The EconomistSeptember 28th 2019 BriefingImpeachment 212
1guilty only by a two-thirds majority.
Because of the 20 Republican turncoats
such a majority requires, it remains very
unlikely that impeachment will in fact re-
move the president. But it seems likely that
despite this it will go ahead anyway, drag-
ging America into new and stormy seas.
At the centre of all this is a telephone
call Mr Trump made to Volodymyr Zelen-
sky, the president of Ukraine, on July 25th.
A contemporaneous memorandum of
what was said, which the White House re-
leased on September 25th, shows Mr Zelen-
sky expressing an interest in buying Javelin
anti-tank weapons from America. In re-
sponse, Mr Trump says “I would like you to
do us a favour”. Among the things he goes
on to talk about is a former Ukrainian pros-
ecutor-general, Viktor Shokin, who in 2015
was in charge of investigating Burisma, Uk-
raine’s largest private oil and gas firm.Then everything goes wrong
One of Burisma’s board members was
Hunter Biden, son of then Vice-President
Joe Biden, who is now campaigning for the
Democratic nomination in the 2020 presi-
dential election. “There’s a lot of talk about
Biden’s son,” Mr Trump is recorded as hav-
ing told his Ukrainian counterpart, “that
[Joe] Biden stopped the prosecution and a
lot of people want to find out about that so
whatever you can do with the Attorney
General that would be great.” Mr Zelensky
assures him that a new prosecutor, “100%
my person” will look into the situation; Mr
Trump urges him again to talk to his attor-
ney-general, William Barr, and to Rudy
Giuliani, the former mayor of New York,
who acts as Mr Trump’s personal lawyer.
At no point does either side mention
that, a week before the call, the White
House put a stay on $391m in military aid
that Congress had voted to send Ukraine, as
the Washington Postreported on September
23rd. Nor does Mr Trump say: “If you inves-
tigate Biden you can have the arms.” But he
would not have needed to. In circles like
those of Ukrainian power-brokers or the
New York mobsters of Mr Zelensky’s fa-
vourite film, “Once Upon a Time in Ameri-
ca”, deals do not need to be laid out directly
for their substance to be understood. Ac-
cording to one person familiar with the
conversation itself, rather than the memo-
randum, Mr Zelensky and his team were
left in no doubt that the main thing Mr
Trump was interested in was the Bidens.
On August 12th a whistleblower contact-
ed the Intelligence Community Inspector
General with concerns linked to Mr
Trump’s conversation. The concerns were
passed on to the Office of the Director of
National Intelligence (odni) on August
26th. The law says that when an “urgent
concern” arises in this way the odnihas
seven days to forward it to the House and
Senate intelligence committees. Instead itsat on the complaint in a manner that
Adam Schiff, who chairs the House Intelli-
gence Committee, describes as “neither
permitted nor contemplated under the
statute.” On September 13th Mr Schiff an-
nounced that he had subpoenaed the re-
port, and other related materials, from Jo-
seph Maguire, the acting Director of
National Intelligence.
The odnicontends that it did nothing
illegal. The complaint did not need to be
forwarded to Congress, it says, because it is
about “conduct by someone outside the In-
telligence Community,” and is thus unre-
lated to any “intelligence activity” that the
Director of National Intelligence super-
vises. The odni did not reveal who “some-
one” was. The president, being outside the
intelligence community, could fit the bill.
On September 24th Chuck Schumer, the
Democratic leader in the Senate, moved
that the complaint be provided to the intel-
ligence committees of both houses of Con-
gress; the Republican majority supported
the motion, which passed unanimously.
On September 25th the administration
gave in, sending the complaint to Con-
gress. Admiral Maguire was due to testify
before both intelligence committees on
September 26th. The whistleblower, too,
has tentatively agreed to testify in camera.
Mr Trump has behaved self-interestedly
before—indeed, he hardly has any othermode of behaviour. He has said outrageous
things to foreign leaders. He has sought to
obstruct justice, as the Mueller report into
links between his campaign and Russia
showed. So why has this case so raised the
stakes that Democrats have set aside their
caution when it comes to impeachment?Something you’ve known all along
One factor is the president apparently un-
dercutting Congress’s wishes in a matter of
national security in order to pursue his
agenda. On September 23rd Mr Trump said
he withheld the military aid because he
was worried about corruption in Ukraine.
This is a legitimate concern, though presi-
dents tend not to not use their personal
lawyers for anti-corruption initiatives. The
next day he said he withheld aid because
“Europe and other nations” should also
contribute to Ukraine’s defence; but Con-
gress had not made that a condition of their
appropriation. In the space of two sen-
tences, he first denied putting pressure on
Ukraine, then admitted “there was pres-
sure put on with respect to Joe Biden.”
Mr Trump contends, though, that there
was no quid pro quo—and that the pressure
was applied to a legitimate end. He claims
to believe that Mr Biden improperly in-
duced Ukraine’s then president, Petro Po-
roshenko, to fire Mr Shokin, the prosecu-
tor, in order to protect his son. It is true thatSources: Library of Congress; Politico; TheEconomist *At9amBSTNovember 15th 2017
Co-sponsored
impeachment billJanuary 19th 2018
Voted in favour
of impeachment billJuly 17th 2019
Voted in favour
of impeachment billSeptember 26th 2019*
Expressed support for
an impeachment inquiry
219 in favour75 50 25 0- 2575 50 25 0 -25Nancy PelosiJim Himes CT-04=Onepersonsupportsimpeachment ←Moreintheir district
voted for ClintonMore in their district →
voted for TrumpA rising tide
United States, Democratic House members who support impeachment
by Hillary Clinton’s margin over Donald Trump in 2016, percentage points