By Rudy Giuliani| The Wall Street Journal
President
Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in New York, Sept. 25. PHOTO: SAUL
LOEB/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
My client’s call with the Ukrainian president was
innocent, and the House inquiry is a travesty.
If your only sources of news the past two months have
been CNN and MSNBC, you probably think President Trump has committed some
heinous act that is deserving of being drawn, quartered and carted out of
the White House.
That’s a false narrative built on selectively leaked
testimony from Rep. Adam Schiff’s closed-door Intelligence Committee hearings. The
manner in which he and Speaker Nancy Pelosi are conducting this impeachment
investigation is unprecedented, constitutionally questionable, and an affront
to American fair play.
The conversation my client, President Donald J. Trump,
had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25 was innocent. During
a congratulatory call, the newly elected Mr. Zelensky brought up the need to
“drain the swamp” in his country.
Rooting out corruption was one of Mr.
Zelensky’s campaign pledges, and Mr. Trump asked him to investigate allegations
of corruption at the highest levels of both governments. It was a matter of
serious mutual concern.
In particular, Messrs. Zelensky and Trump discussed
Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
A Ukrainian
court ruled in December last year that the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and
Ukrainian lawmaker Serhiy Leshchenko illegally interfered in the 2016 election
by releasing documents related to Paul Manafort. A January 2017 report from
Politico implied that the officials released the information to hurt the
Trump campaign.
The site reported that a Democratic National Committee
contractor, Alexandra Chalupa, dug for dirt on Mr. Manafort’s work in Ukraine.
This past May, Valeriy Chaly, Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.S., told the Hill’s
John Solomon that Ms. Chalupa came to the embassy looking for damaging
information on Mr. Manafort.
Ms. Chalupa has denied conducting opposition
research with Ukrainian officials for the DNC but told Politico that she
provided what information she found on Mr. Manafort to “a lot of journalists.”
Needless to say, the matter could still use investigating.
Mr. Trump also briefly brought up his concerns regarding
former Vice President Joe Biden’s conduct toward Ukraine while his son, Hunter
Biden, worked for the Ukrainian company Burisma.
Andriy Derkach, a member of
Ukraine’s Parliament, told the press in early October that he had reviewed
documents showing that Burisma transferred $900,000 to Rosemont Seneca
Partners, a lobbying firm owned by Hunter Biden, and that the money was for
lobbying Joe Biden.
In my view, the former vice president should be
investigated for bribery, and at the very least both Bidens’ behavior deserves
serious scrutiny.
For Messrs. Trump and Zelensky to discuss these issues
was not only proper but an exercise of Mr. Trump’s responsibility as U.S.
president as expressed in Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution: “to
take care that the laws of the United States are faithfully executed.”
Moreover, Mr. Trump requested that Ukraine root out
corruption; he didn’t demand it. His words were cordial, agreeable and free
of any element of threat or coercion.
Mr. Trump offered nothing in return
to Ukraine for cleaning up corruption. If you doubt me, read the transcript.
Allegations of Burisma-Biden corruption weren’t even a major part of the
conversation. The focus was on Ukrainian corruption broadly speaking and out of
a five-page transcript Mr. Trump spent only six lines on Joe Biden.
Moreover, Mr. Zelensky has made clear he felt the call
was a perfectly normal, friendly and appropriate conversation, one in which he
felt no pressure of any kind.
In an ideal America, politicians would be
held to the same standard regardless of party, and this inquiry
would be over. But the left’s inability to accept the results of the 2016
election and fear of Mr. Trump’s policy agenda have driven the Democrats into a
frenzy.
Call it Trump derangement syndrome or a corrupt double standard,
but there can be little doubt that Mr. Biden would not be pursued so
aggressively were he in Mr. Trump’s place. The dominance of the left-leaning
media is one of the main reasons that Capitol Hill Democrats can get away with acting
this way.
If the American people are allowed to see the facts of
the matter, the truth will prevail.
But if the allegations against Joe and
Hunter Biden aren’t fully investigated, we won’t have equal justice under the
law.
Politicians of both parties should insist on fairness. That
necessarily includes defending the right of political opponents to have their
say before the American people—even President Trump.
Mr. Giuliani is Donald Trump’s personal
attorney. He served as mayor of New York, 1994-2001.
