Why can't the whistleblower be questioned?

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Trump claimes Ukraine corruption was reason for the hold

President Trump has said his reason for withholding military aid to Ukraine was due to corruption in that country.

The administration blocked the aid in July.

On Sept. 26 Trump said, "We want to make sure that country is honest. It's very important to talk about corruption. If you don't talk about corruption, why would you give money to a country that you think is corrupt?"

Pentagon had cleared Ukraine months earlier

However, the Department of Defense (DoD) had certified in May that the country had "taken substantial actions" to decrease corruption.

It was the DoD that announced in June that it was providing $250 million of military aid to Ukraine.

For more, read the NPR story.

Click here to read the DoD letter to Congress clearing Ukraine to receive the military aid.

Did Ukraine interfere in the 2016 election to help Hillary Clinton?

Donald Trump has claimed that that it was Ukraine, not Russia, that interfered in the 2016 presidential election - and that they did it to help Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

There is no evidence supporting this theory. U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in 2017 that Russia had interfered in the election - to benefit Trump.

There also is evidence that it was the Russian government that created and promulgated the Ukraine interference theory.

For more, read the Christian Science Monitor story.

What role did Hunter Biden and Joe Biden play?

Donald Trump has claimed that the military aid was withheld because he was concerned about corruption in the Ukrainian government. He linked that corruption to Hunter Biden being on the board of directors of Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings.

He ties that argument to former Vice President Joe Biden's - Hunter Biden's father - successful effort to withhold loan guarantees from Ukraine unless it fired its prosecutor general Viktor Shokin.

The general claim by Trump is that Joe Biden's action was to protect his son.

First a few facts...

Hunter Biden became a board member of Burisma in 2014 after previously doing consulting with the company on multinational regulations.

Burisma and its owner Mykola Zlochevsky already were under investigation for corruption and money laundering at the time.

Shokin was being criticized internationally for not pursuing investigations into Burisma and Zlochevsky.

Several flaws in the argument Trump presents

Because Shokin was refusing to aid in the investigations, by forcing Shokin out Joe Biden actually increased the chances that Burisma (as well as Hunter Biden) would be investigated.

Withholding the loan guarantees was an Obama administration policy supported by the international community. The Trump administration's withholding of Ukrainian military aid was unilateral, and deemed to violate the Impoundment Control Act.

Also.. there were many corrupt companies in Ukraine. Yet Trump expressed concern only with Burisma. And only in 2019.

For more, read the New York Times story.

For more on the history of U.S. military aid to Ukraine, read the Defense News story.

But Ukraine received the aid

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