Reconstructing what exactly happened on July 25 for President Trump
WASHINGTON — The forecast for July 25 was typical for Washington: sunny, mid-80s. President Donald Trump had good reason to be feeling bright and sunny himself.
But a reconstruction of what started as an unremarkable summer Thursday reveals that even before daybreak, anxiety was coursing through the White House about a coming phone call that didn’t appear on the president’s public schedule. There were “some concerns that, you know, there could be some stray voltage,” Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the National Security Council’s top Ukraine expert, testified later.
At 8:36 a.m., Kurt Volker, then Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, texted a Zelenskiy aide after talking to Sondland:"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. Good luck!"The half-hour call started with pleasantries but quickly took a sharp detour.
Soon, Trump was stressing how much the U.S. had done for Ukraine and grousing about Europe’s failure to do more. Yet Zelenskiy wasn’t committing precisely to the investigations of Democrats that Trump wanted. He was speaking generally of his commitment to clean up corruption in his country.Trump would later insist the call was “perfect,” but some of those who listened were gravely alarmed. Even while Trump was still speaking, there were some worried glances among those taking notes in the Situation Room.
Jennifer Williams, an adviser to Vice President Mike Pence who was also on the call, told legislators she found the call’s detour into domestic politics “unusual and inappropriate.” The bland three-sentence statement issued by the White House at 12:51 p.m. gave no hint of what had really happened. The Trump White House wanted to hold up the aid until Zelenskiy made a public pledge to conduct investigations. Republicans have argued there was no “quid pro quo” — a pledge of investigations in exchange for military aid — because the Ukrainians weren’t aware the aid was on hold when Zelenskiy spoke to Trump. But these emails indicate the Ukrainians knew or suspected the aid was frozen when the call took place.
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