On Dec. 3, Rep. Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, released a report on the impeachment inquiry into U. S. President Trump. The document describes a “months-long effort by Trump to use the powers of his office to solicit foreign interference on his behalf in the 2020 election.”
It makes a case that impeachment is enshrined in the U. S. Constitution to protect the country from a president like him. The next day, on Dec. 4, Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani flew into Kyiv with two controversial Ukrainians. The first, Andrii Telizhenko, is a former diplomat who has accused his government of interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election to undermine Trump. The second is Andrey Artemenko, a former lawmaker who was stripped of his Ukrainian citizenship after he transmitted a pro-Russian peace plan for Ukraine to the White House.
Giuliani, Telizhenko, and Artemenko were in town for the filming of a documentary by the hyperpartisan, pro-Trump One America News (OAN) network. The OAN crew had already interviewed former Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko in Budapest, and now they were coming to chat with his predecessor, Viktor Shokin, and former prosecutor Kostyantyn Kulik. All three have peddled hardly credible allegations against former U. S. Vice President Joseph Biden in an appeal to Trump’s worst (and likely only) instincts.
The impeachment inquiry has clearly failed to convince Giuliani to stand down. Rather, he is going to ride “UkraineGate” as far as the scandal and its foundational conspiracy theories will take him. He does this as Ukraine prepares for a critical meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and the leaders of France and Germany on Dec. 9. The meeting, the latest of the stalled Normandy Format peace talks, could be an important step toward ending Russia’s war against Ukraine in Donbas.
At a time when Ukraine needs to project an image of confidence and competence on the global stage, here comes Rudy to again treat the country as a bottomless pit of political intrigue. He is seeking to exploit some of Ukraine’s least honest former officials to weave a fable exonerating Trump from the very clear truth that he tried to blackmail Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into investigating his political opponents and boosting his 2020 campaign.
Giuliani’s visit to Ukraine underlines a disturbing reality of Ukraine-U.S. relations under Trump. While military aid for the country has increased under the Trump administration, the president’s behavior and actions by his proxies have raised serious questions about the reliability of the United States as a partner.
Giuliani demonstrates that, even when Trump is preoccupied with other matters, his motley band of associates — official and unofficial — will always be ready to do what they do best: exploit, manipulate, and sow chaos. For Ukraine’s sake, we hope Giuliani departs as soon as possible.
