R&I – FS
As Russia bombards Ukraine, Donald Trump is wading into the conflict barely two years after he faced an impeachment trial on charges that he abused his power by essentially extorting the Kyiv government and Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Trump was acquitted in February 2020 after the House impeached him, alleging he held hostage hundreds of millions of dollars in security aid in order to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political rivals, including his eventual successor, Joe Biden. The aid was eventually provided, but not before a crisis that rattled two continents and desperate pleas by Zelenskyy’s government for help fending off the very Russian aggression that now threatens to topple him from power in Ukraine.
Then-President Trump’s treatment of Ukraine alarmed some of his own top advisers at the time, particularly when coupled with his relatively warm praise of Putin — which continues today. At the time, Zelenskyy had desperately sought and asked Trump for a White House meeting, an effort to bolster his mandate to confront Russia. The meeting never came.
macko