Ukraine affair

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A phone call between Presidents Zelenskyi (l) and Trump (r) is at the center of the affair.

The Ukraine affair describes a political affair about a possible abuse of power and office of the US President Donald Trump in 2019. He is accused of, among other things, in a telephone conversation on July 25, 2019 with the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi to have urged to have his political rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter investigated on allegations of corruption and thus gain advantages in the 2020 US presidential election . The phone call became known in August through an anonymous service complaint from a CIA employee, which was published after a memorandum of the phone call from the White House.

Efforts to get Zelenskyj to investigate and to find evidence against the Bidens are said to have been carried out in particular by Trump's personal lawyer Rudolph Giuliani . This should also have included that the Ambassador Marie L. Yovanovitch was released early. The ambassador of the United States to the European Union , Gordon Sondland , was also heavily involved, who is said to have pushed for the public announcement of an investigation with the prospect of military aid being paid out and a meeting of the presidents in the White House made possible.

On September 24, 2019, the US House of Representatives officially opened investigations into possible impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump on the basis of these allegations . Because military aid to Ukraine of up to 400 million dollars was withheld prior to the telephone call, an investigation is also being carried out into whether this was used in a quid pro quo to initiate an investigation. After witnesses were questioned in private and public hearings for two months from October onwards, charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress were set up in December. The House of Representatives voted on December 18 to indict Trump over both articles.

trigger

Volodymyr Selenskyj (2019)

During a phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi on July 25, 2019, the US President reportedly asked his counterpart to investigate Hunter Biden , the son of his possible challenger Joe Biden . Hunter Biden served on the board of directors of Burisma Holdings , a Ukrainian oil and gas company , and was paid $ 50,000 a month. Trump's statements in the phone call are seen as the exercise of political pressure for personal gain and with the aim of foreign interference in the American elections in favor of Trump. The conversation transcript was stored in a separate IT system that has the highest secret classification and usually stores information such as active secret service and military actions and the like.

A previously anonymous CIA employee (so-called whistleblower ) heard about this phone call from White House employees , found it abusive and lodged a complaint with the Office of the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community (ICIG) .

After review, the law stipulated that the complaint had to be forwarded to the Director of National Intelligence within 14 calendar days , and from him within seven calendar days to the chairpersons of the US Congress’s intelligence committees mentioned in the letter . The complaint was first delayed by the Justice Department and then completely suppressed, with the allegation that the discussion was about possibly illegal campaign aid and that the secret services were not authorized to investigate it.

However, the existence of the complaint became known, the White House released the transcript of the conversation, and the complaint was sent to the chairs of the US Congress intelligence committees. The following day, a partially blackened copy of the complaint was officially given to the media by the White House.

This led to the Democrats' initiative for impeachment proceedings against Trump .

The former US special envoy to Ukraine, Kurt Volker , who has since testified as a witness of the committee of inquiry in the House of Representatives, had resigned from his post on September 27, 2019.

background

Joe and Hunter Biden

Joe Biden kickoff rally May 2019.jpg
Joe Biden
2019
Hunter Biden - 3218619335.jpg
Hunter Biden 2009
Zlochevski photo.jpg
Mykola Slotschewskyi 2014


After the Euromaidan and the overthrow of the previous pro-Russian government in Ukraine in early 2014, the cabinet under US President Barack Obama supported the new, pro-Western Ukrainian cabinet under Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenjuk . The then Vice-President Joe Biden traveled to Kiev in April 2014 as Obama's representative for Ukraine to help reduce Ukraine's dependence on Russian energy supplies. Biden's son Hunter joined the board of directors of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings in May 2014 , of which he was a member until April 2019. According to various media, he should be around. Received 45,000 euros ($ 50,000) a month without any experience in the gas business.

