--:-- Sean Rameswaram: You ever wonder if KiwiCo is from New Zealand? It's not. It's from the United States. KiwiCo is offering today's Explained listeners the chance to try out their fun projects for kids of all ages for free right now at KiwiCo.com slash Explained. Science, math, art, engineering, they've got it all.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: [Guest] Hi, I'm Andrew Prokop, Politics Vox. Could you help us understand what is going on with President Trump, Ukraine, and the Bidens? There's a new scandal unfolding, and it's about whether President Donald Trump used his powers of office to try and pressure the president of Ukraine into starting an investigation into Joe Biden or his son Hunter Biden related to dealings that Hunter Biden had in Ukraine several years back.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And this has been brought to everyone's attention because a mysterious whistleblower complaint was filed by someone within the administration. Do we know who the whistleblower is? We don't. They are a member of the U.S. intelligence community, which could be someone in the CIA, the NSA, the DIA, or it could be a contractor. But what we know is that they filed a complaint under a certain law to the inspector general for the intelligence community. The complaint is secret right now. But according to the law, it was supposed to have been at this point turned over to Congress. And the Trump administration has been blocking it from being turned over.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Do we have any idea what's in the whistleblower's report? We have a few details from the inspector general for the intelligence community who seems to be quite concerned about this. He said the complaint relates to one of the most significant and important of the DNI's director of national intelligence responsibilities to the American people. But most of what we know so far has come from anonymous leaks that have gotten out since this whole whistleblower saga spilled out into public view. And what the leaks have said is that the complaint involves, at least in part, Trump's dealings with the president of Ukraine and particularly a phone call with the president of Ukraine in July in which he pressured at least eight times, according to The Wall Street Journal, the Ukrainian president to open an investigation into Biden's family.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What exactly is the president after here? What's funny is that Trump is essentially alleging that it was Biden who placed improper pressure on the government of Ukraine back when he was vice president. There was a prosecutor in the Ukrainian government that Biden was calling for his ouster. And Trump has been arguing that this may have been related to work that Biden's son was doing in the country. But these are completely unverified claims by Trump at this point.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: What was Joe Biden's son doing in Ukraine again? So Hunter Biden joined the board of a Ukrainian natural gas company called Burisma. And that company had some potential corruption issues. And there were potential investigations into that company. And then in 2016, Ukraine's prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin, was pushed out. And in part, he was pushed out due to pressure by Vice President Biden at the time. as well as other Western officials. And Shokin has reportedly been claiming that he was pushed out because he was investigating Burisma's payments to Hunter Biden. So it was retaliation. However, most reporters generally have found that there's no evidence at that point. There's any connection between Biden pushing out the prosecutor general and his son's work because there were many other Western officials who wanted this prosecutor general out. And the reason was generally because he wasn't trying hard enough to investigate corruption.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Is there something dodgy going on there with Joe Biden and his son Hunter and Ukraine? Hunter Biden is kind of a legendarily dodgy character. He has had all sorts of questionable business endeavors. A Chinese tycoon once gave him a diamond that he just accepted. Who wouldn't accept a diamond from a Chinese tycoon? He struggled with drugs. A lot of this is laid out in a big profile in The New Yorker by Adam Enthaus earlier this year. And Hunter Biden, he didn't speak the language. He didn't seem to have particularly any expertise that would qualify him for the board of a natural gas company. So it doesn't look great, that part.