Trump Freezes $391 Million In Military Aid To Pressure Ukraine Into Investigating His Likeliest Opponent, Resolving Long-Standing Concern That American Foreign Policy Was Still Being Conducted On Behalf Of The United States

The Filing

WASHINGTON. In a development the administration characterized as entirely routine, President Donald J. Trump spent the summer of 2019 withholding roughly $391 million in congressionally approved military assistance from Ukraine, a nation then at war with Russia, while privately asking its government to announce an investigation into former Vice President Joseph Biden, the man national polling identified as his most probable opponent in the coming election.

The arrangement found its clearest expression on July 25, when, according to a memorandum the White House would later release of its own accord, the President turned a congratulatory phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky toward a domestic political matter. "I would like you to do us a favor though," Trump said, in a conversation he would go on to describe, repeatedly and in public, as "a perfect phone call."

The favor in question concerned Biden and a debunked theory about a missing server, pursued on the President's behalf not by the State Department but by his personal attorney, Rudolph Giuliani, who had assembled an unofficial channel to Kyiv operating alongside, and at times against, the professional diplomatic corps. The frozen aid, appropriated by Congress for the express purpose of helping Ukraine resist Russian forces, sat unspent in Washington while officials searched for an explanation that did not involve the favor.

The matter became public in September, after a whistleblower within the intelligence community filed a complaint, and the House of Representatives impeached the President on December 18, 2019, adopting articles charging abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The Senate acquitted him on February 5, 2020, allowing the President to return to the characterization he preferred, which was that the call had been perfect, and that the only impropriety lay in anyone having mentioned it.

With the matter resolved, longstanding concerns were finally laid to rest. American military aid, observers had worried, was still being released according to the priorities Congress had written into law rather than the President's personal electoral calendar, and the nation's diplomacy was still being conducted on behalf of the United States rather than on behalf of the man temporarily occupying it. Both concerns were addressed.

At press time, the President was reportedly seeking to clarify which other allies currently relying on American security guarantees might also wish to be helpful with his standing in the polls.

Who Benefits

§Donald J. Trump, who sought to extract a foreign government's investigation of his likeliest 2020 challenger using military aid that belonged to the taxpayers rather than to him.
§The Trump 2020 re-election campaign, which stood to gain from any announcement out of Kyiv casting a shadow over Joseph Biden.
§Rudolph Giuliani, the President's personal attorney, who ran a freelance Ukraine operation outside official channels and elevated his own influence in the process.
§Vladimir Putin, whose forces benefited directly from the temporary suspension of American assistance to the country Russia had invaded.
§The Russian government, more broadly, which watched Washington treat a frontline partner's wartime security as a personal bargaining chip and saw a Kremlin-favored conspiracy theory receive a presidential airing.

Sourced to the public record · presented without editorial embellishment