# Please explain to me why this Trump/Ukraine thing is a big deal **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [September 22, 2019, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-why-this-trump-ukraine-thing-is-a-big-deal/840633 "2019-09-22T00:53:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2019, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-why-this-trump-ukraine-thing-is-a-big-deal/840633/21 "2019-09-22T11:27:37Z")
Oops, that was a silly use of “literally”. Sorry, guys. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2019, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-why-this-trump-ukraine-thing-is-a-big-deal/840633/22 "2019-09-22T11:59:03Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > It seems to me that President Trump was trying to remedy the wrong of Biden using his official position and the threat of withholding aid money to Ukraine to protect his son from an investigation by the Ukranian prosecutor. **Sherrerd** ’s post seems to me slanted to ignore Hunter (and Joe) Biden’s wrongdoing. At least, that’s how it seems to me from a first pass of what’s been released so far. Thanks for replying! It looks like you’re saying that Biden was threatening to withhold aid from the Ukraine? Is that what’s alleged to have happened during the Obama administration? I haven’t read that, but I get most of my news from here. The most serious allegation that I’ve heard is that Trump threatened to withhold aid to Ukraine unless they reopened an investigation into Hunter Biden. If that were the case, would you change your mind at all? Do you think it’s the role of the president to try and force another country to investigate the alleged wrongdoing of an American? Because that seems very bizarre to me – I could see withholding aid unless they free an American that they have in their jails or something, but not the opposite. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2019, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-why-this-trump-ukraine-thing-is-a-big-deal/840633/23 "2019-09-22T12:12:29Z")
I, too, commend HurricaneDitka for stepping up to the plate in this thread, and I look forward to his reply to both questions (1. Granted none of us knows all the facts, but does he have reason to believe the Obama administration threatened or pressured Ukraine in this way; 2. If true, would the alleged Trump quid-pro-quo threat to Ukraine be a serious offense?). I ask Ditka keep these answers separate, though. His initial reply is too close to mere “tu qouque” — “maybe my guy did it, but it doesn’t matter, because your guy did it, too.” Just the kind of obfuscation we must avoid. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2019, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-why-this-trump-ukraine-thing-is-a-big-deal/840633/24 "2019-09-22T14:52:35Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > I ask Ditka keep these answers separate, though. His initial reply is too close to mere “tu qouque” — “maybe my guy did it, but it doesn’t matter, because your guy did it, too.” Just the kind of obfuscation we must avoid. Although in this case it is “My guy did it, but it doesn’t matter because maybe your guy did it too.” Near as I can tell the evidence against Biden and his son is sketchy at best, while the evidence against Trump seems to be direct. ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2019, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-why-this-trump-ukraine-thing-is-a-big-deal/840633/25 "2019-09-22T15:29:15Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > It seems to me that President Trump was trying to remedy the wrong of Biden using his official position and the threat of withholding aid money to Ukraine to protect his son from an investigation by the Ukranian prosecutor. **Sherrerd** ’s post seems to me slanted to ignore Hunter (and Joe) Biden’s wrongdoing. At least, that’s how it seems to me from a first pass of what’s been released so far. Keep in mind that whatever he did was so alarming that someone relatively high up in the IC (high enough to be on a call with Trump) that they blew the whistle to the IG. And the IG found the matter credible and urgent. Let’s take any spin off the table right now with trying to claim that he’s seeking justice for America, because people don’t blow the whistle on that. Also, he’s violating the law by not releasing the IG complaint to congress. Again, if he’s doing right by America because Biden is bad, then why violate the law by blocking the IG complaint? ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2019, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-why-this-trump-ukraine-thing-is-a-big-deal/840633/26 "2019-09-22T15:42:46Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > I, too, commend HurricaneDitka for stepping up to the plate in this thread, and I look forward to his reply to both questions (1. Granted none of us knows all the facts, but does he have reason to believe the Obama administration threatened or pressured Ukraine in this way; … > [@RitterSport](#): > > Thanks for replying! > > It looks like you’re saying that Biden was threatening to withhold aid from the Ukraine? Is that what’s alleged to have happened during the Obama administration? I haven’t read that, but I get most of my news from here. … Yes, that’s exactly what happened. Here’s Biden in his own words: > [@](#): > > [I’ll give you one concrete example. I was—not I, but it just happened to be that was the assignment I got. I got all the good ones. And so I got Ukraine. And I remember going over, convincing our team, our leaders to—convincing that we should be providing for loan guarantees. And I went over, I guess, the 12th, 13th time to Kiev. And I was supposed to announce that there was another billion-dollar loan guarantee. And I had gotten a commitment from Poroshenko and from Yatsenyuk that they would take action against the state prosecutor. And they didn’t. > > So they said they had—they were walking out to a press conference. I said, nah, I’m not going to—or, we’re not going to give you the billion dollars. They said, you have no authority. You’re not the president. The president said—I said, call him. (Laughter.) I said, I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars. I said, you’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch. (Laughter.) He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time.]([Foreign Affairs Issue Launch with Former Vice President Joe Biden | Council on Foreign Relations](https://www.cfr.org/event/foreign-affairs-issue-launch-former-vice-president-joe-biden)) Here’s the meaty bit of [an article written back in April](https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/436816-joe-bidens-2020-ukrainian-nightmare-a-closed-probe-is-revived) (so, well before this latest bit of reporting involving President Trump): > [@](#): > > But Ukrainian officials tell me there was one crucial piece of information that Biden must have known but didn’t mention to his audience: The prosecutor he got fired was leading a wide-ranging corruption probe into the natural gas firm Burisma Holdings that employed Biden’s younger son, Hunter, as a board member. > > U.S. banking records show Hunter Biden’s American-based firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners LLC, received regular transfers into one of its accounts — usually more than $166,000 a month — from Burisma from spring 2014 through fall 2015, during a period when Vice President Biden was the main U.S. official dealing with Ukraine and its tense relations with Russia. > > The general prosecutor’s official file for the Burisma probe — shared with me by senior Ukrainian officials — shows prosecutors identified Hunter Biden, business partner Devon Archer and their firm, Rosemont Seneca, as potential recipients of money. > > Shokin told me in written answers to questions that, before he was fired as general prosecutor, he had made “specific plans” for the investigation that “included interrogations and other crime-investigation procedures into all members of the executive board, including Hunter Biden.” Hopefully that adequately answers **RitterSport** ’s first question and **JKellyMap** ’s question #1 As for the second question: > [@JKellyMap](#): > > 1. If true, would the alleged Trump quid-pro-quo threat to Ukraine be a serious offense?). … > [@RitterSport](#): > > … The most serious allegation that I’ve heard is that Trump threatened to withhold aid to Ukraine unless they reopened an investigation into Hunter Biden. If that were the case, would you change your mind at all? … I admit my own thinking / feelings on this question are a bit fuzzier, but my initial hunch is that I think that’s not particularly likely to change my mind, and that it doesn’t, at least at this stage, strike me as a serious offense. It would depend somewhat on the specifics: If the “threat” from President Trump were worded along the lines of what **Sherrerd** suggested earlier (“he wanted them to come up with a story that could sink the candidacy of his rival Biden” - and I have not yet been given any reason to believe it was worded like that) that would obviously be more troubling and concerning than something more bland along the lines of ‘we want you to continue the anti-corruption probes that were underway before, and we’re withholding aid unless you do so’. Anyways, I hope that serves to somewhat explain my early thinking on this matter. Feel free to follow up with whatever rebuttal or further questions you feel like. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2019, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-why-this-trump-ukraine-thing-is-a-big-deal/840633/27 "2019-09-22T16:22:04Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Yes, that’s exactly what happened. Here’s Biden in his own words: > > . Doesn’t the fact that there were widespread calls from western leaders for that prosecutor to be fired make all that rather dubious as a smoking gun? I mean, do you think Obama just let Biden take all the decisions on that? ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2019, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-why-this-trump-ukraine-thing-is-a-big-deal/840633/28 "2019-09-22T16:23:12Z")
