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Donald Trump: Why the whistleblower paper is so explosive

2019-09-26T16:52:37.279Z


An informant's complaint about Donald Trump's Ukraine policy shows how dangerous the affair can become for the US president. How long do his supporters still hold up to him?



New allegations, new documents, new witnesses: The affair of a whistleblower and Donald Trump's telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Selinskyj is now taking on unprecedented proportions. The US president switches to panic mode.

If he were dismissed, the stock market could collapse, Trump warned in a series of tweets on Thursday morning: "The Democrats are trying to destroy the Republican Party." The Republicans now have to "necessarily hold together." And anyway: "The whole country is at stake."

The president has every reason to worry. More and more, there is growing suspicion that Trump may have abused his position in order to harm his political rival Joe Biden.

By publishing the almost complete complaint of the whistleblower, who started the affair, it becomes clear how Trump and his personal lawyer Rudolph Giuliani have apparently been trying for months to exert pressure on the Ukrainian government in the matter. At the same time it turns out that afterwards the White House tried to keep things secret.

The whistleblower paper was forwarded to Congress by the government only on Wednesday after massive pressure from Democrats and Republicans. The Democrats in Congress have made it available by majority vote and made it available on the Internet.

It contains nine densely-written pages with footnotes and appendix, it is very detailed and has obviously been written by someone who is closely tied to the White House. Thus, the whistleblower (or the whistleblower) describes that the processes are apparently not only critical of him, but also of many other employees in the government. The informant, who is allegedly a member of the secret services, seems to have extremely good access and contacts. In the paper, the whistleblower explains that he (or she) has received all the information in the past four months from more than half a dozen government employees in various fields.

Read the whistleblower's complaint about the US president here:

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Whistleblower's complaint about Trump (pdf) PDF size: 4 MB

What also makes it explosive: The informant looks extremely credible. Especially through the formal correctness. He or she has not given the information to the media or the opposition, but passed it on the official route to the responsible General Inspector. The obvious motive: concern for the protection of US laws and security.

The described actions could be a serious "problem, abuse or violation" of laws, the informant writes. He also worried about US "national security", partly because it undermined efforts in the US to protect their own elections from foreign interference.

Although the informant himself admits that he himself did not take part in the telephone conversation between Donald Trump and Selenskyj, the description coincides with the memorandum published by the White House on Wednesday. This leads to the conclusion that the other information as far as possible corresponds to the actual procedure.

New starting points for the investigation against Trump

For several months, Trump and Giuliani have tried to put pressure on the Ukrainian government. They clearly wanted to get the government to investigate the democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter in Ukraine. The informant names in addition to the telephone conversation between Trump and Selenskyj a series of encounters and people. This gives Congressional members new starting points for their investigation into Trump's impeachment trial - and could lead to new revelations.

Erin Scott / REUTERS

Trump lawyer Giuliani: Several attempts to talk to Selenskyj confidants

The US Special Representative for the Ukraine conflict, Ambassador Kurt Volker, and US Ambassador Gordon Sondland, among others, will speak with the Ukrainian leadership about the issue. They had given advice on how President Selenskyj should deal with Trump's demands. In addition, the informant describes several attempts by Trump lawyer Giuliani to contact close associates of Selenskyj, including the head of security services. The Ukrainian side had also been signaled before the phone call with Trump that the conversation between the presidents could only come about when Selenskyj was ready to "play along" in the Biden thing.

Also important: The informant gives detailed evidence that the White House apparently was very well aware that Trump's maneuver could be a serious problem in the matter. Thus, the memorandum on Trump's phone call with Selenskyj was not fed into the government's usual computer system. There, different departments and employees had access to the paper.

Instead, the document apparently landed in a special code-protected system reserved for "sensitive" National Security documents.

"Abuse" of the system

According to the whistleblower's information, it was said that "not the first time" that politically problematic papers had been stored in this area. From the point of view of employees in the White House, this procedure constitutes an "abuse" of the system.

For Trump, that too is a problem: For the Democrats, here are important starting points for further investigations. In the coming days, they can not only summon more White House witnesses, but also try to expose cases that are similar in scope to the Ukraine affair.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump is likely to try everything to further discredit the Enlightenment efforts. His biggest concern now has to be that the plethora of evidence, even among the Republicans increase the number of critics.

So far, most of the republican MPs are with him. Above all, the conservative media such as Fox News or the "Wall Street Journal" are behind the president. The only question is: how much longer?

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2019-09-26

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