page_title: Trump–Ukraine scandal
section_title: Communications with Ukrainian officials
hierarchical_section_title: Trump–Ukraine scandal / Communications with Ukrainian officials
caption_attribution_description: English: Marie L. Yovanovitch, U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine
context_page_description: The Trump–Ukraine scandal is an ongoing political scandal in the United States. It revolves around efforts by U.S. president Donald Trump to coerce Ukraine and other foreign countries into providing damaging narratives about 2020 Democratic Party presidential primary candidate Joe Biden as well as information relating to Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. Trump enlisted surrogates within and outside his official administration, including his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr, to pressure Ukraine and other foreign governments to cooperate in supporting conspiracy theories concerning American politics. Trump blocked but later released payment of a congressionally mandated $400 million military aid package to allegedly obtain quid pro quo cooperation from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. A number of contacts were established between the White House and the government of Ukraine, culminating in a phone call between Trump and Zelensky on July 25, 2019.
  The scandal reached public attention in mid-September 2019 due to a whistleblower complaint made in August 2019.
context_section_description: On September 20, 2019, The Washington Post reported that Trump had in a July 25 phone conversation repeatedly pressed Ukrainian president Zelensky to investigate matters relating to Hunter Biden. The New York Times reported that Trump told Zelensky to speak to Giuliani, and according to The Wall Street Journal, he urged Zelensky "about eight times" to work with Giuliani and investigate Biden's son. On September 22, Trump acknowledged he had discussed Joe Biden during the call with Zelensky, and that he had said: "We don't want our people like Vice President Biden and his son creating [sic] to the corruption already in the Ukraine." As of October 2019, there has been no evidence produced of any of the alleged wrongdoing by the Bidens.
  The Wall Street Journal reported on September 30 that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also listened in on the call. Two days later, The Washington Post reported that Vice President Mike Pence's national security advisor Keith Kellogg had listened in on the call as well, and that "Pence should have had access to the transcript within hours." Others on the line included Tim Morrison, the National Security Council's senior director for Europe and Russia; Robert Blair, an aide to Mick Mulvaney; and Alexander Vindman, a Ukraine expert for the NSC.
  Days before Trump's July 25 call with Zelensky, Giuliani spoke on the phone with Zelensky aide Andriy Yermak about a Biden investigation, as well as a prospective White House meeting between Zelensky and Trump that was sought by Ukrainian officials. According to Zelensky's advisor Serhiy Leshchenko, Trump was willing to have a phone conversation with Zelensky only on the precondition that they discuss the possibility of investigating the Biden family. Leshchenko later sought to backtrack his comments, saying he did not know if officials had viewed discussing Biden as a precondition for a meeting.
  Text messages given to Congress by special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker in October suggest that Zelensky's aide Yermak was told that Zelensky would be invited for a White House visit only if he promised to carry out the requested investigations. On July 25, just before Trump's phone call, Volker texted to Yermak: "heard from White House—assuming President Z convinces trump he will investigate / 'get to the bottom of what happened' in 2016, we will nail down date for visit to Washington."
  On September 25, the administration released the White House's five-page, declassified memorandum of the July 25 phone call between Trump and Zelensky. In the call, Trump pressed for an investigation into the Bidens and CrowdStrike, saying: "I would like to have the [U.S.] attorney general call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it." Trump falsely told Zelensky "Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution" of his son, Hunter; Biden did not stop any prosecution, did not brag about doing so, and there is no evidence his son was ever under investigation.
  Trump also presented Giuliani as a key U.S. contact for Ukraine, although Giuliani holds no official U.S. government position. Trump said three times that he would ask both Attorney General Barr and Giuliani to call Zelensky, and added: "So whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great." In response, Zelensky said his candidate for Ukraine's chief prosecutor "will look into the situation, specifically to the company that you mentioned in this issue". After Zelensky said this, Trump offered to meet with Zelensky at the White House. On the same call with Zelensky, Trump espoused the conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton's email server was in Ukraine; criticized the U.S.'s European allies (in particular Germany), and disparaged the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, a career U.S. diplomat whom the Trump administration had abruptly recalled two months earlier. Trump told Zelensky that Yovanovitch was "going to go through some things". 
  During the conversation, Zelensky mentioned that on his last visit to the U.S., he had stayed in Trump Tower. Ethics advocac
caption: Marie Yovanovitch, former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine was prematurely released from her post because of her anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine, and because she disagreed with the shadow diplomacy taking place under Giuliani and President Trump.
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