Дальнейшие подробности

Теперь WSJ. Не уверен, но похоже, что в скором времени, так или иначе, мы узнаем всю историю.

Trump Repeatedly Pressed Ukraine President to Investigate Biden’s Son

President Trump in a July phone call repeatedly pressured the president of Ukraine to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden ’s son, urging Volodymyr Zelensky about eight times to work with Rudy Giuliani, his personal lawyer, on a probe, according to people familiar with the matter.

“He told him that he should work with [Mr. Giuliani] on Biden, and that people in Washington wanted to know” whether allegations were true or not, one of the people said. Mr. Trump didn’t mention a provision of foreign aid to Ukraine on the call, said this person, who didn’t believe Mr. Trump offered the Ukrainian president any quid-pro-quo for his cooperation on any investigation.

[...]

Mr. Trump on Friday defended his July call with Mr. Zelensky as “totally appropriate” but declined to say whether he had asked the Ukrainian leader to investigate Mr. Biden, a former U.S. vice president. “It doesn’t matter what I discussed,” he said.

At the same time, he reiterated his call for an investigation into Mr. Biden’s effort as vice president to oust Ukraine’s prosecutor general. “Somebody ought to look into that," he told reporters.

[...]

Michael Atkinson, the Trump-appointed inspector general of the intelligence community, met Thursday morning with the House Intelligence Committee in a closed session to discuss the whistleblower complaint. Mr. Atkinson declined to tell lawmakers the substance of the complaint or whether it involves the president, but he did say it involves more than one episode and is based on a series of events, according to several people who attended or were briefed on the meeting.

Мои комментарии по теме.

Во-первых, "impeach the motherfucker" already. Come on, Nancy, this is getting embarrassing.

Во-вторых, мы знаем уже намного больше, чем знали два дня назад, но это явно еще далеко не вся история. IG говорит, что complaint касается более, чем одного эпизода. И, подчеркну для трампистов, что это назначенный самим Трампом IG.

Также ранее сообщалось, что речь в complaint идет о каком-то обещании Трампа. Мы пока не знаем о каком.

Некоторые отзывы

Процитирую некоторые отзывы на нынешний скандал, с которыми я согласен.

Ezra Klein:

That Trump felt emboldened enough to try to personally collude with a foreign government to shape the 2020 election *after* the Russia investigation is pretty good evidence that he believes there are literally no checks on him at all.

Benjamin Wittes:

To all the people who crowed about how Mueller did not prove “collusion” and therefore claimed that Trump had done nothing wrong: Trump found you useful. You did your part.

Then he went quickly back to working with foreign governments to improperly influence US elections.

Вот это очень точное описание текущей реальности. Orin Kerr:

It's like a version of Man in the High Castle where Nixon responded to Watergate by saying *of course* we broke into DNC headquarters we needed the dirt and everyone was like yay he's a fighter.

Фрум написал еще 23 апреля:

Democratic leadership understandably flinches from impeachment fight.

But Trump gets a vote too, and he will force their hand by ever more radical defiance of congressional oversight.

Crisis is inescapable. Trump has too much to hide to survive normal functions of Congress.

И в очередной раз хочу отдать должное Уоррен. Очень четко об импичменте:

After the Mueller report, Congress had a duty to begin impeachment. By failing to act, Congress is complicit in Trump’s latest attempt to solicit foreign interference to aid him in US elections. Do your constitutional duty and impeach the president.

A president is sitting in the Oval Office, right now, who continues to commit crimes. He continues because he knows his Justice Department won't act and believes Congress won’t either. Today’s news confirmed he thinks he’s above the law. If we do nothing, he’ll be right. [...]