The political scandal over which US President Donald Trump is forced to go through an impeachment process is unofficially called "Ukrainian Gate." According to the democrats accusing the head of state, Trump demanded that Vladimir Zelensky start an investigation against the son of former vice president Joe Biden, Hunter, who was a member of the board of directors of the gas company Burisma Holdings.
As a lever of pressure, the military assistance allocated by Congress to Kiev was allegedly used. Representatives of the Democratic Party believe that the actions of the owner of the White House constitute an abuse of power, since state funds were used to obtain incriminating evidence against a political opponent. The fact that Biden himself publicly boasted of threats against the Ukrainian authorities and that at his request the prosecutor who headed the investigation against Burisma Holdings was dismissed, the Democrats chose to sweep under the rug.
The impeachment has entered its final stage and, apparently, will soon end with the excuse of the president. But reports from the Ukrainian front continue to come. Typically, they are circulated by the press with the goal of convincing the American public that the president has done something very bad about “young European democracy” and the cadres of the US civil service. It is with this sauce that the United States serves the recording made during a private dinner for political sponsors and lobbyists in 2018 at the Trump Hotel in Washington.
But before proceeding to the analysis of this informational stuffing, it is necessary to make one important note. In fact, the case against Trump could well have become not Ukrainian, but British, Australian, Maltese or Italian. Here's the thing. By the time the special prosecutor who investigated the “Russian ties” of the 45th president of the United States finished his work, Republican congressmen and the White House administration had many questions about how the version of the “Kremlin trail” arose. And it arose long before the appointment of the special prosecutor and even before the 2016 elections. With the active support of the liberal media, the FBI, the Justice Ministry, the State Department and even the CIA took part in its promotion. There was wiretapping. Cyber tracking was conducted for the employees of the campaign headquarters of Trump. Not only was this done with gross violations of the law and the rules of the work of law enforcement agencies, so the key figures in the investigation were people who did not hide their hatred of the "impossible Donald."
In 2019, an “investigation of the investigators” began. Part of the work was done by Michael Horowitz, Inspector General of the Ministry of Justice. He identified numerous irregularities in the work of his own department and the FBI. Further work was entrusted to a special investigation team led by experienced federal attorney John Duram, who was called from his home state of Connecticut for this. Attorney General William Barr oversees the investigation.
It quickly became clear that the former leadership of the Ministry of Justice and the FBI actively used the help of foreign colleagues from Italy, Great Britain, Australia and even Malta to collect dirt on Trump. Barr and Duram visited all these countries and, judging by the reports appearing in the media, they were promised everywhere that the “investigation of the investigators” would be given all the necessary support. The Australian Foreign Ministry even issued a special press release in which it assured the White House of its willingness to help.
Of course, Durama and Barra were very interested in Ukraine: after all, the Petro Poroshenko’s administration was in close contact with their curators from the Obama administration and helped them in every way in the fight against Donald Trump.
This was immediately openly discussed in Kiev and Washington immediately after the 2016 elections. In January 2017, an article appeared in Politico, in which this activity of the Ukrainian authorities was described in detail. It was from Nezalezhnaya that the bulk of the information that formed the basis of the allegations against the former assistant to Trump Paul Manafort (advised Viktor Yanukovych in 2004-2014) came from. In addition, Kiev actively supplied its American partners with “information about Trump’s work for Putin.” Some of these fakes were so unbelievable that they even chose not to merge them into the press.
Did Kiev do it of her own free will? Well, almost certainly among Ukrainian politicians there were many who happily rushed to help Hillary Clinton. But the main problem was that they could not refuse, even if they really wanted to. Post-Maidan Ukraine was under direct external control of the United States.
Two senior officials of the Obama administration oversaw the country - Department of State Special Representative Victoria Nuland and Vice President Joe Biden. Not a single appointment in the government was made without their consent. Not a single dispute between the oligarchs was resolved without their intervention. The fact that the children of politicians can earn extra money on this was taken for granted. Together with Hunter Biden, the son of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Paul Pelosi, Jr., and the adopted son of Secretary of State John Kerry, Christopher Heinz, participated in Ukrainian business.
Of course, Trump is not interested in corruption schemes of senior members of the previous administration. His task is to bring to justice those who plotted against him in 2016-2017 and continue to stick sticks in his wheels.
Ukraine, for the American president, is an extremely unpleasant irritant. This is a project of his enemies.
And a significant obstacle to dialogue with Vladimir Putin. If it were not for the anti-Russian position of the majority of republican congressmen, half the staff of the Poroshenko administration would have long been on the list of wanted persons by the FBI. Not because they are corrupt, but because they can testify against their Washington curators.
However, the resistance of professional bureaucracy was too strong. “Ukraine Gate” began when two informants decided at once to tell Congress about the illegitimate, in their opinion, Trump’s pressure on the new Ukrainian president. Work with colleagues from Italy, the UK, Malta and Australia, apparently, is carried out by both parties - Trump loyal employees of the Ministry of Justice and saboteurs from the State Department and the CIA. But the conspirators do not yet see a direct danger to themselves. But the president’s enemies doubt the Ukrainian political elite. And so for the time being, they blocked any attempts by Trump to personally deal with Kiev. And when the owner of the White House became angry and engaged in personnel cleaning, it came to impeachment.
