Thread by @TheViewFromLL2

An intriguing part of Trump's call with Zelensky is that it was actually Zelensky, and not Trump, who first brought up Giuliani.

Zelensky says that "just recently" his assistant had spoken to Giuliani – which means Ukraine's conversations with Giuliani book-ended the Trump call.

And Zelensky's language is addressed squarely at addressing Giuliani, who in May said in an interview that "the message President Trump would like to convey to him (and which I would give) is: 'Surrounding yourself with the enemies of President Trump is not a good idea.'"

That May interview, to a Ukrainian outlet, happened when Giuliani was in Paris – where Giuliani also met with the Ukrainian corruption prosecutor, and pressured him to give Trump "Ukrainian materials on the electoral intrigues of the Democrats in Ukraine." censor.net.ua/resonance/3128…

And that brings us to Trump's response, when Zelensky brings up Giuliani: "I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that's really unfair."

When I read this, I immediately assumed Trump meant Shokin, the prosecutor Biden helped pressure out. But.

For Trump to be referring to Shokin here sort of makes sense. The false narrative Giuliani and Trump are pushing is that Shokin was investigating Hunter Biden (he wasn't), and that's why Biden was involved in the international effort to force Shokin out (that's not why).

But notice, Trump doesn't say this prosecutor was fired; Trump says the prosecutor was "shut down." And at this point in the call, Biden hasn't even come up during the discussion – in fact, Trump later refers to Biden as "the other thing."

I don't think Trump was talking about Shokin at all. I think he meant Shokin's successor, Lutsenko. The prosecutor who, in March, initiated an investigation into 2016 election interference. After the Trump administration withheld $4.4M from his office.

https://twitter.com/TheViewFromLL2/status/1176934665887920133

Lutsenko is the prosecutor who flew to New York in January to meet with Giuliani. And then to Warsaw to meet with Giuliani again in February. And who gave Giuliani false documents implicating Democrats in some nebulous Ukrainian-based 2016 election scandal.

When Trump brings up the "very good" prosecutor, it's in response to Zelensky's comments about 1) Giuliani, and 2) the investigation into 2016.

And when Giuliani would meet with Lutsenko to discuss these topics, he'd call Trump and give him live updates. nytimes.com/2019/05/01/us/…

In March 2019, Lutsenko stated in an interview that he'd opened and investigation into Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election, and the NYT reported he'd also reopened the Hunter Biden case.

But then, nothing happened. Lutsenko's investigations just... kind of disappeared.

So when Trump says "I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that's really unfair," I think what he's actually talking about are the investigations Lutsenko opened, right after the State Dept suddenly cut off $4.4M in aid to Lutsenko's office.

Which could suggest that although combo of $4.4M in withheld aid + pressure from Giuliani had been sufficient to pressure Ukraine's Prosecutor General into launching investigations into Trump's opponents, it wasn't enough to sustain them. Someone above Lutsenko "shut [him] down."

And when cutting off aid that was designated specifically for the Ukrainian prosecutor's office didn't get Trump results, he escalated matters. He cut off aid that would pressure not just the prosecutor, but would put the Ukrainian president himself in an existential crisis.