There's yet another level to the Trump administration's corruption in Ukraine
It's becoming evident that President Trumps corruption in Ukraine was not limited to his pressure for politicized investigations that could help his reelection campaign. We now know that the presidents unjustified firing of the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine in May advanced the interests of two businessmen who made large contributions to his political campaigns.
According to reporting by The Post and other news organizations, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, two emigres from the former Soviet Union with checkered financial histories, made $630,000 in contributions to Republican candidates and political action committees beginning in 2016, including $325,000 to a pro-Trump PAC. This year, the men sought the removal of Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, whom they saw as an obstacle to their scheme to change the management of Ukraines state energy company and strike a deal to sell it liquefied natural gas.
Messrs. Parnas and Fruman were working with Mr. Trumps attorney, Rudolph W. Giuliani, and connected him to two corrupt Ukrainian prosecutors, one of whom made false charges against Ms. Yovanovitch. The result was the abrupt recall of the ambassador, who told Congress last week that she had been yanked on the orders of Mr. Trump even though the State Department assured her she had done nothing wrong.
As Ms. Yovanovitch put it, contacts of Mr. Giuliani may well have believed that their personal financial ambitions were stymied by our anti-corruption policy in Ukraine. Messrs. Parnas and Fruman have now been arrested and charged with campaign finance violations, including routing illegal contributions to federal candidates from a Russian source.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/theres-yet-another-level-to-the-trump-administrations-corruption-in-ukraine/2019/10/13/5a89af0a-edd9-11e9-89eb-ec56cd414732_story.html
Botany
(70,581 posts)The Ukrainian rot goes deep into Trump and the GOP.
President Trump may have been involved with a change to the Republican Party campaign platform last year that watered down support for U.S. assistance to Ukraine, according to new information from someone who was involved.
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The revision to Denman's proposed amendment to the Republican platform scaled back the party's position on pro-Western elements in Ukraine from supporting supplying weapons for fighters there to a more general assistance.
The issue is of interest to investigators in Congress and the team working for Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller because the idea of arming Ukrainians in the fight against pro-Russian separatist forces was staunchly opposed by the Russian government and, it seems, the Trump campaign as well.
https://www.npr.org/2017/12/04/568310790/2016-rnc-delegate-trump-directed-change-to-party-platform-on-ukraine-support
lagomorph777
(30,613 posts)Trump never does anything for any other reason.