Impeach

by Neal Katyal

  Together, the State Department and the Department of Defense were set to send Ukraine $391 million in military aid, but at the last minute, President Trump ignored the Office of Management and Budget’s rules and ordered it withheld. At the time, President Trump didn’t provide an explanation for his actions. The State Department and the Department of Defense were simply directed by the White House to communicate to members of Congress that there had been an “interagency delay.”

  Ambassador William Taylor, who was then the top US official in Ukraine, said that he didn’t find out about the hold until it had already been implemented. “Toward the end of an otherwise normal [National Security Council video-conference] a voice on the call—the person was off-screen—said that she was from OMB and that her boss had instructed her not to approve any additional spending of security assistance for Ukraine until further notice,” Ambassador Taylor recalled. “I and others sat in astonishment. The Ukrainians were fighting the Russians and counted on not only the training and weapons, but also the assurance of US support.”

  Why had the United States made this decision—let alone without the input of Ambassador Taylor? “All that the OMB staff person said was that the directive had come from the president to the Chief of Staff to OMB,” Taylor remembered. “One of the key pillars of our strong support for Ukraine was threatened.”

  Soon thereafter, according to Ambassador Taylor’s testimony to Congress, “the Defense Department was asked to perform an analysis of the effectiveness of the assistance. Within a day, the DOD came back with the determination that the assistance was effective and should be resumed.”

  And yet—the assistance still wasn’t released.

  For weeks, US officials kept this hold hidden from the public, but Ambassador Taylor came to understand that the only way the assistance would be released was if President Zelensky agreed to open up two investigations. The first would be into whether a company called CrowdStrike had falsely blamed Russia for hacking the Democratic National Committee in 2016. The second would be into Vice President Joe Biden’s ties to a Ukrainian company called Burisma. In fact, Ambassador Taylor learned, President Trump wouldn’t even agree to a meeting with President Zelensky until the Ukrainian leader announced these investigations—an announcement that was supposed to be aired not on Fox News, but on the more neutral CNN.

  This account is corroborated by a text that Kurt Volker, President Trump’s special representative for Ukraine, wrote to Gordon Sondland, the United States ambassador to the European Union, stipulating the terms for a meeting. “Most impt,” Volker wrote, “is for Zelensky to say that he will help investigation.”

  At first President Zelensky balked at the request to open investigations at President Trump’s behest. As Ambassador Taylor noted in a text to Sondland, “President Zelenskyy is sensitive about Ukraine being taken seriously, not merely as an instrument in Washington domestic, reelection politics.” But after weeks of discussions with members of the US government, President Zelensky finally scheduled a phone call with President Trump.

  The Call

  The phone call took place on July 25, exactly one day after Special Counsel Robert Mueller testified before Congress.

  The conversation began not with hostility but with flattery. President Trump congratulated Zelensky on winning his election. And Zelensky, in turn, said he was “trying to work hard because we want to drain the swamp here in our country,” referencing Trump’s campaign slogan.

  But after a few civil exchanges between the two leaders, President Trump began laying the groundwork for his request—channeling the kind of language often used by members of the Mafia before requesting a favor. “The United States has been very, very good to Ukraine,” he said. “We do a lot for Ukraine. We spend a lot of effort and a lot of time.” As Congressman Adam Schiff argued, President Trump might as well have said, “That’s a nice country you have. It’d be a shame if something happened to it.”

  Over the course of mere seconds, Trump transitioned from saying the United States “has been very, very good to Ukraine” to claiming Ukraine hadn’t been “reciprocal” with its generosity. Zelensky, for his part, did not dispute Trump’s account, saying that Trump’s analysis was “absolutely right—not only 100 percent, but actually 1,000 percent.”

  And then, Zelensky brought up the question of military assistance. “I would also like to thank you for your great support in the area of defense,” he said. “We are ready to continue to cooperate for the next steps; specifically, we are almost ready to buy more Javelins from the United States for defense purposes.” (These shoulder-fired missile systems are seen as an effective way to defend against incursions of Russian tanks crossing the country’s eastern border—and they could have been funded in part with the aid Congress had approved but Trump was now withholding.)

  President Trump’s response to this comment marked the first moment he acknowledged the personal arrangement he had been trying to broker between the United States and Ukraine—in other words, the first moment he tried to establish a quid pro quo exchange. Sure, he indicated, he’d sell them the Javelins, before qualifying his answer: “I would like you to do us a favor though.”

  This favor, it turned out, consisted of opening the two investigations mentioned above. First he mentioned CrowdStrike, a company at the center of a long-debunked conspiracy theory about the 2016 election. “The server, they say Ukraine has it,” President Trump said on the call. “I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it,” he declared.

  But he didn’t stop there. After a quick digression about the Russia investigation (“As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller”), President Trump noted there was one “other thing” he’d like President Zelensky to investigate. “There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son,” he said, referencing Hunter Biden’s work with a Ukrainian company called Burisma. “A lot of people want to find out about that,” he went on, “so whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great.”

