july 25th phone call never actually mentions corruption and the only americans he asked ukraine to investigate just happen to be his chief democratic rival joe biden and biden son hunter? did president trump mention any other democratic candidate? no. you mention the former vice president who we know has put pressure on ukraine to remove the prosecutor general and so they wouldn t get a billion dollars. in fact, he bragged about it. and his son was making $83,000 a month for sitting on a board of a company burisma which had known corruption problems in the past. chris: the only person that he talks about was at that point in july of 25th of this last summer, his main rival, democratic rival in the presidential election at 2020? do you think a coincidence? do you believe vice president biden should be immune from
corruption problems enough to release this aid. i have certified that the government of ukraine here s the order has taken substantial actions to make institutional reforms for the purposes of decreasing corruption. that s from the secretary of state. and the secretary of defense. they had already resolved that they could get that, they could be trusted with that $400 million of military aid. that s one of the really insidious parts of this. as you heard from all of the career people in the testimony, ukraine and our efforts there was working. zelensky had taken steps. he had taken away parliamentary immunity. and all this time, part of the cover story is oh, no with they re not doing it so we re withholding the money. the other thing i find interesting and geoffrey might have a perspective on this is this is a whistle-blower s complaint about the president. the white house counsel gets this and the first thing they do is walk in and tell the president. one would think a lawyer f
which obviously his own words fact checked that. he says he wanted them to investigate joe biden. certainly, also he s making the claim that he is really worried about the office of the presidency and his successors. it s not something potus has been concerned with or he would have for example not abused power and not abused his national security council and the department of justice to do his own bidding. as you mentioned, kate, he specifically cites ambassador bolton and he makes a compelling witness. he says bolton may know why he held up aid to ukraine. as you mentioned he cites ukraine had corruption problems and he wanted the europeans to do more. we now have more information as to why he actually did hold up the aid with respect to the investigations. we ve witnessed testimony, documenting that and we also have the fact again from laura cooper and from other witnesses that ukraine had already met
ukraine making the changes necessary to support a greater western economic investment. and we were excited that ukraine might, after years and years of lip service, finally get serious about addressing its own well-known corruption problems. with that enthusiasm, we returned to the white house on may 23rd to brief president trump. we advised the president of the strategic importance of ukraine and the value of strengthening the relationship with president zelensky. to support this reformer we asked the white house for two things. first, a working phone call between presidents trump and zelensky, and second, a working oval office visit. in our view both would
we admired his commitment to reform and were excited ukraine making the changes necessary to support a greater western economic investment and we were excited that ukraine might, after years and years of lip service, finally get serious about addressing its own well-known corruption problems. with that enthusiasm, we returned to the white house on may 23rd to previous president trump. we advised the president of the strategic importance of ukraine and the value of strengthening the relationship with president zelensky, to support this reformer, we asked the white house for two things. first, a working phone call between presidents trump and zelensky and, second, a working oval office visit.