Viktor Schokin 2015

The Burisma holding was founded by Mykola Slotschewskyj , an oligarch and later Ukrainian Minister for Ecology and Natural Resources . Since 2012, the Ukrainian Public Prosecutor General has been conducting an investigation into suspected money laundering, tax evasion and corruption, which the new Public Prosecutor General Viktor Schokin took over in 2015 . The US government, like other Western governments and international institutions, viewed this itself as corrupt; he was not pursuing the investigation adequately, but was protecting the political elite by delaying it, so that the US government was considering an investigation of its own against the company. In March 2016, when the investigation into Burisma had already been concluded, the US threatened then-Ukrainian President Poroshenko through Joe Biden that he would suspend US loan guarantees of one billion dollars if Schokin continued to be Ukraine's chief investigator. His successor, Yuriy Lutsenko , stated in May 2019 that there was no evidence of illegal behavior by the Bidens. When asked by the BBC, he confirmed in September 2019 that the Ukrainian judiciary would help in the context of international administrative assistance should US authorities investigate Biden. In Ukraine, however, there is nothing against Joe or Hunter Biden.

Rudolph Giuliani and Trump

Rudolph Giuliani, 2019

US President Donald Trump and his team, especially his personal lawyer Rudolph Giuliani , argue that Joe Biden has used his position to stop investigations against Burisma and, in their opinion, also against his son Hunter, although there is never any evidence or evidence even gave evidence and Hunter was not affected by the investigation. Giuliani tried for several months to collect compromising information about Joe and Hunter Biden; In addition, he also sought "evidence that Ukrainian officials wanted to influence the US election in 2016 in favor of Hillary Clinton , and evidence that information about shady deals was launched by Trump's former and now imprisoned campaign manager Paul Manafort from Ukraine." so that Trump could pardon the latter. He met Schokin once at the end of 2018 and twice with Lutsenko at the beginning of 2019, and from April also contacted Zelenskyi's new government. In May 2019, Donald Trump also claimed that Biden acted against Schokin to protect his son.

On May 20, Marie L. Yovanovitch , the United States Ambassador to Ukraine , was released early. Trump wrote a letter to Zelenskyi on May 29, in which he congratulated him and invited him to a meeting at the White House as soon as both sides find a suitable date. In mid-July, Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and the State Department - allegedly on Trump's instructions - prevented the transfer of up to US $ 400 million in military aid to the Ukraine, which had been approved and scheduled in a non-partisan way in Congress, before the telephone conversation between Trump and Zelenskyj took place . The meeting of presidents in the White House and the payment of military aid are said to have been promised to Ukrainian government representatives in return for the requested investigation. The funds were made available on September 11 after three House committees announced on September 9 that they would investigate whether Trump and Giuliani pushed Ukraine to investigate through the reluctance to provide military aid.

Telephone conversation with Zelenskyi

Memorandum of the telephone conversation - PDF, 5 pages

Trump called Volodymyr Zelenskyi on July 25, 2019 . In the course of the conversation, he asked Zelenskyi to initiate investigations against Joe Biden and Hunter Biden. His personal attorney Giuliani and the US Department of Justice would assist. Trump also said the US would do so much for Ukraine that the country could now do the US a favor.

According to the published version of the phone call, Trump's testimony about Biden was:

“There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it ... It sounds horrible to me. "

“There's been a lot of talk about Biden's son about Biden's stopping the investigation, and a lot of people want to know more, so anything you can do with the attorney general would be great. Biden was bragging about stopping the investigation, so if you can watch it ... It sounds horrible to me. "

The Democrats see Trump's request as blackmailing a foreign statesman for their own benefit in order to prepare for the election campaign against Joe Biden. The Republicans, however, see his call as a call for an anti-corruption investigation.

In addition, statements by Trump about the prematurely released ambassador Marie Yovanovitch came into focus. He called it "bad news" and hinted that she would go through some things. ("She's going to go through some things.") This statement was understood by many as a threat. Yovanovitch herself also testified that after reading this mention in the memorandum, she felt threatened.

Whistleblower Complaint

First whistleblower

An anonymous CIA official heard about the conversation from White House employees and a week later anonymously filed an allegation with the CIA's General Counsel saying there were serious questions about a call between Trump and CIA a foreign head of government. During a preliminary investigation, it was found that several people had raised concerns about the call, and a Deputy General Counsel of the White House had vague concerns. The circle of informed people expanded when lawyers from the National Security Council (NSC) and the Department of Justice were initiated, and then Attorney General William Barr was informed.

