

16. So why do Republicans have a problem with this? Because from the outside, it looks as though Biden was helping to remove the guy who was investigating the company his son was working with. This is despite the fact that the new investigator who replaced the fired guy was much harder on Burisma. No proof has ever been established that Biden even knew that his son was working with Burisma until the media reported on it. Furthermore, that fired investigator says he was only investigating the Burisma owner, not Hunter Biden.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-16/ukraine-prosecutor-says-no-evidence-of-wrongdoing-by-bidens

17. Nevertheless, Trump supporters have leapt on the fact that it’s definitely not a good look on the Biden family. It certainly wasn’t smart for Hunter Biden to join that natural gas board in the first place, considering his father’s position of power. Hunter already has a bad public image from reports of spending family money on booze, drugs, and prostitutes. He also reportedly had an affair with the widow of his deceased brother.

https://pagesix.com/2019/07/01/joe-biden-learned-of-son-hunters-affair-with-beaus-widow-from-page-six/

18. Considering that Trump believes Joe Biden to be his biggest political rival in the 2020 presidential election, the president has been eager to try and dig up more about Hunter Biden’s time with Burisma. He planned to send his attorney, Rudy Giulini, to meet with the new president of the Ukraine and convince them to start an investigation into Hunter Biden.

19. Rudy was also supposed to be there to follow up on details about Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman who was recently locked up for tax and bank fraud after the results of the Mueller investigation. Manafort had many close, mutually supportive ties to the Ukraine and one of its pro-Russia presidents. At one point the Ukraine had helped provide information to Mueller about Paul Manafort, but abruptly stopped in May of 2018 in fear of offending Trump and potentially at Guiliani’s urging.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/09/us/politics/giuliani-ukraine-trump.html?module=inline

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/02/world/europe/ukraine-mueller-manafort-missiles.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/30/us/politics/ukraine-giuliani-foreign-work.html

20. Rudy cancelled his trip to the Ukraine once the nature of the meeting got out, but he later flew there for the same mission in June and August of this year. He talked to Ukraininan officials who confirmed that he was there to talk about Biden.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-defends-conversation-with-ukraine-leader-11568993176

21. Guiliani even spoke directly to Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, on the phone about the topic a few days before Trump did, knowing that Zelensky is pro-Russia. Rudy also tried to arrange a direct meeting with Trump and Zelensky. Trump only agreed to a phone call, and only if they could talk about a potential Biden investigation, even though he had already been told that the Biden lead was false, provably piped through Putin-approved propaganda.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/20/us/politics/whistle-blower-trump-grudge.html

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/ukrainians-understood-biden-probe-condition-trump-zelensky-phone/story?id=65863043

22. Congress had approved $400 million in funding to help the Ukranian government at the beginning of 2019. Suspiciously, right before Rudy and Trump spoke to Zelensky, the most recent payment didn’t show up in the Ukraine. This was at Trump’s request. The excuse made at the time was that Trump had “concerns” about how the money was going to be spent.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-ordered-hold-on-military-aid-days-before-calling-ukrainian-president-officials-say/2019/09/23/df93a6ca-de38-11e9-8dc8-498eabc129a0_story.html

23. So the real problem here isn’t just that Trump was asking for an investigation into his political rival. It’s that during his call he implied that the Ukraine would not get the rest of the money unless they did so. In the summarized version of the phone transcripts the White House released, a direct mention to the money was never made, but it was hinted at several times through phrases like asking the Ukranian president to “do us a favor” after the US has helped the Ukraine so much. He has shaken down the Ukraine before on this matter, stretching back to 2017.

Guiliani defended the president’s right to do this by tweeting that the president “has every right to tell the president of another country you better straighten out the corruption in your country if you want me to give you a lot of money.” Trump also defended this idea by saying “If you don’t talk about corruption, why would you give money to a country that you think is corrupt?”

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/20/politics/donald-trump-whistleblower/index.html

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/giuliani-says-he-can-t-be-100-percent-sure-trump-n1057561

24. This isn’t the first connection Trump has had to the Ukraine either. His former attorney, Michael Cohen–who is also in prison right now–worked with a Ukranian politician to negotiate a sanctions deal between the US and Russia for Trump. Trump also turned down plans by the GOP to help fund weapons to anti-Russian Ukrainians. One of his legal advisors represents a Ukranian oligarch, not to mention the many ties Trump’s associates have had to Russia and the Ukraine as shown in the Mueller Report. Rudy Guiliani has now been subpoenaed by the House to hand over all documents relating to the current scandal.