So sort of like if Trump said "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest? " That would be OK because he didn’t directly order the Archbishop killed. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2019, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-why-this-trump-ukraine-thing-is-a-big-deal/840633/29 "2019-09-22T16:23:52Z")
AFAICT, no evidence has been presented that the Ukrainian prosecutor in question (Victor Shokin) was pushed out due to any involvement or investigation into anyone in the Biden family. AFAICT, the actual evidence strongly suggests that the reason he was pushed out was because he wasn’t investigating corruption seriously (i.e. the prosecutor was corrupt and close to corrupt officials/persons), not because he was investigating anyone in particular. Numerous non-US partners, including the IMF and the EU, urged that he be fired because he wasn’t going after corruption. > **[The Lives and Losses of Hunter Biden](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/07/08/will-hunter-biden-jeopardize-his-fathers-campaign)** > > Joe Biden’s son has been scrutinized for his business dealings and tumultuous personal life. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2019, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-why-this-trump-ukraine-thing-is-a-big-deal/840633/30 "2019-09-22T16:48:18Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > … > > Hopefully that adequately answers **RitterSport** ’s first question and **JKellyMap** ’s question #1 > > … Yes it does, thanks! Looks like you’re keeping an open mind on the second part, so let’s see how that develops, I guess. Feels like there must be something serious for the justice department to block the testimony of the whistlevblower, but who knows. Maybe they just block any cooperation with the House. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2019, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-why-this-trump-ukraine-thing-is-a-big-deal/840633/31 "2019-09-22T17:00:39Z")
Thank you, HurricaneDitka. Your Biden quote and the article you linked to helped me better understand that matter. Okay…if we, for the sake of argument, assume the allegations against both Biden and Trump are true, then I think both deserve some sort of punishment (“punishment” in the broadest sense, to possibly include something as mild as a slight drop in favorablility polls) — BUT I think Trump’s punishment should be more severe, perhaps much more. Not because of my partisan bias, but because doing something as a party of one, specifically to “get” a single, specific person, where the only beneficiary is the same party of one — that is different than doing something with others, all of whom agree that the entire country (two countries, actually) would benefit from the action. That Biden’s son would happen benefit from the action more directly is an unfortunate coincidence, and I agree Biden should have been more frank about this. How hard would it have been for Biden to essentially “recuse” himself from this particular assignment? A mistake. “Appearance of impropriety,” indeed. As opposed to Trump’s action which, if true, was clearly no mere appearance. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2019, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-why-this-trump-ukraine-thing-is-a-big-deal/840633/32 "2019-09-22T17:04:18Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > It never happened, it’s fake news, the other guys are worse, and anyway, what’s on TV? > > When Trump called for his political opponent to be locked up, most of you just shrugged, and the rest were all in favor. > > When Trump said he could shoot someone on 5th avenue and get away with it, he was not making a joke. He was making an observation. It’s simply a fact. > > I expect things to get a lot worse before they get any better. And I’m not convinced they’ll get any better. All things end. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2019, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-why-this-trump-ukraine-thing-is-a-big-deal/840633/33 "2019-09-22T17:39:01Z")
More details about the dubiousness (i.e. complete bullshit) of Giuliani’s claims about Biden: [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-07/timeline-in-ukraine-probe-casts-doubt-on-giuliani-s-biden-claim](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-07/timeline-in-ukraine-probe-casts-doubt-on-giuliani-s-biden-claim) ---
**Author:** ![Ambrosio\_Spinola](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de0a6/32.png) [@Ambrosio\_Spinola](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambrosio_Spinola)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2019, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-why-this-trump-ukraine-thing-is-a-big-deal/840633/34 "2019-09-22T20:32:04Z")
Assuming that Trump did make an inappropriate request of the President of Ukraine, this would be significant because the Ukrainians at least would also know about it. This opens up an extortion/blackmail hold they could have over Trump. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2019, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-why-this-trump-ukraine-thing-is-a-big-deal/840633/35 "2019-09-22T20:49:51Z")