The Whistleblower learned that the White House was informed, and sat down with a member of the House Intelligence Committee in conjunction, who recommended him to look for a lawyer and file a complaint with the competent supervision to the Whistleblower Protection Act to be protected , and then informed the chairman of the committee, Adam Schiff , without giving the name of the informant.

Whistleblower complaint - PDF, 9 pages

The whistleblower then filed a complaint with the Office of the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community (ICIG) about the conversation, as he saw the President's behavior as an attempt to gain an illegal advantage in his political favor through his office to reach.

He also announced that White House staff had illegally attempted to hide details of the presidential call by moving the transcript of the call to a separate IT system that is used to store very top secret information. The whistleblower stated that he believed that the transcript of the conversation was put there for political reasons rather than normal secrecy. Conversation transcripts are normally stored in another secret IT system to which only certain employees of ministries and secret services have access in order to find out about facts. This is subject to the Presidential Records Act , and conversation transcripts must be placed there by law.

Congress announced that it would interrogate the whistleblower. US intelligence chief Joseph Maguire said he did not know who the whistleblower was. The New York Times reported that it was an official from the CIA foreign intelligence service. Trump said to his employees that he wanted to know who the informant was: “Because that's pretty close to espionage. You know what we used to do when we were smart. Yes? Spies and treason, we used to handle that differently than today. ”According to a report by the television station CBS on September 29, 2019, the informant is now under police protection, as threats have been received against him.

Withhold from Congress

Michael K. Atkinson, picture 2018

The informant filed the service complaint with Michael Atkinson , the inspector general of the intelligence community , on August 12 . Atkinson passed this on to Joseph Maguire, Director of National Intelligence , after a two-week review period . According to the law, he had one week to forward the complaint to the responsible committees in the Senate and Congress. However, Maguire missed the deadline on September 2, 2019, so Atkinson himself wrote to several lawmakers on September 9, including Adam Schiff , the chairman of the intelligence committee, informing them of the complaint. Schiff then wrote to Maguire asking for more information on the content of the complaint and on September 13 issued a compulsory order that the complaint should be handed over to the committee. Atkinson referred the case to the FBI and Maguire to the United States Department of Justice . This found, without questioning people, only after reviewing the rough transcript of the call that it did not violate any laws regarding campaign funding, contrary to what Atkinson had suspected. Justice Department officials did not investigate suspicions of corruption, which led to allegations that the Department was acting as a shield for Trump.

The New York Times reported at the end of November that Trump was informed of the complaint in late August, even before he approved the military aid.

publication

On Wednesday, September 25, 2019, the White House released a memorandum - not a verbatim representation - of the call between Zelensky and Trump to exonerate it. The whistleblower's complaint was also declassified so that members of the Intelligence Committee could inspect the document. The next day, on September 26, 2019, the document was published with a partly blackened appendix. The informant accused Trump of abusing the power of his office for personal purposes and trying to get Zelenskyj to intervene in the 2020 presidential election in his favor, as well as the White House, which kept the documentation of the conversation under lock and key to have. In addition to Trump, Giuliani and Justice Minister William Barr are also frequently named.

Second whistleblower

On October 6, 2019, it was announced that there was a second whistleblower, who would also be represented by the first whistleblower's lawyer. Unlike the first whistleblower, the latter had first-hand information and had already contacted the supervisory authority of the secret services and was given whistleblower status. This secret service agent was questioned in connection with the complaint of the first whistleblower and is said to have said that the "behavior of the President alarmed him very much". It is not yet clear whether he will also file a complaint. The New York Times reported that it was also unclear whether this whistleblower was identical to the one it reported on October 4th. The whistleblower's lawyer only said that he represented “several clients”.

Attempts at identification by Conservatives and Republicans

Since the whistleblower complaint became known, there have been repeated efforts on the conservative side to make the identity of the anonymous whistleblower known. In early November, Donald Trump Jr. and radio host Rush Limbaugh , among others, shared reports with the alleged name of the whistleblower and criticized for endangering the person. Several social media outlets such as Facebook and YouTube will delete any mention of the whistleblower's name from their pages because it violates their rules. Fox News instructed its hosts and guests not to give a name; CNN's policy prohibits employees from repeating reports of an alleged name of the whistleblower.

