The Trump team’s case #2
President Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials have repeatedly said that there was no quid pro quo and no pressure on them to review anything.”
In its careful wording, this is also true. Zelensky, sitting with Trump in a meeting on Sept. 25, was asked if he felt pressure from Trump in the call. After indicating that he didn’t want to get involved in the politics of the question, he conceded that he hadn’t felt pushed.
That admission, as he obviously understood, was what Trump wanted to hear. Trump quickly jumped on it: “In other words, no pressure,” he said, paraphrasing his counterpart.
David Holmes, a political staffer at the embassy in Ukraine, explained why he felt that Ukraine would not only have felt pressure but also pressure not to concede that they were being pressured. He was speaking about how Ukraine would have tried to navigate the hold on aid, but the point is broader.
Whether the hold, the security assistance hold, continued or not, Ukrainians understood that that’s something the president wanted, and they still wanted important things from the president,” Holmes said. “So I think that continues to this day. I think they’re being very careful. They still need us now going forward.”
Purpura suggested that treating Zelensky’s claims with skepticism was akin to reading Zelensky’s mind. Taking the assertions of Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials at immediate face value, though, offers no more assurance of yielding an accurate interpretation.
This conflict gets to the heart of what Trump is alleged to have done. Either the United States has the ability to exert pressure on Ukraine or it doesn’t. Trump asks that we assume there is no implicit pressure at play and that everything that occurred is no more complicated than the most basic reading of events. That request can be evaluated on its own merits.
Viva La Shifty Schiff