The Looming Threat of Further Russian Encroachment and Crony Capitalism Played a Role in Trump Ukraine Extortion
October 13, 2019
Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump are at the center of an extortion and corruption tag team in Ukraine
MARK KARLIN, BUZZFLASH EDITOR’S BLOG
Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch alluded to the key to understanding corruption in Ukraine: that for the moment, Donald Trump and Rudy Giluliani are at the heart of it.
Trump tried to stop former Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch from appearing before House impeachment investigators on Friday. He was thwarted, however, when word leaked out that at the last minute that the White House had the State Department forbid her from testifying. The Intelligence Committee, chaired by Adam Schiff, then issued a subpoena that Yovanovitch complied with.
Indeed, she was eager to speak out about what she perceives as a grave injustice that was done to her when she was withdrawn. She squarely put the blame on Giuliani and Ukrainians who had launched a smear campaign against her. Indeed, upon her return to the US, John Sullivan, the deputy secretary of state, informed her of a “concerted campaign” to remove her from representing the US in Ukraine - and that he had never seen an ambassador recalled before in such a manner.
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For her part, in a written statement (she testified behind closed doors in Congress). Yovanovitch stated:
I do not know Mr. Giuliani’s motives for attacking me. But individuals who have been named in the press [Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas] as contacts of Mr. Giuliani may well have believed that their personal financial ambitions were stymied by our anti-corruption policy in Ukraine….
Today, we see the State Department attacked and hollowed out from within,…
We need to rebuild diplomacy as the first resort to advance America’s interests and the front line of America’s defense. I fear that not doing so will harm our nation’s interest, perhaps irreparably.
Others in the diplomatic community have vouched that Yovanovitch was a model ambassador, committed to fostering a civil society in Ukraine, and was pursuing anti-corruption efforts. Ironically, that is what made her a target of Giuliani and his clients, Trump and a former Ukrainian special prosecutor. Yovanovitch was an obstacle to Giuliani and Trump carrying out their corrupt schemes.
In the July 25th phone call, the edited summary memo records Trump saying of Yovanovitch that she was “bad news.” He also ominously and vindictively noted, "She's going to go through some things."
Obviously, the most notable act of corruption was the quid-pro-quo “favor” request that Trump made of Zelensky according to the July 25th phone call (of which, we have only seen a highly edited summary version). In fact, as BuzzFlash wrote the other day, Ukraine is complying with Trump’s “offer Zelensky couldn’t refuse” even as Congressional Dem committee chairmen are keying off the call as a smoking gun of lawlessness in their impeachment inquiry.
As Giuliani played the role of laying the groundwork for the extortion scheme (with Trump as the closer), it is now clear that there was more corruption going on than just trying to dig up manufactured dirt on Biden and his son Hunter. Indeed, we now know that at least two of Giuliani’s clients, the indicted Fruman and Parna, wanted and worked to get Yovanovitch fired because she was trying to facilitate the reduction of corruption in Ukraine.
According to NBC News:
The indictment says the efforts by Parnas and Fruman to remove then-Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, a respected diplomat with deep knowledge of Ukraine, were "conducted, at least in part, at the request of one or more Ukrainian government officials….”
The Giuliani team saw U.S. Ambassador Yovanovitch as an obstacle to their objectives — digging up derogatory information on former vice president Biden and smoothing the way for a possible natural gas deal in Ukraine, former officials said.
[One identified] Ukranian official is former special prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko who worked with Giuliani to smear Yovanovitch in order to get her removed as ambassador. Lutsenko had a grudge against Yovanovitch because she believed he was too soft on corruption when he was special prosecutor.
As for natural gas, a New York Times article reports that “associates of President Trump’s personal lawyer [Giuliani] sought changes to the leadership of Ukraine’s state-owned gas company, Naftogaz.” Furthermore, and this is where Rick Perry comes in, Trump was seeking to have his crony fossil fuel companies cash in by getting contracts from the Ukraine state gas company. In addition, Trump claims that he made the July 25 call at the request of Department of Energy Secretary Rick Perry to inquire about US firms constructing a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) facility in the Ukraine.