Senator Rand Paul threatened that he was likely to reveal the whistleblower's name and said there was no law to prevent him from doing so. At a Trump election rally, he claimed they knew the whistleblower's identity; he worked for Joe Biden.

Follow-up developments

Resignations

Inauguration of Volodomyr Zelenskyj in May 2019 with Americ. Delegation (from left to right): Alexander Vindman , Joseph Pennington (Deputy Head of the US Embassy in Ukraine), Kurt Volker , Olena Serkal (Deputy Foreign Minister), Volodymyr Selenskyj , Rick Perry , Gordon Sondland , Olena Selenska (First Lady of Ukraine), Ron Johnson

The American special envoy for relations with Ukraine Kurt Volker , who has often met with Ukrainian government officials, resigned on September 28, 2019.

Michael McKinley, an adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, resigned on October 11 am frustrated by the treatment of diplomats in Ukraine and the lack of support during the impeachment investigation.

After Energy Secretary Rick Perry announced on Wednesday October 16 that he had contacted Giuliani in the spring of 2019 regarding Trump's concerns about corruption in Ukraine, and the White House confirmed that Trump had urged him to work with Giuliani in an investigation into corruption to work together, Perry announced his resignation on October 17th. The following day, he sent a letter from the Department of Energy to announce that he would not comply with the subpoena to hand over documents.

At the private hearing of Mark Sandy on November 16, it became known that two employees of the Office of Management and Budget , whom Sandy did not name, had resigned because of the reluctance to provide military aid: one out of frustration that it was not understandable Reason gave; the second from the OMB's legal department over concerns about whether it was legal or not. He believed that the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act , which regulates the framework for withholding funds, could have been violated.

Impeachment proceedings

On September 24, 2019, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives , Nancy Pelosi , officially opened investigations into a possible impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump based on the incidents described above . To this end, committees of the House of Representatives headed by Adam Schiff interviewed witnesses in public and private hearings in October and November. The White House refused to cooperate with the investigation. After final reports were submitted in early December and the House Judiciary Committee investigated, charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress were made in December. The House of Representatives voted on December 18 to indict Trump over both articles.

Arrest of Parnas and Fruman

On October 9 , the naturalized American citizens Lev Parnas ( Ukraine ) and Igor Fruman ( Belarus ), who were born in the former Soviet Union and are confidants of Giuliani, entered the country from Washington Dulles International Airport with one-way tickets to leave, arrested by the FBI for illegal campaign funding because they allegedly donated money to the super-PAC America First Action , which campaigns for Trump's re-election, in May 2018 through their energy company and concealed the foreign origin of the donations. According to the indictment, they also donated to a former Congressman (called "Congressman 1") who then campaigned for Marie L. Yovanovitch , the US ambassador to Kiev, to be recalled. He was identified as Pete Sessions , who wrote a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in 2018 that Yovanovitch should be fired for publicly expressing her contempt for the government.

According to media reports, they are also said to have helped Giuliani in his investigation into the Ukraine against the Bidens by arranging contacts for him, for example a meeting with Lutsenko. Giuliani said: “Parnas and Igor helped me with certain things. In some cases they have helped me track down certain people. ”The Democrats want to interrogate Parnas and Fruman on the impeachment investigation and have issued compulsory summons against them. Trump said he does not know the two men, although a photo exists showing Trump and Giuliani with them.

On October 23, both men pleaded not guilty; Parnas thinks he will be acquitted in court.

Reactions

United States

Trump

Trump said his talks with Zelenskyi were all "perfect"; He described the investigation for impeachment proceedings as a "joke" and - like before the efforts for impeachment proceedings for Russia - as a "witch hunt".

After initiating the impeachment investigation, Trump said in a video message in late September 2019 that the Democrats were threatening the rights of US citizens. The reasons for their action against him are "very simple": "They are trying to stop me because I am fighting for you - and I will never allow that."

In a tweet on Oct. 1, Trump shared a quote from Priest Robert Jeffress on a FOX News appearance that his impeachment would create a civil war-like rift in the nation and implied that Adam Schiff should be arrested for treason.