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Where it becomes more of a stretch is that the idea that Vice President Biden's actions in pushing out the prosecutor general were designed to protect his son, because this was not an idea hatched by Joe Biden. There was a lot of criticism of this prosecutor general within Western Europe and other U.S. officials and so on. And they generally believed he was doing enough to investigate corruption. And there have been some reports that he was in fact interfering with the investigation into this natural gas company slowing it down. So basically, there's no evidence at the time that Vice President Biden did anything wrong in connection with his son. But the president appears to maybe be fishing for something along those lines here.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So what I think is going on is that back in 2016, Trump's campaign chair, Paul Manafort, he had done a lot of work in Ukraine. And a big scandal broke out about money that Manafort had made in Ukraine. And that scandal became a big problem for the Trump campaign. Manafort, of course, was eventually charged in the Mueller investigation and is now in prison. So I think that Trump's idea for the 2020 election is to try to drum up a similar scandal involving Joe Biden. Joe Biden and his son are corrupt. All right. But the fake news doesn't want to report it because they're Democrats.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: If that ever happened, if a Republican ever did what Joe Biden did, if a Republican ever said what Joe Biden said, they'd be getting the electric chair by right now.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Do we know if the president was sort of gently suggesting the Ukrainian leader look into this or sort of urging him to do it? Is there more on the line here? Well, that's the big question right now, whether there was an explicit or implicit quid pro quo. And something that was playing out in plain sight is that in late August, there was a report that the Trump administration was slow walking $250 million in military assistance that was approved by Congress and was supposed to be sent to Ukraine.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: There was a lot of speculation at the time and even the Washington Post simply asserted that they had heard that this was happening in an editorial that the president has a second and more venal agenda. He is attempting to force Mr. Zelensky to intervene in the 2020 U.S. presidential election by launching an investigation of the leading Democratic candidate, Joe Biden. Mr. Trump is not just soliciting Ukraine's help with his presidential campaign. He is using U.S. military aid the country desperately needs in an attempt to extort it.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So the idea there is that Trump was demanding this Ukrainian investigation into the Bidens. At the same time as he was making this demand, suddenly these hundreds of millions of dollars in aid got held up. And to be clear here, Ukraine might need $250 million in military aid to defend itself from Russia. Yes. Ukraine and Russia have been in a military conflict since 2014. And, you know, this is a serious business for them. And so the withholding of that aid could seriously hurt the country's efforts to defend itself.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: And we should note that earlier this month, weeks after the whistleblower complaint was filed, the Trump administration allowed the aid to Ukraine to go forward after all. So we still don't have a full account from this whistleblower.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Has the Ukrainian president, President Zelensky, said anything about what the nature of this call was, what may have taken place? The president hasn't commented since the recent reports. Ukraine's foreign minister was quoted telling a Ukrainian news outlet on Saturday that they didn't interpret what happened on the Trump phone call as pressure, and they characterized it as a friendly conversation. And that's how Trump has been characterizing it as well.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: OK, so we've got a lot of allegations, a lot of rumors, a report that no one can read. Do we have anything concrete to point to to say that this may have happened or something like this may have happened? Well, the weird thing about all this is that as these complaints about Trump's secret conduct have emerged, for months now, Rudy Giuliani, Trump's lawyer, has been openly admitting that this is exactly what he's been trying to do, trying to pressure the Ukrainian government to investigate Biden's family.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Wait, you're saying this hyper controversial thing the president's being accused of doing, Giuliani's been openly doing that exact thing in public? Back in May, Giuliani told the New York Times, we're not meddling in an election. We're meddling in an investigation, which we have a right to do. A Ukrainian investigation? Yes. So Giuliani. Does he have a right to do that? I don't know. Wait, is that a no? That's a no, right?
