WASHINGTON — One misconception about the Ukraine-Trump-whistleblower story is that it came out of nowhere.
In fact, it’s been playing out for months — in plain sight.
Here’s a helpful timeline of the scandal/controversy, per NBC’s Lauren McCulloch and the “Meet the Press” team, which drives home the point that we’re not at the beginning of this story.
We’re smack-dab in the middle.
- Aug. 2018: Trump signs the Fiscal Year 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which includes $250 million to extend the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative.
- Late Jan. 2019: Rudy Giuliani meets for the first time with former Ukraine prosecutor Yuri Lutsenko, who succeeded the man that Joe Biden and the Obama administration helped oust.
- March 20: President Trump tweets, “John Solomon: As Russia Collusion fades, Ukrainian plot to help Clinton emerges.” @seanhannity @FoxNews.
- March 24: Donald Trump Jr. tweets, “We need more @RichardGrenell’s and less of these jokers as ambassadors. Calls Grow To Remove Obama’s U.S. Ambassador To Ukraine.”
- April 21: Volodymyr Zelenskiy defeats Poroshenko in run-off.
- April 23: Rudy Giuliani tweets, “Now Ukraine is investigating Hillary campaign and DNC conspiracy with foreign operatives including Ukrainian and others to affect 2016 election. And there’s no Comey to fix the result.”
- April 25: Joe Biden announces presidential bid.
- April 29: Whistleblower learns the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, is being recalled to Washington.
- May 1: The New York Times publishes its original story on Joe Biden, his son and Ukraine — and it also notes, beginning in its 11th paragraph, how Giuliani has been investigating the matter.
- May 6: Trump talks on Fox News about Biden and Ukraine: “I’m hearing it’s a major scandal, major problem. Very bad things happened, and we’ll see what that is. They even have him on tape, talking about it. They have Joe Biden on tape talking about the prosecutor. And I’ve seen that tape. A lot of people are talking about that tape, but that’s up to them. They have to solve that problem.”
- May 7: Ambassador Yovanovitch is recalled, according to news reports.
- May 9: The New York Times says that Giuliani plans travel to Ukraine to help Trump: “We’re not meddling in an election, we’re meddling in an investigation, which we have a right to do,” Giuliani says.
- May 10: Giuliani cancels travel to Ukraine.
- May 14: Whistleblower learns that Trump instructs Vice President Pence to cancel planned travel to attend Zelenskiy’s inauguration; Energy Secretary Rick Perry is sent instead.
- June 21: Giuliani complains about Zelenskiy over Twitter, “New Pres of Ukraine still silent on investigation of Ukrainian interference in 2016 election and alleged Biden bribery of Pres Poroshenko. Time for leadership and investigate both if you want to purge how Ukraine was abused by Hillary and Obama people.”
- July 18: Trump orders acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney to hold back nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine.
- July 24: Robert Mueller testifies before Congress.
- July 25: Trump has his phone call with Zelenskiy, in which the president of the United States asks a “favor” to look into “Crowdstrike,” as well as Joe Biden and his son.
- Early Aug.: Giuliani meets with a top Zelenskiy aide, Andriy Yermak, in Madrid.
- Aug. 12: Whistleblower makes his complaint to Congress.
- Aug. 28: Politico reports that the Trump administration is holding up the military aid to Ukraine.
- Sept. 2: Pence, in news conference in Poland, doesn’t deny that Ukraine aid was tied to Giuliani’s Biden investigation: “As President Trump had me make clear, we have great concerns about issues of corruption. And, fortunately, President Zelenskiy was elected decisively on an anti-corruption message.”
- Sept. 9: Three House committees begin investigating Giuliani’s involvement with Ukraine.
- Sept. 11: Withheld funds to Ukraine are released.
- Sept. 18: The Washington Post reports that the whistleblower complaint involves Trump’s communications with a foreign leader – and a troubling “promise.”
Ring a bell? Allegations of misusing a highly classified database
Here’s the big news from yesterday’s release of the whistleblower’s complaint to Congress, per NBC’s Carol E. Lee.
“Allegations by a whistleblower that White House officials misused a highly-classified database to shield President Donald Trump’s quest for information against a political opponent have raised alarm among national security experts and former government officials familiar with the secret, electronic system,” Lee writes.
More: “Former and current intelligence officers who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that, if true, such misuse should spark an investigation into the potential mishandling of a classified system.”
And: “‘The only reason to use classification to limit who sees a transcript is if the conversation is classified,’ said Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser in the Obama administration. ‘We know from the transcript that the conversation wasn’t classified so the only reason to restrict access is to protect the president’s corruption.’”
Tweet of the day
Source Article from https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/ukraine-story-has-been-playing-out-lot-longer-you-might-n1059481
Comments