In response to a question from reporters on October 3, Trump publicly reiterated his indirect request to Ukraine, including China : "You should investigate the Bidens ... and by the way, China should also begin an investigation into the Bidens. Because what happened to China is just as bad as what happened to Ukraine. "

In a tweet on October 22nd, Trump described the process as a lynching (quote: "All Republicans must remember what they are witnessing here - a lynching."), Which historically in the USA was mostly associated with the brutal, racially motivated killings of blacks in the southern states so that this tweet has been criticized as racist and inappropriate from many quarters, especially black politicians and historians. Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called the phrase "an unfortunate choice of words."

In the course of the investigation, Trump went on to discredit witnesses as "Never Trumper", specifically Bill Taylor, Alexander Vindman and Jennifer Williams. After Trump previously posted “NEVER TRUMPERS!” On Twitter, Taylor and George Kent were asked at the beginning of their public hearing if they were Never Trumpers and refused. Without Trump having previously called her that, Marie Yovanovitch was also asked if she was a Never Trumper and said no.

On December 17, the day before the prosecution vote, Trump sent a six-page letter to Nancy Pelosi protesting the prosecution and opposing both charges and the trial. For example, he claimed that those accused of the Salem witch trials had been granted more rights and that the Democrats would regret that day in the 2020 presidential election.

Giuliani

In an interview with Chris Cuomo , when asked if he asked Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, Rudy Giuliani replied within a minute with “No, I haven't,” and then with “Of course I have.” All in one During a telephone conversation with an Atlantic reporter on September 26, 2019, he was angry: “It is impossible that the whistleblower is a hero and I am not. Those idiots - when this is over, I'll be the hero. ”During an appearance on Fox News, he berated his interlocutor, a liberal journalist, who accused him of breaking the law, saying,“ Shut up, you idiot! Mouth, you don't know what to say! You idiot! " He also says that the US State Department hired him to contact the Ukrainian government and that he informed them of his every move. To prove this, he showed text messages on his mobile phone. In several television appearances, he accused George Soros , who is consistently the target of right-wing conspiracy theories , of an anti-Trump program in Ukraine and alleged that Joe Biden was involved in protecting Soros from prosecution.

Giuliani traveled to Ukraine in early December and, accompanied by a conservative television crew, met with Lutsenko, Schokin and former lawmakers to continue to find evidence against Biden as a counter-narrative to the investigation and to defend his client, and tweeted about his investigation against Biden have not yet been resolved. Upon returning to the United States, he reported that Trump called him and asked what he had; His answer was, “More than you can imagine.” Trump also asked him to send a report to the Department of Justice / United States Attorney General Barr and Republican Senators; Trump said, "I heard he found a lot." Jerrold Nadler , chairman of the judiciary committee, called the move "a crime in progress" and Adam Schiff said it continues the offense and threat to the upcoming election. Trump, in turn, defended Giuliani's work and said that Giuliani did it out of love. On December 15, Giuliani shared what he had found on Twitter and announced further revelations. He suggested there had been money laundering by Burisma Holdings and the Bidens, collusion between the Democratic National Committee and Ukraine to destroy Trump, and Obama-era corruption to prevent the Trump prosecution from investigating. In addition, Schokin has been poisoned twice and Lutsenko claims that Marie Yovanovitch lied under oath during the investigation. The following day the New Yorker published an online report on Lutsenko's involvement in the Ukraine affair, quoting Giuliani as saying, “I thought I had to have Yovanovitch out of the way. She was going to make the investigation difficult for everyone. "

Mick Mulvaney

The White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney has admitted on October 17, in a press conference from the White House that the military aid, had been retained for Ukraine targeted for political reasons because the president concerns had respect for corruption in the Ukraine presidential election United States 2016 in favor of the Democrats. When a reporter explained to him that this was a quid pro quo situation, he said, “You can handle it. Foreign policy will also always be linked to political influence. ”After the media reported that this would further burden Trump, Mulvaney rowed back again and said:“ There was absolutely no quid pro quo between military aid and investigations into the 2016 presidential election. ”He insinuated the media for deliberately misinterpreting his comments to encourage a "witch hunt" against Trump.

