Trump and his hand-picked deputies, led by Rudy Giuliani, began their efforts to solicit foreign interference from Ukraine all the way back in 2018. It wasn't until Zelensky came into office promising reform that the corrupt extortion scheme truly began.
.@RepZoeLofgren explains why it's so important to understand that Giuliani was and is acting not as a government official but as Trump's personal lawyer and representative:
@RepZoeLofgren Giuliani wasn't operating on his own. The public record shows that he was in continual contact with Trump.
@RepZoeLofgren It's not just about the frequency. Giuliani was so omnipresent in Trump's shadow policy toward Ukraine that everyone in the White House understood that he was in charge—even if they didn't approve.
@RepZoeLofgren Ukrainian officials understood that fact, too—and understood that, when he demanded investigations of Trump's opponents, Trump was the one behind it all.
@RepZoeLofgren .@RepZoeLofgren lays out the timeline of Trump and Giuliani's push—and how it continues to this day.
@RepZoeLofgren To execute Trump's scheme, Giuliani and his fellow members of Trump's legal team, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, began by working with the same corrupt former Ukrainian official that Biden and the international community had ousted in 2015.
@RepZoeLofgren Giuliani didn't care how corrupt Shokin or his fellow former prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko were; all he cared is that their interests converged—they wanted Yovanovitch out, and he wanted them to give him dirt on the Bidens to help Trump.
@RepZoeLofgren Documents, most recently including those submitted by Lev Parnas, clearly show another quid pro quo: removing Yovanovitch in exchange for "evidence" to prop up a bogus investigation into Trump's political opponents.
@RepZoeLofgren The smear campaign only became increasingly public—up to and including Giuliani going on television to discuss how he was using his connections to obtain dirt on Trump's political opponents.