> [@Ambrosio\_Spinola](#): > > Assuming that Trump did make an inappropriate request of the President of Ukraine, this would be significant because the Ukrainians at least would also know about it. This opens up an extortion/blackmail hold they could have over Trump. Well, not anymore. Trump is acknowledging that he had a “perfectly appropriate” call with the Ukraine leader. I guess my OP wasn’t clear. I agree this seems bad, but the media sources I see seem to be treating it as really bad, a different kind of bad than all the previous cases of lying, corruption, potential obstruction of justice, violating of election laws, giving out of secret information, attacks on the press and our allies, cozying up with our rivals and dictators, and so on and so on. I don’t see why this is being treated as a bigger deal than all the rest. “Well, if this doesn’t lead to impeachment, then impeachment as a remedy is dead” – really? I don’t see how this is a difference in kind from all the rest of the crap. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2019, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-why-this-trump-ukraine-thing-is-a-big-deal/840633/36 "2019-09-22T20:58:34Z")
Maybe because it feels like a more direct clash of “personal interests” and “national interests” than anything we’ve seen before. We’ve seen Trump abuse his elected power for personal gain, and we’ve seen him trash what are surely clear national interests for stupid reasons…but I don’t recall such a clear clash of personal gain and national interest in a single action before (if it’s true) — that we know of, of course. ---
**Author:** ![mjmlabs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mjmlabs/32/69_2.png) [@mjmlabs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mjmlabs)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2019, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-why-this-trump-ukraine-thing-is-a-big-deal/840633/37 "2019-09-22T21:04:46Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > More details about the dubiousness (i.e. complete bullshit) of Giuliani’s claims about Biden: > > [Bloomberg - Are you a robot?](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-07/timeline-in-ukraine-probe-casts-doubt-on-giuliani-s-biden-claim) From the cited source: > [@](#): > > President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer is raising the specter that Joe Biden intervened in Ukrainian politics to help his son’s business. > > But if that was Biden’s aim, he was more than a year late, based on a timeline laid out by a former Ukrainian official and in Ukrainian documents. > > The official described to Bloomberg details about the country’s political dynamic in the run-up to early 2016 when Biden, then the U.S. vice president, threatened to hold up U.S. funding to Ukraine unless it cracked down on corruption. Biden’s chief demand was the ouster of a top Ukrainian prosecutor who he said had been ineffective. The episode has come under the spotlight in the last week because at one point, that prosecutor had been investigating a natural gas company where Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, sat on the board and received substantial compensation. > > There’s little question that the Bidens’ paths in Ukraine held the potential for conflict, and in a tweet last week, Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani said the U.S. should investigate the matter. But what has received less attention is that at the time Biden made his ultimatum, the probe into the company – Burisma Holdings, owned by Mykola Zlochevsky – had been long dormant, according to the former official, Vitaliy Kasko. > > “There was no pressure from anyone from the U.S. to close cases against Zlochevsky,” Kasko said in an interview last week. “It was shelved by Ukrainian prosecutors in 2014 and through 2015.” > > Kasko’s assessment adds a wrinkle to one of the first political intrigues of the 2020 election season. It undercuts the idea that Biden, now a top Democratic presidential candidate, was seeking to sideline a prosecutor who was actively threatening a company tied to his son. Instead, it appears more consistent with Biden’s previous statements that he was pressing for the removal of a prosecutor who was failing to tackle rampant corruption: According to public reports and internal documents from the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office, U.S. officials had expressed concern for more than a year about Ukrainian prosecutors’ failure to assist an international investigation of Zlochevsky. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2019, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-why-this-trump-ukraine-thing-is-a-big-deal/840633/38 "2019-09-22T21:08:45Z")
Thanks, mjm…well worth highlighting, methinks. You have just 78 posts in 16 years — but you’re choosing them well. This could be quite important. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2019, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-why-this-trump-ukraine-thing-is-a-big-deal/840633/39 "2019-09-22T21:23:08Z")
