WTF Just Happened Today

Monday, September 23, 2019

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1/ Trump admitted that he discussed getting dirt on Joe Biden with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and that he is withholding the whistleblower complaint from Congress. Trump pressed Zelensky to dig up potentially damaging information against Biden during a July 25th phone call, baselessly accusing the former vice president of corruption related to his son Hunter's business dealings in Ukraine and whether they affected his diplomatic efforts. Trump said that "it doesn't matter" what he discussed with Zelensky and that while the he would "love" to release a transcript of the call, "you have to be a little bit shy about doing it." Trump's phone call with Zelensky occurred while Ukraine was awaiting $250 million in security aid, raising the possibility Trump was attempting a quid pro quo arrangement. The phone call led to the whistleblower complaint from within the intelligence community due to a "promise" that Trump made to Ukraine. Trump eventually agreed to release the money after coming under bipartisan pressure from Congress and immediately before the existence of the whistleblower complaint was revealed. (New York Times / Washington Post / Axios / Bloomberg / CNN)

• ???? TL;DR\ What is going with Trump, Biden, and Ukraine: Trump pressured Ukraine's government, both directly and indirectly, to investigate Biden's son and potentially did so using military aid as a means of leverage. (BuzzFeed News / Wall Street Journal / New York Times)

• ???? TRUTH CHECK:\ Did Joe Biden do anything wrong? The issue is whether Biden used his position as vice president to help a Ukrainian energy company that was paying Hunter Biden by pushing for the ouster of a Ukrainian prosecutor. The prosecutor's office had oversight of investigations into the oligarch who owned the company. As reported on May 1, 2019, no evidence has surfaced that the former vice president intentionally tried to help his son by pressing for the prosecutor’s dismissal. (New York Times)

• Did Hunter Biden do anything wrong? Hunter Biden has not been accused of legal wrongdoing related to his work for Burisma, which paid him as much as $50,000 per month in some months for his service on the board of the directors. But he has been criticized by government watchdog groups in the United States and Ukraine for what they characterize as the perception of a conflict of interest, and trading on his family name by allowing it to be used to burnish the reputations of Burisma and Mr. Zlochevsky. (New York Times)

• May 16, 2019: Ukraine's prosecutor gener...

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