On August 22, a whistleblower complaint was filed. This whistleblower complaint was about how Trump pressured a foreign government in a call to investigate his main political rival’s son, Hunter Biden, which would increase his bid of winning reelection in 2020. President Donald Trump claims there was no clear “quid pro quo”. This means that Trump claims he didn’t ask Ukraine’s President, Zelensky that there was a favor or advantage granted or expected in return for something. The first part of the call was Trump congratulating Zelensky on winning the election.
Donald Trump brought up how good the United States was to Ukraine. He said, “she [Angela Merkel] talks Ukraine, but she doesn’t do anything.” Zelensky agreed that the United States was a better partner than the European Union.
“But the United States has been very very good to Ukraine,” said Donald Trump said repeatedly. Then, Zelensky mentioned he wanted to cooperate more on defense, saying,
“We are almost ready to buy more Javelins from the United States for defense purposes.” This is because the United States has recently withheld military aid after Zelensky asked for it.
Many Democrats suspect that the reasoning behind this was because Trump wanted Zelensky to dig dirt on Biden. What many consider the quid-pro-quo is Donald Trump’s response: “I would like you to do us a favor though.” He holds back the thought of military aid and instead asks Zelensky to do him a favor.
He then ventures into investigations before he talks about what favor he wants Zelensky to do, saying, “There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the persecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it… It sounds horrible to me.”
Trump wants Zelensky to open an investigation into Biden’s son. Zelensky assures Trump that he would get a good prosecutor to handle the case. They then talk about energy independence, as well as friends that are Ukrainian in America. They talk about meeting each other again and Trump again congratulates Zelensky.
So what is happening? Democrats are accusing Trump of abusing the power of the office to get himself re-elected. Republicans are defending the President by questioning the reliability of the whistleblower, claiming that Trump was trying to find justification for Hunter being on the board of Ukrainian Oil and Gas company called Burisma Holdings as the owner was under investigation for money laundering and corruption.
Former Vice President Biden had sought the dismissal of Shokin (Former Prosecutor of General Ukraine) because he seemed to be stalling investigations into corruption, including the one in Burisma Holdings. President Trump claimed that Biden did that action to protect his son and Burisma Holdings because of the possibility that Burisma Holdings is found to be corrupt (by a corrupt person).
You might ask, why does our president care so much about a former Vice President? This is because Biden is running against Trump in the 2020 elections, so if he gets information about Biden’s activities or private life, that could prove damaging if revealed, it damages Biden’s reputation and therefore make it easier for Donald Trump to win the election.
The Impeachment Inquiry shows how bad ideological differences (partisan) is in the United States and how many are choosing to follow party than what might be right because of fear of retaliation from other party members, therefore possibly losing votes to another member of their party.
This will greatly affect the 2020 elections because Trump would lose many supporters that did believe he was wrong for asking a foreign government to interfere in the elections. Though, if he doesn’t get impeached, he must persuade voters that him asking of another foreign government to interfere in the elections isn’t a big deal, though if he doesn’t admit that there was a quid-pro-quo, he would have to run on, “THERE WAS NO QUID-PRO-QUO” instead of his opinions.
If he doesn’t give voters a reason to vote for him, then voters won’t vote for him. To run on, “THERE WAS NO QUID-PRO-QUO” is a bad idea as much of the campaign would be diverted to proving that he is innocent instead of realizing his promises.
Though if he does get impeached, Vice President Mike Pence would become president and because of him not having Donald Trump’s enthusiasm, the Republican Party would likely lose the Presidency.
You might be asking, what about other Republicans running for office? Well, most of their campaigns are about how bad Donald Trump is as shown in the Business Insider’s 2020 Republican primary debate that was held on September 24, 2019, at the headquarters of Business Insider in New York City.
The reason why they ran is that they see Trump as an unfit president. If a new candidate decides to run, they would have little time and money to be able to run a successful campaign. What do you think is going to happen in the 2020 elections and what are your views? Click the link to access a google form to share your opinion.
Article by James Luo of Cabin John Middle School
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons