President Trump now says his efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden were apolitical and solely motivated by his good-faith desire to root out foreign "corruption." This hardly holds up to even light scrutiny. Here is my latest analysis: cnn.com/2019/10/06/pol…
(1) Government records undermine Trump's claims. He never mentioned the word "corruption" in his phone call with Zelensky. Plus, House Democrats released a series of texts from State Dept. officials describing the fallout from Trump's decision to block military aid to Ukraine.
(2) Trump hasn't publicly raised these issues before with Ukraine. Trump met twice in 2017 with then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, and never mentioned anything about "fighting corruption" during their two public appearances together. cnn.com/2019/10/06/pol…
(3) Trump's supposed anti-corruption campaign is only focused on Biden. So far, Trump's effort to end foreign corruption is only focused on one family: the Bidens. Republican Sen. Mitt Romney pointed out that this is no coincidence.
(4) The State Dept. hasn't boosted anti-corruption spending. His State Department is trying to reduce funding for these efforts. They spent $5 million in 2018 but only requested $3 million for 2019 and again for 2020. The spending doesn't match Trump's rhetoric.
(5) Trump has praised others mired by corruption scandals. It's difficult to take Trump's comments about Biden at face value because he has cozied up to other leaders who are facing real allegations of corruption. (See: Vladimir Putin, Bibi Netanyahu) cnn.com/2019/10/06/pol…