An Associated Press article points out the dual-track of the overall corrupt extortion strategy:
As Rudy Giuliani was pushing Ukrainian officials last spring to nvestigate one of Donald Trump’s main political rivals, a group of individuals with ties to the president and his personal lawyer were also active in the former Soviet republic.
Their aims were profit, not politics. This circle of businessmen and Republican donors touted connections to Giuliani and Trump while trying to install new management at the top of Ukraine’s massive state gas company. Their plan was to then steer lucrative contracts to companies controlled by Trump allies, according to two people with knowledge of their plans.
Their plan hit a snag after Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko lost his reelection bid to Volodymyr Zelenskiy, whose conversation with Trump about former Vice President Joe Biden is now at the center of the House impeachment inquiry of Trump.
News reports in the past two days — including that Giuliani is under investigation for financial improprieties regarding his Ukrainian clients and Parnas, Fruman and another as yet not apprehended participant, — lead one to believe that Giuliani was neck deep not only in laying the groundwork for Trump’s July 25 mob-like shakedown of Zelensky, but also in the efforts to gain lucrative contracts for his clients through intimating that Trump might be less supportive of Ukraine if they didn’t cooperate.
Furthermore, Fruman and Parnas are being indicted primarily for violating laws regarding hundreds of thousands of dollars that were given to a GOP pact.. Although the DC press corps did not challenge Trump’s claim that he didn’t know them but might have had a photo taken with them (which he obviously already knew was going to come out since the photo had been on Facebook) raises the question of why he wouldn’t know such large Republican donors who were active in his campaign to remove Yovanovitch and try and tarnish Joe Biden. The money for the donations is alleged to have come from a Ukranian oligarch.
Trump claims he doesn’t know Fruman and Parnas who are seen above with Trump, Giuliani and Pence (Facebook)
There is an important context to understand in Trump’s corruption of Ukraine and his extortion. Ukraine is terrified that Russia will return to seize more territory beyond Crimea and two Russian-occupied enclaves in eastern Ukraine. It must be a fear of Zelensky that if he doesn’t “play ball” with Trump, Trump can at any time “pull a Syria” and give a green light to Russia to seize more Ukranian territory. Given Trump’s groveling to Putin, this is not just a remote possibility. Indeed, the holdup of the funds for defensive arms for Ukraine directly signaled that Trump is prepared to leave Ukraine vulnerable to Russian aggression.
Furthermore, Trump is considering pulling out of what is called the Open Skies Treaty. This allows Russia and the US to fly surveillance planes over each other’s territories to ensure that neither side is undertaking preparations for war. This would negatively impact Ukraine if Trump pulls out, according to DefenseNews:
Though the U.S. has spy satellites, the overflights have allowed the U.S. and other signatories to share unclassified imagery with Ukraine and other countries near Russia who may not have satellite capability. Last year, then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said in a letter to Nebraska Republican Sen. Deb Fischer that the overflights were particularly useful after the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 and that it was in America’s “best interest” to stay in it….
On Monday, [New York Democratic Congressman Eliot] Engel sent his own letter to White House National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien to urge against the Trump administration’s “reported plans” on Open Skies. A withdrawal would undercut NATO allies and Ukraine, which have lauded the treaty-sanctioned ability to monitor Russia’s military as check on further Russian aggression in Ukraine, Engel said.
This provides additional context to why Trump’s corrupt call on July 25 was clear extortion on a variety of levels, and can only be viewed as egregious corruption that threatens the national security of Ukraine and the independence of its natural resources, not to mention compromising its political integrity.
Given that Trump had an able ambassador recalled because she was too anti-corruption, particularly in opposing Trump and Giuliani’s efforts to force Ukraine to falsify corruption charges against Hunter Biden, as well as efforts of crony capitalists to cash in on the state-run gas company, along with Trump and Giuliani’s backing of a corrupt former Ukranian special prosecutor, — and more shakedown activities —the most pressing case of corruption in Ukraine appears to be the ruthless illegal actions and implied or explicit threats of Trump and Giuliani that directly imperil the national security of Ukraine, a US ally.
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