The inside story of Trump's alleged bribery of Ukraine

Public testimony in the impeachment hearings has painted a vivid picture of a president fixated on one thing: his own political gain over the fortunes of an ally

by Lauren Gambino in Washington and Tom McCarthy in New York

Darkness had settled over Kyiv on the evening of 24 April when Marie Yovanovitch, then US ambassador to Ukraine, was summoned from an event she was hosting at her home to answer an urgent phone call from Washington.

The reception was to honor Kateryna Handzyuk, a young anti-corruption activist who died last year from an acid attack. Though the ambassador and the activist had never met, they shared a mission: trying to end a culture of corruption that has persisted for decades in the former Soviet republic.

“Kateryna paid the ultimate price for her fearlessness in fighting against corruption and for her determined efforts to build a democratic Ukraine,” Yovanovitch said that evening, before presenting the Women of Courage award to Handzyuk’s father, Victor.

Yovanovitch – who had spent 33 years in the US foreign service, serving six presidents, and who was viewed by colleagues and superiors as an exemplary public servant – left her guests to answer the call at around 10pm. It was Carol Perez, the director general of the state department.

‘Quid pro quo’

The abrupt removal of an American ambassador raised the curtain on an extraordinary abuse-of-power drama threatening to unravel the Trump presidency. In private depositions and five nationally televised public hearings as part of the House of Representatives’ impeachment investigation, Trump administration officials past and present described Yovanovitch’s ousting and the events that followed as shocking, “deeply troubling” and a “nightmare scenario”.

In stark detail, they chronicled a concerted effort by the president and his allies to pressure on Ukraine to open investigations into Joe Biden, the former vice-president and a key political rival for Trump and a baseless and debunked conspiracy theory promoted by Russia that Ukraine had interfered in the 2016 US election. The demands amounted to, in the words of one witness, a “domestic political errand” that diverged from US policy goals and benefited Washington’s adversary, Moscow.

‘America’s mayor’

For months beginning in late 2018, Giuliani worked contacts in Ukraine, trying to get what his client – the president – wanted.

Once regarded as “America’s mayor” and now better recognized as the president’s henchman, Giuliani has insisted that his work was to defend Trump’s reputation and clear up rumors about 2016 election tampering. But witnesses said he had “more insidious” intentions: manufacturing smears against Biden.

With the help of his Soviet-born associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, Giuliani made contact with the Ukrainian general prosecutor at the time, Yuriy Lutsenko, and his predecessor, Viktor Shokin. Both had complicated relationships with Yovanovitch, and Lutsenko in particular “vowed revenge” on the ambassador, according to testimony.

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