President Trump's request
is about the 2016 election,
and the role of the CrowdStrike
firm (the sole source of the claim
that Russia hacked DNC servers).
President Trump said:
"I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think you're surrounding yourself with some of the same people. 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."
A few hundred words later
in the call, President Zelensky,
not Trump, raises the subject
of Rudy Giuliani looking into
Joe Biden (who had bragged
about committing
a crime in 2016,
on a video from 2018).
President Zelensky said:
" . . . I will personally tell you that one of my assistants spoke with Mr. Giuliani just recently and we are hoping very much that Mr. Giuliani will be able to travel to Ukraine and we will meet once he comes to Ukraine. I just wanted to assure you once again that you have nobody but friends around us. I will make sure that I surround myself with the best and most experienced people. . . . I also plan to surround myself with great people and in addition to that investigation, I guarantee as the President of Ukraine that all the investigations will be done openly and candidly. . . ."
Only then does
President Trump respond,
concerning Hunter Biden:
President Trump said:
" . . . The other thing, There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it... It sounds horrible to me. Whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great.”
The New
York Times
York Times
said that
President
Zelensky
was getting
President
Zelensky
was getting
“repeatedly
pressured"
for
"a favor"
concerning
the Bidens.
pressured"
for
"a favor"
concerning
the Bidens.
Here's Joe Biden describing
his 2016 meeting in Ukraine
where he demanded
the firing of the prosecutor
who was planning to question
his son Hunter Biden:
"So they said they had—they were walking out to a press conference. I said, nah, I’m not going to—or, we’re not going to give you the billion dollars. They said, you have no authority. You’re not the president. The president said—I said, call him. (Laughter.) I said, I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars. I said, you’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch. (Laughter.) He got fired."