Wow, that article from The Hill cited by **HD** seems really misleading if Bloomberg has it right. **HD** , given this (the apparent non-issue in the Biden thing), does this move the needle for you? I don’t mean to pick on you, but we don’t have too many Trump supporters here, so you’ll have to be my barometer. ---
**Author:** ![mjmlabs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mjmlabs/32/69_2.png) [@mjmlabs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mjmlabs)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2019, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-why-this-trump-ukraine-thing-is-a-big-deal/840633/40 "2019-09-22T21:43:54Z")
From today’s broadcast of _Face the Nation_, wherein (after discussion of the Iran/Saudi situation) former Secretary of State John Kerry was asked about the Biden/Ukraine story ([transcript](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/full-transcript-of-face-the-nation-on-september-22-2019/); linked page includes link for free streaming video of entire broadcast, and I’m sure they’d appreciate your webtraffic) > [@](#): > > MARGARET BRENNAN: You, obviously, served alongside Joe Biden in the Obama administration, the secretary of state seemed to be supporting, on this program, what Rudy Giuliani, the President’s personal attorney, is doing in terms of calling for an investigation into Joe Biden. > > JOHN KERRY: Well, first of all, it is entirely– > > MARGARET BRENNAN: What do you make of this? > > JOHN KERRY: --inappropriate for the President’s personal attorney to be involved in another country trying to find dirt on a presidential candidate, number one. Number two, what President Trump has done is an abuse, if he has done it, and the way to prove whether he’s done it or not is release the transcript of that conversation. That’s how you get to the bottom of this, but there is just, you know, for the President of the United States to be leveraging American foreign policy, hocking it– > > MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah. > > JOHN KERRY: --extorting the leader of another country, if that’s what has happened, is unprecedented. And the last time a President did that, Richard Nixon, the Republican Party stood up and held him accountable for the abuse of power. This Republican Party today is-- is running for cover and actually inadvertently supporting a cover-up, if-- if-- if what is alleged is true. > > MARGARET BRENNAN: What– > > JOHN KERRY: The only way to get at it is release the transcript. Let everybody see what the President said. And if he leveraged– > > MARGARET BRENNAN: Mm-Hm. > > JOHN KERRY: --American foreign policy and foreign aid to-- to get a President of another country to be the opposition research– > > MARGARET BRENNAN: Right. > > JOHN KERRY: --arm of his campaign, that is a fundamental profound and deeply disturbing– > > MARGARET BRENNAN: Do you know what– > > JOHN KERRY: --abuse of power. > > MARGARET BRENNAN: Do you know what Secretary Pompeo was talking about when he said election interference? > > JOHN KERRY: I-- I don’t, I have– > > MARGARET BRENNAN: I mean, were you surprised he talked about that? > > JOHN KERRY: --no idea. No, I don’t. I don’t know what that is. > > MARGARET BRENNAN: Is it an appropriate thing for the secretary of state to be talking about? > > JOHN KERRY: I-- I have no idea what he was talking about. So, I’m not going to-- I’m not going to make a judgment on that. > > MARGARET BRENNAN: You-- before you were secretary of state, you spent decades– > > JOHN KERRY: I mean maybe he was referring to the Russian pieces or something. I don’t know. But– > > MARGARET BRENNAN: I asked him about Ukraine. So, he seemed to be linking it when he said election interference and Joe Biden. > > JOHN KERRY: Yeah. But, can I say so one other thing? > > MARGARET BRENNAN: Yeah. > > JOHN KERRY: The-- the Obama administration, as a whole administration, was working overtime to try to end corruption in Ukraine. > > MARGARET BRENNAN: Mm-Hm. > > JOHN KERRY: You couldn’t move forward in a deal with Ukraine if it didn’t end corruption. So, that was the focus. It was professionals in the State Department and-- and an ambassador who requested that we be involved to try to get a prosecutor– > > MARGARET BRENNAN: Mm-Hm. > > JOHN KERRY: --out of the way who was not able to move. That was an administration policy; it was the professional diplomats who requested that we try to do that. > > MARGARET BRENNAN: Mm-Hm. > > JOHN KERRY: So, I think there is no equivalency here. The President’s just as, you know, throwing up a distraction. The fact is that that transcript needs to be released in order to clarify whether or not this President has again colluded in a way with another country that is inappropriate. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-why-this-trump-ukraine-thing-is-a-big-deal/840633.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-explain-to-me-why-this-trump-ukraine-thing-is-a-big-deal/840633.md?page=3)