Collective statements

On September 27, National Security Action released a statement signed by over 300 former US national and foreign security officials, including both Democrats and Republicans, calling the impeachment investigation a necessary step in establishing the facts support. You describe Trump's actions as abuse of office. He subordinated national interests to his personal political interests.

Diplomats expressed their support for Marie L. Yovanovitch in statements from the American Academy of Diplomacy . The informant claims that she was released under pressure from Lutsenko after talks with Giuliani. According to the memorandum, Trump called it "bad news" in the telephone conversation with Selenskyj.

Seventeen former special prosecutors on the Watergate investigation team that led to the impeachment of President Richard Nixon published a guest commentary in the Washington Post on October 10, setting out their conclusion that there was compelling prima facie evidence that Trump was indictable Wrongdoing, and that evidence is sufficient for impeachment.

Over 500 law professors signed an open letter, which they published on December 6th. They conclude that Trump's wrongdoing is clearly indictable. An indictment does not require a crime, but rather abuse of public trust, and there is overwhelming evidence that he abused his oath of office.

Around 750 historians signed an open letter on Trump's indictment published December 17. Their verdict is that if his wrongdoing did not reach the level of indictment, practically nothing would.

The night before the prosecution vote, there were demonstrations in support of the prosecution in all 50 states under the slogan “Not Above the Law”.

Ukrainian incumbent

Zelenskyi

Ukrainian President Zelenskyi said in a joint appearance with Trump on the sidelines of a UN general assembly that their talks had been completely normal and that he had not felt pressured, and that no one could press him because he was the president of an independent country be. Only his six-year-old son is able to put him under pressure. He said he could not put anyone under pressure and had not called anyone because Ukraine had an independent public prosecutor's office. However, according to Selenskyj, the phone call with Trump took place at a difficult time, as Russia is returning to the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe and no real sanctioning pressure was exerted on the construction of the Nordstream 2 gas pipeline . Following Zelenskyi's request to deliver weapons to Ukraine during the telephone call, Ukraine purchased 150 modern American anti-tank weapons worth 39.2 million dollars on October 4, 2019.

On November 30th, Zelenskyi gave an interview to international journalists, including TIME and Der Spiegel . About Trump's statements that Ukraine is corrupt, he says that the United States is sending a harsh signal "to the world, to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, to Europe". When asked about the quid pro quo issue, his answer is:

“Look, I never talked to the President from the position of a quid pro quo. That's not my thing. ... I don't want us to look like beggars. But you have to understand. We're at war. If you're our strategic partner, then you can't go blocking anything for us. I think that's just about fairness. It's not about a quid pro quo. It just goes without saying. "

“I never spoke to US President Trump in this attitude - I'll give you this, you give me that. I miss that completely. [...] I don't want us to look like beggars. But you have to realize that we are at war. And if you are our strategic partner, then you shouldn't block any help. For me it's about fairness. It's not about a quid pro quo, that's just a story in itself. "

Trump saw in these statements a further discharge and wrote on Twitter as breaking news that Zelenskyi had again announced that Trump had done nothing wrong. Journalist Steve Benen stated that Zelenskyi criticized the withholding of military aid.

Announced Investigations

The Ukrainian Prosecutor General Ruslan Ryaboshapka announced on October 4, 2019 that the judicial authorities of Ukraine wanted to review the business of Burisma Holdings. The period during which Hunter Biden was a member of the company's board of directors is also to be examined.

The Ukrainian Ministry of Interior announced an investigation after Burisma Holdings was hacked by Russian spies on January 14, 2020, and after Lev Parnas posted text messages with Robert Hyde suggesting that Marie Yovanovitch was being watched in Ukraine.

literature

  • Richard P. Barberio: Presidents and Political Scandal: Managing Scandal in the Modern Era. Springer International, Cham 2020, ISBN 978-3-030-45503-3 , pp. 97-124 (= 6th President Trump: The Conquest of Backfire Scandal Management? ).

Web links

Commons : Ukraine Affair  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Documents:

useful web links:

Individual evidence

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  2. foxnews.com: Kurt Volker resigns as Ukraine envoy after mention in whistleblower complaint, source says. Retrieved September 29, 2019 .
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