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rationales for the withheld aid but in-
sisted there was no quid pro quo. His al-
lies have sought to reframe the scandal as
a “deep state” plot by hysterical Trump
antagonists, and to deflect attention
from the allegations of corruption by the
Bidens, which numerous independent
observers have determined to be un-
founded, the Ukrainian government has
denied and Biden decries as a smear.
What is about to unfold is more than
political drama. Presidents have been
impeached or threatened with impeach-
ment before, but never in the heat of a
re-election campaign. (Presidents Nixon
and Clinton were in their second terms
when they faced impeachment; Andrew
Johnson, impeached but not convicted
in the 1860s, was never elected to the
office.) Now Pelosi and the Democrats
have staked the course of history on an
constitutional clash, one that threat-
ens to put a deeply divided nation to
a new test.
The presidenT wanTed a favor.
“We do a lot for Ukraine,” Trump told
Zelensky on July 25, according to a de-
classified summary. “I wouldn’t say
that’s reciprocal.” So Trump requested
that his Ukrainian counterpart work
with Attorney General William Barr
and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani
on the investigation into the origins of
the Russian election probe, and help
Barr look into work Biden undertook
in Ukraine as Vice President.
At least a week before the call, the U.S.
had frozen nearly $400 million in aid al-
located to Ukraine by Congress, report-
edly at Trump’s direction. The declassi-
fied summary of the call does not include
an explicit threat to continue withholding
the aid if Zelensky’s government did not
pursue the investigation, and the Ukrai-
nian government has denied that they
were pressured in that way.
But Trump’s Democratic critics, and
some worried Administration officials,
view the exchange as a shakedown. “It
didn’t have to be explicit,” says one se-
nior U.S. official. Trump was reminding
Zelensky, the senior official says, how
much Ukraine depended on U.S. aid, mili-
tary assistance and loan guarantees, and
then repeatedly expressing his interest in
the unproven corruption claim tied to the
business connections of Hunter Biden,
Joe Biden’s son. Whether he felt squeezed
or not, Zelensky promised to meet with
Giuliani as soon as the former New York
mayor came to Ukraine.
At least one person privy to the con-
versation found the request to be part
of an alarming pattern of behavior, and
blew the whistle. When a member of the
intelligence community sees an urgent
national- security concern, there is a pro-
tocol to follow, established by Republi-
cans and Democrats in Congress and the
Executive Branch. The whistle- blower,
whose identity has not been disclosed,
went through those channels, lodging a
complaint with the inspector general of
the intelligence community on Aug. 12.
The inspector general, charged with
vetting such highly sensitive matters,
examined the complaint and found it to
be both credible and a matter of “urgent
concern.”
The complaint was then forwarded
to the acting Director of National Intel-
ligence, Joseph Maguire. Federal stat-
utes require the DNI to forward credible
whistle- blower complaints to the intel-
ligence committees in Congress. When
Maguire did not do so within seven days,
the inspector general alerted the commit-
tees to its existence. After an internal bat-
tle, the White House backed down and
provided the complaint on Sept. 25 as this
story was going to press.
But the substance of the whistle-
blower’s allegation soon began to trickle
Pelosi announced a
formal impeachment
inquiry on Sept. 24
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