The effect of the leak of a distorted version of a Trump phone call with Zelensky prevented Trump and Zelensky from talking to each other, thereby weakening Zelensky’s position vs. the Nazi fringe in Ukraine.
The Vindman–Ciaramella–Atkinson–Misko leak and the following impeachment should also be considered in the context of Ukrainian politics.
Developments in Ukraine, 2016–2019
The Poroshenko government, which came to power in 2014 after close elections and still disputed Maidan events, turned toward apartheid by 2018, although ultranationalist parties had been in the ruling coalition from the start. One example is Andriy Parubiy, who founded the wolfsangel (modified swastika) flying Social-National Party of Ukraine in the 1990s, although left it later. Andriy Parubiy became chairman of the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian Parliament) in mid-April 2016. In October 2018, the Ukrainian parliament passed the so-called Ukraine Language Law in the first reading. In its final version, this law established language-based apartheid. It denied ethnic Russian children of government-supported education in their language and made holding government offices and working in many professions conditional on receiving a Ukrainian language proficiency certificate. These certificates were to be issued by a special commission consisting of you understand whom and published in a registry on the web.
In April 2019, the people of Ukraine rejected this horror by voting out the Poroshenko government. It was a landslide: 73% voted for Zelensky versus 24% for Poroshenko. Zelensky is Jewish. In July, Zelensky’s party also won elections to the Verkhovna Rada. Ukraine was about to restore its freedom, make peace with Russia (one of Zelensky’s promises), and pursue economic prosperity.
But the coalition of fringe Nazi politicians in Ukraine and their collaborators in the US deep state, including US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch; CIA Brennan’s pet Eric Ciaramella, NSC members Sean Misko, Michael Atkinson, Dr. Fiona Hill, and her underling Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, did not accept the democratic choice of the Ukrainian people.
Zelensky was a political lightweight. Alone, he could do very little. To achieve what he had promised, he needed US support. This is what Nazis in Ukraine and their collaborators in the DC wanted to prevent. Unfortunately, they succeeded.
The phone call
Until her dismissal, Yovanovitch was reluctant to accept Zelensky’s victory. During the July 25 call, Zelensky complained to Trump about Yovanovitch (transcript): “she admired the previous president [Poroshenko] and she was on his side. She would not accept me as a new president well enough.”
The call was made on the occasion of the parliamentary victory of Zelensky’s party. Vindman listened in and leaked parts of this conversation to somebody inside the government. Eventually, the leak reached Ciaramella, his buddy Misko, ICIG Atkinson, Adam Schiff, and the media.
POTUS calls fall outside any whistleblowing protocols because such protocols cover only the federal agencies. Leaking portions of a president’s conversation with a foreign leader is chargeable as espionage and criminal mishandling of classified information.
Nevertheless, Democrats used their crime to falsely accuse Trump of demanding that Zelensky investigate “his political rival” Biden and started impeachment proceedings in the House, where they had a majority, only to have them fail in the Senate. Of course, Democrats were eager to impeach Trump for anything, but any other pretext would be better for them.
Aftermath
Readers know the accusations were false, but it is also far off.
Joe Biden was not the Democratic presidential candidate at that time. In the polls, he was getting between 18% and 34% of the vote, and that was before Bloomberg entered the race. Everybody who mattered knew of the Bidens’ corruption, especially with Burisma in Ukraine. Hunter Biden was under IRS investigation, as the public learnt only recently. Top Democrats probably knew of Biden’s cognitive decline. In the past, the Democratic Party would have welcomed an investigation of the Bidens to get rid of Sleepy Joe.
Trump made no threat of aid withdrawal. Investigating foreign interference in US elections (Ukrainian interference was confirmed by a Ukrainian court and diplomats) is a duty of the President, not misconduct.
Finally, Ukraine had already restarted its investigation of Burisma under the Poroshenko government. Trump did not need to ask for that.
It is likely that the primary intent behind this act of espionage and following sham impeachment was to prevent Trump from talking to Zelensky. It was evident to everyone involved that preventing the US and Ukrainian presidents from talking to each other would only harm Ukraine. The only beneficiaries were Nazis in Ukraine and their collaborators, radicalized Democrats in the US. Their interference critically weakened Zelensky. The language law remained in force (“Attempts to exercise anti-language counter-revolution … to bring the Russian [language] back into education… have failed”), the anti-Russian policies of the previous government continued, and hopes for peace were buried.
At the end of September 2019, Nancy Pelosi announced that six House committees would launch a formal impeachment inquiry into President Trump over his phone call with Zelensky. A few weeks later, Ukrainian ultranationalists / social-nationalists and militias displaying wolfsangels and swastikas, objecting to peace with Russia, attempted a show of force. They could muster only 10,000 demonstrators in Kyiv, which had a population of millions. But they could demonstrate signs of support in Washington, DC. Thus, Zelensky was forced to yield, and Ukraine did not implement its side of the reduction of forces agreement with Russia.
Remarks
“Nazis” aptly describes the politicians who pushed the Language Law. The word “neo-Nazis” is too worn out.
Incidentally or not, when Parubiy became chairman of the Rada, Ukrainian pro-Democrat interference in the 2016 elections accelerated, with increased participation of Rada member. The most prominent one was Serhiy Leshchenko, who produced a fake “black ledger,” purporting to show illegal payments to Manafort. Less known is Olga Bielkova, who met Ciaramella, Elisabeth Zentos, and David Kramer. David Kramer became one of the main pushers of the Steele dossier.
This Democrats-Nazis alliance is not an accident or even a result of Bidens’ corruption in Ukraine. After Democrats invented Russian interference in the 2016 elections, Putin became their second most hated man, and Russia became one of the most hated countries. Apparently, the State Department, Hillary’s fiefdom, evaluated Ukrainian political forces according to their hostility to Russia. Nazis came near the top, while supporters of peace with Russia went near the bottom.