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-impeachment-pelosi-tip-iceberg-manafort-1461143

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/rudy-giuliani-subpoenaed-by-house-committees/

25. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was also on the call to the Ukranian president and has now been under the microscope because of it. Pompeo has also been subpoenaed.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/30/politics/pompeo-trump-ukraine-phone-call/index.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twCNN&utm_term=link&utm_content=2019-09-30T21%3A33%3A38

26. US Attorney General William Barr has also been criticized for knowing about the call and making recent efforts to privately ask foreign officials, including ones in Australia, to find dirt about the origins of the Mueller Report. His communications have included Joseph Mifsud, a Kremlin agent. Trump also told the Ukranian president to talk to Barr in his phone call.

https://www.cbsnews.com/live-news/impeachment-trump-inquiry-giuliani-subpoena-william-barr-revelations-ukraine-live-updates-2019-10-01/

https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-01/donald-trump-pressed-scott-morrison-for-help-mueller-report/11562604

https://www.thedailybeast.com/barr-went-to-rome-to-hear-a-secret-tape-from-joseph-mifsud-the-professor-who-helped-ignite-the-russia-probe

27. Trump has furiously defended himself against the controversy, using similar tactics as he did in reacting to the Mueller report with phrases like “witch hunt” and calling the whistleblower “almost a spy” and those investigating Trump “traitors.” He says his phone call was “perfect.” He also insists that what he did was for the good of the country because of the alleged crimes of the Bidens. Ukrainian president Zelensky did a public appearance with Trump in the wake of the breaking news and stumbled through a declaration that he felt the phone call was merely “normal” and that “no one pushed me.”

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ukraine-president-backs-trump-says-no-pressure-on-biden-probe

28. Other tactics at deflecting the Ukranian news include attempts at connecting the whistleblower to a “deep state” conspiracy that involves leftist celebrities and companies who are anti-Trump, debunked allegations that the Democratic National Committee was hiding a secret server in the Ukraine that Trump needed to know about, and claims that the problem with the scandal isn’t Trumps call but that White House security isn’t tight enough to prevent leaks like this from coming out.

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/fox-news-goes-all-in-on-new-theory-whistleblower-had-outside-help-crafting-his-complaint/

https://www.thedailybeast.com/crowdstrike-the-truth-about-trumps-insane-ukraine-server-conspiracy

29. On September 24th, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the House of Representatives would be opening up an impeachment inquiry in the wake of the whistleblower complaint.

https://www.rollcall.com/news/congress/pelosi-announces-formal-impeachment-inquiry

30. Impeachment does not mean that a president will be removed from office. Presidents Andrew Jackson and Bill Clinton were impeached, but also finished out the rest of their terms. Nixon resigned after an inquiry was launched towards him, but before he could be impeached. Impeachment is just a way for the government to say that someone has committed “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors” and so far only 19 people in the U.S. government have had that happen to them.

31. Now that Pelosi has initiated the impeachment inquiry, a committee within the House has to investigate and decide if the issue is worth continuing. Then they can bring it to the entire House to look at and vote upon whether the impeachment is official. Since the Democrats have a majority in the House of Representatives, it is possible that they could easily solidify the 51% group vote needed to ensure impeachment.

32. The much more unlikely (but not impossible) next step after that is whether the president should be convicted and removed from office. A bunch of folks from the House then act as prosecutors and bring the case to the Senate, headed by the U.S. Chief Justice acting as judge. The reason why this next step would be difficult to succeed at is because in order for the president to lose this case, he would have to have 2/3rds of the Senate vote for his removal, and currently the Senate is vastly controlled by Republicans. Also, the case might not even get that far if the Senate votes to dismiss the House’s findings. Anywho, if Trump is removed from office, Vice President Mike Pence assumes the role of president. If he isn’t, he’s still considered impeached, but he continues being president.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/05/impeachment-6-190510153644885.html

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/benking/confused-by-the-impeachment-process-this-flowchart-should

33. While Trump could reasonably be judged for impeachment by the criminal acts and attempts of obstruction outlined in the Mueller Report, Pelosi has confirmed that the House is focusing on just the Ukraine scandal as grounds for the investigation because it has a narrower scope and therefore would be easier to accomplish before the 2020 election.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/26/politics/adam-schiff-house-intelligence-ukraine-investigation-pelosi/index.html

And there you have it! Let me know if I missed something important or misinterpreted some of the facts and I can update this article. There’s a lot of details I didn’t include because they’re still being investigated or I don’t have enough information/journalistic experience on how to connect them in a straightforward way. Let’s stay informed.