  Trump’s claim on the call was that Vice President Biden “went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution” of his son—by encouraging Ukraine to fire a prosecutor named Viktor Shokin. Hunter and Joe Biden’s activities were far from perfect (as I explain in Chapter 4), but the reality is that Shokin simply had not been investigating Hunter Biden or Burisma at the time of his firing. And in 2016, Republicans and Democrats alike advocated for his removal. As Republican senator Ron Johnson said, “The whole world felt that Shokin wasn’t doing a [good] enough job.” Senator Portman expressed a similar view. Shokin was removed because he “wasn’t doing nearly enough to root out corruption,” the senator said, “not because he was doing too much.”

  Nevertheless, when Trump asked Zelensky to look into Vice President Biden, the Ukrainian leader didn’t reject the request. In fact, he went so far as to assent to it, promising to “look into the situation, specifically to the company that you mentioned in this issue.”

  President Trump then confirmed that Attorney General William Barr would be involved in this investigation as well, promising that he’d “have Mr. Giuliani give you a call and . . . have Attorney General Barr call.” Viktor Shokin, he pleaded to Zelensky, one more time, “was treated very badly and . . . was a very fair prosecutor.”

  In response, Zelensky thanked Trump for the advice before closing the call the same way he opened it—by pandering. “Actually last time I traveled to the United States, I stayed in New York near Central Park and I stayed at the Trump Tower,” he said, before promising once more that he “will be very serious about the case and will work on the investigation.”

  This promise to launch an investigation didn’t only fulfill President Trump’s first proposed quid pro quo, about the Javelins. It also met the specifications for the Trump Administration’s second goodie, one only a president could dangle—a White House visit. In response to
Zelensky’s pledge to “work on the investigation,” Trump said, “Whenever you would like to come to the White House, feel free to call . . . Give us a date, and we’ll work that out,” he added. “I look forward to seeing you.”

  This second quid pro quo—trading an investigation for a White House visit—didn’t come about spontaneously but had been arranged by Trump’s envoys prior to the phone call. “Heard from White House,” Volker said in a text to one of President Zelensky’s advisers, written before the conversation took place. “Assuming President Z convinces Trump he will investigate . . . we will nail down his visit to Washington.”

  With President Trump convinced of President Zelensky’s intentions to investigate CrowdStrike and Vice President Biden—and with Zelensky promised a White House visit—the phone call came to a close.

  “I look forward to seeing you in Washington,” Trump concluded.

  Zelensky responded, “Thank you very much, Mr. President.”

  After a few more pleasantries the phone call ended, with a deal between the two presidents in place.

  What Wasn’t Said

  As startling as the “transcript” itself is, what’s also notable is what was not mentioned in the phone call. President Trump didn’t spend even a single moment discussing US national interests or Ukraine’s efforts to contain Russia. The entirety of the call focused on President Trump’s past and present political opponents.

  Why, then, did President Zelensky, who—as Ambassador Taylor explained—claimed not to want to involve himself in “Washington domestic, reelection politics,” oblige President Trump’s requests?

  There is no rational explanation other than that President Zelensky believed he needed to do so to extract concessions from President Trump.

  But while Zelensky did secure a meeting with Trump after the phone call, for weeks and weeks, the security assistance never came.

  “I Think It’s Crazy”

  The day after the phone call, Volker and Sondland headed to Ukraine, where they met with President Zelensky. They were there to provide “advice to the Ukrainian leadership about how to ‘navigate’ the demands that the president had made.”

  But whatever actions Zelensky took in the following days were clearly insufficient—because the aid never arrived. This distressed Ambassador Taylor, who didn’t understand why the president would hold Ukraine hostage over political favors. After all, Congress had already appropriated this aid to Ukraine, so as more time passed, members of Trump’s administration knew his refusal to send the funds to Kiev would raise eyebrows in Congress and in the press. And as predicted, on August 28, Politico ran a story with the headline “Trump Holds Up Ukraine Military Aid Meant to Confront Russia.”

  Over the course of the next week, Ambassadors Taylor and Sondland debated how best to deal with this situation. “Are we now saying that security assistance and WH meeting are conditioned on investigations?” Taylor texted. “Call me,” Sondland replied.

  As the days passed by, President Zelensky’s refusal to publicly open up a probe of Vice President Biden persisted—and so too did President Trump’s hold on sending Ukraine its military assistance. In fact, according to Taylor’s testimony, Ambassador Sondland explicitly told one of President Zelensky’s closest aides, Andriy Yermak, “that the security assistance would not come until President Zelenskyy committed to pursuing the Burisma investigation.” And President Trump’s demands didn’t stop there. A private promise from President Zelensky, he decided, wouldn’t be enough, because President Trump wanted the Ukrainian president “in a public box.”

  “Everything,” Taylor explained, “was dependent” on Ukraine’s compliance with Trump’s demand. This, according to Taylor, was an order from Trump himself: “Ambassador Sondland told me that President Trump had told him that he wants President Zelenskyy to state publicly that Ukraine will investigate Burisma and alleged Ukrainian interference in the 2016 US election.”

