Remember former President Trump? Love him or hate him, there’s one fact that will never be forgotten: he is the first president in American history to be impeached twice. Most know about Trump’s second impeachment for inciting the insurrection, but don’t know the reason for the first. The cause: a phone call between Former President Trump and President Zelensky of Ukraine. 

Let’s go back in time to July 25, 2019, the day of the phone call. A few days beforehand, Trump had frozen $391 million in vital security assistance for Ukraine, all while Zelensky had only been president for two months and Putin had implied that he had drawn new borders between Ukraine and Russia, so it was a vital time for the Ukrainian government to keep a strong guard. This aid had been used to combat Russian hostility since 2014 when Crimea was invaded by Russia and then annexed. Zelensky, being in dire need of support against Russia, had called Trump to buy Javelin anti-tank missiles.  Although President Trump saw this as a way to use Ukraine for his own political gain, Trump agreed to Zelensky’s deal as long as he agreed to a favor. Trump had coerced the Ukrainian government to undergo an investigation against Hunter and Joe Biden, and admit that they were the ones to interfere in the 2016 Presidential election—not Russia.        

This investigation would be to prove the legitimacy of Trump’s conspiracy against Biden. This conspiracy started out when an under-qualified Hunter Biden had been on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian natural gas firm. That in mind, Biden had also encouraged Ukraine to remove a prosecutor in Kyiv who had been investigating Burisma, starting a swirl of rumors that Hunter Biden had done illegal activity while working for Burisma. 

“Hunter Biden has denied wrongdoing and officials in Kyviv said there was no evidence to support the allegation,” reported BBC News. 

All that said, the phone call was a major abuse of power, and when the White House lawyers were notified about it, they attempted to reduce the number of people who had access to the summary by inputting it into a classified computer system. Although, their efforts to hide the summary were all for nothing, as a whistleblower who had never had seen the summary, but had heard about the phone call, had reported it to CIA officials. 

This report had led to an unfortunate series of events for Trump, but not before the security aid was unfrozen. Although returning to normal in terms of the security assistance, the time where it was gone had released a spark in the fight between Ukraine and Russia. This notified Putin that the U.S. doesn’t care to protect Ukraine, which weakened Zelensky and the government as they fended off the Russians who were threatening their power. 

After the unfreeze, the House launched an investigation, which would later lead to Donald Trump’s first impeachment on the grounds of putting his own personal interest over what was best for the nation. The case was building upon the political favors that occurred, leading to the impeachment article that attested to an abuse of power.

The impact of this abuse of power comes in the form that the invasion was full-heartedly Putin’s fault, but Trump had a partial impact with his disregard for the emerging nation and treating them as less than. 

“Any crack in the alliance, any show of weakness, any waverbing by American and our allies with regard to our support for Ukraine would be taken advantage of by Vladimir Putin,” Representative Jason Crow put it perfectly.  Crow was exactly right, and now the world,especially Ukrainian citizens, are witnessing the aftermath of America’s immense power and what happens when a president misuses it.      

Image from flickr.com