Since July of this year, we’ve been bombarded with news articles concerning President Trump and Ukraine (more specifically, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky). This controversy has prompted Democrats to call for impeachment. However, the details on what really happened are still blurry, and we still aren’t quite sure what went on behind the scenes.
In August, a whistleblower reported that Trump had asked President Zelensky to investigate Democratic candidate, Joe Biden, and his son, Hunter Biden. The whistleblower also said that Trump threatened to withhold aid if Zelensky didn’t investigate. Just days before the call, Trump had withdrawn 391 million dollars in aid for Ukraine. A non-verbatim transcript of the call was released and showed that Trump asked Zelenksy to reopen the Biden investigation but did not explicitly say he would withhold aid if Ukraine didn’t investigate. White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney wrote that the United States withheld aid “because of concern about lack of support from other nations and concerns over corruption.” This investigation is still ongoing, as the whistleblower says that there is more evidence against Trump.
The background behind this controversy is a confusing mess, but hopefully this summary will shed a little bit of light on the subject. During Obama’s presidency, Joe Biden was supportive of aid towards Ukraine after the violent 2014 revolution. While this was happening, Hunter Biden joined the board of directors at a Ukranian energy company named Burisma. Burisma had been under investigation in 2012 for money-related crimes, and the case still hadn’t been closed. Hunter’s association with Burisma and his father’s support for aid towards Ukraine led many Republicans to think that something fishy was going on. The investigation restarted and again was closed; there was no evidence found against the Bidens.
This was of little concern until this presidential election, during which Trump is going to run against an unknown Democratic nominee. Joe Biden, having been vice president already, is a strong contender. Trump may have wanted Zelensky to investigate Biden in order to weaken Biden’s support, thus giving himself a better chance of winning in 2020. Due to this possibility, Democrats are pressing for Trump’s impeachment. Nancy Pelosi recently announced that the formal impeachment inquiry of Trump would begin. This has been talked about since the beginning of Trump’s term. However, even if Trump was impeached, he could be acquitted by the Senate, which is majority Republican. Either way, it will be exciting (or stressful) to see how this whole thing unfolds.