  More than two months after Trump first directed the State Department and the Department of Defense to withhold the funding, Ambassador Taylor declared he’d had enough. “As I said on the phone,” he texted Sondland, “I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.”

  When Taylor sent that message, he and Sondland had been exchanging messages every few minutes, but suddenly Sondland went silent for almost five hours. Over the course of that time, the Wall Street Journal has reported, Sondland spoke to President Trump, whose White House had recently heard about a complaint from a whistleblower about all this—a complaint that would later unravel the entire scheme.

  Finally Sondland wrote to Taylor: “I believe you are incorrect about President Trump’s intentions. The President has been crystal clear no quid pro quo’s of any kind.”

  September 9, 2019, Text Messages Between Taylor and Sondland

  [9/9/19, 12:31:06 AM] Bill Taylor: The message to the Ukrainians (and Russians) we send with the decision on security assistance is key. With the hold, we have already shaken their faith in us. Thus my nightmare scenario.

  [9/9/19, 12:34:44 AM] Bill Taylor: Counting on you to be right about this interview, Gordon.

  [9/9/19, 12:37:16 AM] Gordon Sondland: Bill, I never said I was “right.” I said we are where we are and believe we have identified the best pathway forward. Lets hope it works.

  [9/9/19, 12:47:11 AM] Bill Taylor: As I said on the phone, I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.

  [9/9/19, 5:19:35 AM] Gordon Sondland: Bill, I believe you are incorrect about President Trump’s intentions. The President has been crystal clear no quid pro quo’s of any kind. The President is trying to evaluate whether Ukraine is truly going to adopt the transparency and reforms that President Zelensky promised during his campaign I suggest we stop the back and forth by text If you still have concerns I recommend you give Lisa Kenna or S a call to discuss them directly. Thanks.

  Sondland’s text should be read with more than a few grains of salt—because not only did he wait hours to respond, and not only did he speak to President Trump in the interim, but it is unclear how or why Sondland became involved in President Trump’s dealings with Ukraine in the first place. Before President Trump’s victory in 2016, Sondland had been a hotelier—and his central qualification to be ambassador seemed to have been his $1 million donation to the Trump Inaugural Committee. Besides, the ambassador to the European Union doesn’t typically have jurisdiction over Ukraine, because, well, Ukraine is not in the European Union.

  Moreover, according to the testimonies of both Trump aide Fiona Hill and Ambassador Taylor, Ambassador Sondland had been a part of Trump’s campaign to open up these investigations in the first place. And in a remarkable press conference, White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney later confirmed that President Trump had in fact been withholding foreign aid until Ukraine agreed to investigate Democrats, claiming that quid pro quo arrangements like these happen “all the time with foreign policy.”

  Even before the Mulvaney admission, Sondland’s text had been widely read as a last-minute gambit to hide the quid pro quo so many in the president’s orbit knew to have taken place—in the way a drug dealer, realizing he’s speaking to an undercover agent, might say, “I believe you misunderstood me. I meant 60 units of Coca-Cola.”

  No wonder national security adviser John Bolton, upon hearing about what had been taking place between Washington and Kiev, reportedly said, “I am not part of whatever drug deal Sondland and Mulvaney are cooking up.”

  Ultimately, despite Sondland’s last-minute attempt to cover up the offense in his September 9 text exchange with Taylor, President Trump’s fate had in some ways already been sealed. One month earlier, a whistleblower filed a complaint with the Department of Justice. And in a few weeks, it would reveal much of what Sondland, Trump, and the rest of the administration had been working so hard to hide. This whistleblower was about to become the modern-day equivalent of Watergate night watchman
Frank Wills. Only this time, the watchman knew right away that he was unveiling a deep abuse of power—and an attempt to cover it up.

  A Whistleblower Report, Suppressed

  On August 12, 2019, the whistleblower filed an anonymous complaint with the inspector general of the intelligence community. The inspector general is kind of like an ombudsman for the various intelligence agencies, and this one, Michael Atkinson, was appointed by none other than Donald Trump. But after IG Atkinson read the report (which you can read for yourself in the appendix to this book), he declared it an “urgent concern” and requested that the acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, send it over to Congress, as federal law commands.

  Yet weeks went by without either Maguire or Atkinson telling a single elected representative about the whistleblower’s report, let alone granting Congress access to the complaint itself. In a letter IG Atkinson sent to the House Intelligence Committee on September 17, explaining the delay, he stated that he and Maguire were at an “impasse.” And suddenly, it was unclear whether the public would ever learn anything about what was going on.

  That’s not what’s supposed to happen.

  Earlier in my life, I served as National Security Adviser at the Justice Department, where I got to see the extensive legal framework that governs our intelligence community in action. Before joining the government, I had watched too many spy movies about rogue agents, so I had no idea how regulated our intelligence services are. But once I understood the stakes of what they do, I immediately recognized why we needed clear guidelines for how to operate. Because, every day, human lives depended on us not messing up.