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Well, Giuliani back in May announced that he was going to take a trip to Kiev to meet with Ukrainian government officials. And then there was another article about him doing this in August. Giuliani said that Trump supported his efforts and he basically knows what I'm doing, sure, as his lawyer. And then in August, he told The Times that this whole thing, he was just acting as a private citizen. Not in his role as attorney for Trump, which, yeah, not very believable.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Has Giuliani spoken out about this since the whistleblower complaint became known? Oh, has he? So on Thursday, when the reports first came out that, you know, this whistleblower complaint involved Trump personally, Giuliani went on CNN and he was interviewed by Chris Cuomo and Cuomo asked him, Did you ask the Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden? No, actually I didn't. I asked the Ukraine to investigate the allegations that there was interference in the election of 2016 by the Ukrainians for the benefit of Hillary Clinton for which there already is a court finding.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: You never asked anything about Hunter Biden. You never asked anything about Joe Biden. The only thing I asked about Joe Biden is to get to the bottom of how it was that Lutsenko, who was appointed, dismissed the case against Antac. So you did ask Ukraine to look into Joe Biden. Of course I did. You just said you didn't.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And he basically admitted that the thing happened. Giuliani tweeted later that night, a president telling a president-elect of a well-known corrupt country he better investigate corruption that affects the U.S. is doing his job. Maybe if Obama did that, the Biden family wouldn't have bilked millions from Ukraine and billions from China being covered up by a corrupt media.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Wow, that's a hefty allegation. And everyone was like, well, so you just admitted that Trump did tell the Ukrainian president to investigate Biden. It certainly would seem like a shockingly corrupt use of the president's foreign policy powers to try to extort a foreign country into intervening with the election to hurt his political opponents, to dig up dirt at them.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And then Giuliani said, oh, well, I wasn't admitting that Trump did this necessarily, just that it would have been fine and dandy if he did do it.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: After the break, how's Trump responding to all this? How's Biden responding to all this? How's everyone responding to all this? I'm Sean Ramos for him. This is Today Explained.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's hard to notice in the District of Columbia where it's like 92 degrees today, but today is the first day of autumn. And that means our days are getting shorter, which means your kids might be playing outside a little less. They might be playing indoors a little more. They might need something to do and KiwiCo has got your back.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: I was just scrolling around KiwiCo's Instagram. It's inspiring. There's all sorts of stuff. They're very active on Instagram. One of the best things I saw was a young person using a hydraulic claw that I can only assume that she had just previously built. It's like the hydraulic claws I imagine that you see in like a bobcat, a tractor, but she made it. So it fits on like, you know, a coffee table and she now knows exactly how one works.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Today, Explained listeners get to try KiwiCo out for free right now by going to kiwico.com slash Explained. Andrew, how's the president handling all this? How's he doing? Pretty chill, pretty normal. Just another day? You know, defiantly asserting that he did nothing wrong, that he, his conversation with the Ukrainian president was beautiful. The conversation, by the way, was absolutely perfect. It was a beautiful, warm, nice conversation. You know, asserting that he did nothing wrong whatsoever.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: And then, of course, behind the scenes, his administration is fighting to make sure this whistleblower complaint does not get actually given to Congress. So there is a bit of a discrepancy between his protestations of innocence and what his administration is actually doing. So President Trump is admitting that this call transpired. He's not denying it at all. Well, the call transpired. I guess the question is what exactly did he say on it? I think the way he's framing it is that corruption is bad and that he was telling the Ukrainian president to look into it and see what's going on there and that there was nothing untoward or corrupt at all about what he was doing, that it was absolutely perfect.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So clearly the president and his attorney, Rudy Giuliani, think that this was above board. What about their fellow Republicans in Congress? There doesn't seem to be much concern, at least not publicly expressed so far. Senator Lindsey Graham said, and I think it's fair after what the Trumps have gone through regarding Russia, that somebody look at the Biden connection to the Ukraine through his son.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, said this was some sort of plot by Democrats to distract people from looking into Biden's record. And wouldn't it be interesting politically if you wanted people not to look at what Biden was doing to try to bring something once again alleged against this president as they've done time and again because they do not like an outcome of election.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: However, Mitt Romney, the new senator from Utah, did actually speak out and said that this whole situation is troubling in the extreme, and he wrote that it is critical for the facts to come out. So he's one of the very few people from the Republican Party who are prominent who've expressed some concern about this.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: I'm guessing the Democrats are having a different reaction. Yeah, pretty different. The Democrats are furious. And this whole situation was first brought to public attention because Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, was told by the inspector general for the intelligence community that there was this secret whistleblower complaint that wasn't being handed over by administration higher ups. So Schiff went public. He said that the Trump administration is flatly violating the law by refusing to turn over the whistleblower complaint And neglecting to turn over a complaint would be illegal
