Rudy's Defense

Bill Taylor will testify before the House Intelligence Committee this morning. Rudy Giulini has offered this defense against the Trump impeachment in a WSJ op-ed.  Stripped of the rhetoric, some questions of fact arise:

• "A Ukrainian court ruled in December last year that the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and Ukrainian lawmaker Serhiy Leshchenko interfered in the 2016 election by releasing documents related to Paul Manafort."  

What is the relationship between the NACB and Leschenko? Did they release the Manafort documents separately or together? Why was it illegal to release them? Is there evidence that they did so at the behest of the DNC? 

• "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.' ”

Does the Politico report say that "officials released the information to hurt the Trump campaaign" at the behest of Ms. Chalupa? On what evidence did Politico base its reporting? Has evidence for this charge been produced by any source other than Politico?
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.

• "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."

Has any other source confirmed the existence of the documents cited by Derkach? Would it be illegal under Ukrainian or US law for Burisma to pay Biden Jr. to lobby his father?

Without knowing the answers to these questions, there are arguable grounds for the US government to ask the Ukrainian government to investigate, notwithstanding what would be investigated are the activities of Trump's political opponents -- the DNC and Joe Biden. 

But the impeachable offense is this: the Trump administration made clear to Zelinsky that $400 million in US aid was frozen until Zelinsky announced publicly that Ukraine would initiate the investigations demanded by Trump. This is impeachable becauseTrump was allowing his political interests to trump US foreign and national security policy, both of which have been firmly aligned to provide Ukraine with American political and financial support ever since Russia's annexation of Crimea of invasion of the Dongas.