The record that is being discussed in the US today was made in early 2018, when Donald Trump was still figuring out the consequences of the “Russian case” launched against him.
He had already fired Rex Tillerson by then, but the new Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had not yet been approved by the Senate. The President was convinced that he was provided with false information about Ukraine through the Department of State.
And then, according to the record, Trump's longtime friend and his personal lawyer Rudi Giuliani introduced him to two political operatives and lobbyists - Lev Parnassus and Igor Freman. Both were born in the USSR, but live and work in the USA. As often happens in such cases, they easily created the image of large specialists in the post-Soviet space. It is reliably known that in 2019 they helped Giuliani in his unofficial investigation conducted in Kiev. But the appearance of the record means that they became White House informants back in 2018. In addition, Trump has repeatedly argued that he was not personally acquainted with Parnassus and Fruman (perhaps, he used to be photographed with some of them). But if the record is genuine, the president, to put it mildly, did not tell the whole truth.
I say “if,” because the authenticity of the record has yet to be verified. At the current level of development of digital technology, faking it was worthless. In particular, mix authentic and fabricated dialogs in one file. And, of course, it’s not at all a fact that Lev Parnassus, with whom Trump consulted on Ukraine in a private, as he believed, setting, was telling him the truth.
On the record, Parnassus assures Trump that the two main problems of Ukraine are corruption and the American ambassador in Kiev, Marie Jovanovic, who was appointed to this post by Barack Obama. Here are the words we heard in the voice of a man who looked like Leo Parnassus: “She (Jovanovic. - D. D.), in fact, walks everywhere and says to everyone:“ Wait, they will announce to him (Trump. - D. D.) impeachment, just wait. " Hearing this, the US president demanded that one of his assistants immediately dismiss the ambassador. True, it was possible to do this only after some time. The resistance of the bureaucracy has affected here. Only by the end of 2019, all those who were responsible for it from 2016-2017 were removed from the Ukrainian direction.
The recording also discusses Ukraine’s ability to “confront Russia,” the qualities of President Poroshenko, and corruption in “young European democracy.” The reliability of the record, in my opinion, is given to Trump's complaints that “the US must always help everyone”, as well as the lack of desire from Germany and other EU countries to seriously engage in Ukraine, although it is located in the same part of the world. But, of course, these fragments could be taken from other conversations of the American president.
One way or another, the record will now be checked and double-checked. After all, it is not just presented to the public. Most likely, it will become evidence in court. Parnassus and Fruman are accused of violating campaign finance rules, including Trump's campaign in 2016. In addition, the Democrats will try to make her evidence at the Senate impeachment hearing.
However, we did not hear anything new. The words of Lev Parnassus and Trump’s reaction to them are generally consonant with what the former Ambassador Jovanovic and former Special Representative of the State Department in Ukraine Kurt Volker said at congressional hearings.
The current owner of the White House was persuaded all the time to help Ukraine, because "this is right." He resisted and, over and over again, became convinced that there was no logic in such support - except for the logic of the foreign policy bureaucracy interested in maintaining this project.
Did Marie Yovanovitch tell everyone in Kiev that it was necessary to wait until Trump was impeached, and everything would get better right away? Hard to tell. She will definitely deny it. But it is obvious that the majority of staffing staff at the Department of State does not feel any joy from being in the White House "the impossible Donald." Suffice it to recall that in the federal district of Columbia, where these staff members live, more than 90% of voters voted for Hillary Clinton.
And the logic of impeachment is becoming more understandable. They want to expel Trump from the White House primarily because he questioned the Washington foreign policy consensus, according to which it is necessary to restrain Russia and create universally new democratic regimes.
For the same reason, the reason for impeachment was precisely the “Ukrainian gate”, and not some “Italy gate”. Yes, Italy is not a fully sovereign country. It is forced to reckon with the will of Brussels and Washington, but still it is a state with internal political logic. Moreover, it cannot be made into a bastion in the “confrontation of Russian aggression”. But Ukraine since 2014 is a completely different matter. This is from the beginning to the end the project of the Washington establishment, which is fostered by it by the outpost of “containment of Moscow”. And so the attempt to initiate an investigation against the creators and beneficiaries of this project caused such a sharp reaction.
But Trump's logic is also clear. He cannot survive in Washington if he cannot break the resistance of the establishment and dismantle all their projects. Some of these projects are supported by the president’s own party. But in Kiev, this is unlikely to reassure anyone. If in 2018 the Ukrainian regime annoyed only Trump and several of his most loyal associates, then by the beginning of 2020, he himself, not wanting to, stood across the throat of the entire Republican Party of the United States. And now he will need a miracle to survive.
The author’s point of view may not coincide with the position of the publisher.