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: How would that be illegal The complaint was filed under a particular law called the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act. And it does seem to clearly state that if the inspector general designates the complaint as a matter of urgent concern, then the director of national intelligence has to give it, to Congress. But instead, the acting director of national intelligence has refused to do this. He said he did so in consultation with the Justice Department. There have recently been reports that the White House was also involved in this decision. So there is very clearly an effort to prevent the full facts from being given over to Congress.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: And naturally, Congress is furious about it. And they're also furious about the substance of the underlying allegation itself. Schiff called it the most profound violation of the presidential oath of office, certainly during this presidency, which says a lot, but perhaps during just about any presidency. And Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat from Connecticut, said, I think if we do have evidence from this whistleblower that the president indeed tried to bully a foreign power into affecting our elections, then we have to do something about it. And Schiff mentioned impeachment as a potential next step forward. Democrats generally have been hesitant to move forward with impeachment. But if they learn more facts about this situation and it looks pretty bad to them, they might end up going forward with impeachment anyway.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Has Nancy Pelosi weighed in on that option? Speaker Nancy Pelosi released a letter. She said that if the administration persists in blocking this whistleblower from disclosing to Congress a serious possible breach of constitutional duties by the president, they will be entering a grave new chapter of lawlessness, which will take us into a whole new stage of investigation.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: What does that mean? Well, there was a chorus of mockery of Pelosi from liberals and people on the left who have been demanding Trump's impeachment all year, basically, and Pelosi has been pushing back against that. Pelosi still thinks impeachment is a dead end and a political loser. He's certain to remain in office and it only puts her moderate Democrats in a tough spot to take a vote that won't end up achieving anything is her thinking. But the risk of that is, of course, that if Democrats have themselves taken the threat of impeachment off the table, then Trump may feel even more unconstrained to do whatever he wants without any consequences.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: So that's what Pelosi is struggling with here. She's trying to say, oh, well, there will be consequences. There will be a whole new stage of investigation. And her critics are saying, well, you know, if you're not going to impeach, what are you really talking about?
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Has Biden himself waited on this? Biden has said, of course, that he did nothing wrong. And he called for a transcript of Trump's call with the Ukrainian president to be released. And in a statement, he said that there is truly no bottom to President Trump's willingness to abuse his power and abase his country.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: In Iowa, Biden made brief comments about the matter to reporters. You should be looking at Trump. Trump's doing this because he knows I'll beat him like a drum. And he's using the abuse of power and every element of the presidency to try to do something to smear me.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Does this end up starting to sound a little Mueller investigation to-y to you? It seems unlikely that the Justice Department now under Attorney General Bill Barr will seriously scrutinize Trump for this in part because it's not clear that what he's alleged to have done broke any laws. It could just be an unethical use of government power. So will this result in a huge Justice Department special counsel investigation into the president? I would say probably not. Will it be a scandal that will have some legs and have some twists and turns yet to come? That's entirely possible.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Is there a chance that how the Justice Department, how the Democrats, How the president, how Biden all handled this situation has like serious implications for the health and tenor of the election that's still one year away. Is this a moment that will have major implications on the rest of this campaign? Well, I think if Trump gets away with this, if he views it as that he can pressure all sorts of foreign governments to try to help him out and help defeat the Democratic nominee, whoever it may be, it could get pretty ugly. He seems to have no compunction about trying to win by any means necessary. So things could get even dicier going forward when it comes to how the 2020 election actually plays out.
--:-- Andrew Prokop: Thanks to KiwiCo for their consistent support of the program here. They're offering today Explained listeners the chance to try out their empowering, fun, engaging projects for kids of all ages right now, gratis. You can check them out at kiwico.com slash explained, E-X-P-L-A-I-N-E-D.
