FUN WATCHING THE TRUMPISTS SQUIRM NOW:

Zelensky became president in May 2019, and almost immediately, Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani began a pressure campaign to try to force him to announce an investigation of a Ukrainian gas company associated with Joe Biden's son, Hunter, as part of an apparent effort to weaken Biden ahead of the Democratic presidential primaries. Giuliani also pushed Zelensky to announce an investigation into convoluted conspiracy theories that it was actually Ukraine that had meddled in the 2016 election, as a way to distract from Russia's actual campaign to boost Trump.

In a July 22, 2019 call, Giuliani told top aides to Zelensky: "All we need from the president is to say, 'I'm gonna put an honest prosecutor in charge, he's gonna investigate and dig up the evidence that presently exists and is there any other evidence about involvement of the 2016 election,' and then the Biden thing has to be run out."

Giuliani went on to say that doing this "would clear the air really well" and "make it possible, I think, for me to talk to the president to see what I can do about making sure that whatever misunderstandings are put aside." This would be "a good thing for having a much better relationship," Giuliani said.

All of this was happening as Zelensky was desperate for some demonstration of support from the U.S. president, as 13,000 of Zelensky's people had been killed in the five-year conflict between Russian-backed separatists and government forces in Ukraine.

Three days after Giuliani's call, Zelensky was granted what turned out to be his infamous July 25 phone call with Trump. During that call, the president increased the pressure for Ukraine to "do us a favor" and do "whatever you can do" to "look into" "Biden's son" and Biden "bragging that he stopped the prosecution" of Burisma, the company associated with Hunter Biden. Trump brought this up in direct response to requests from Zelensky for a meeting and "to buy more Javelins from the United States for defense purposes."

While Zelensky spent most of the call sucking up to Trump and vaguely affirming the president's statements, he notably showed true backbone in refusing to commit to any tangible action against Biden for Trump. The president left the call unsatisfied, which resulted in Trump withholding $400 million in military aid from Zelensky for months afterwards.

Tweet   @brothersjudd