The Ukrainian government charged three current and former government officials in that country with treason in November 2023.
The Ukrainian government charged Oleksandr Dubinsky, Andrii Derkatch, and Kostyantyn Kulyk with colluding with Russia to spread disinformation about Ukrainian political and military leaders to “destabilize Ukrainian politics,” The Hill reported.
Dubinsky, Derkatch, and Kulyk also are charged with working with Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani to “dig up compromising material” about Trump’s Democratic opponent Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67425906
Trump called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in July 2019 and told Zelenskyy he wanted him to investigate allegations against former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who was director of the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump asked Zeleskyy to investigate allegations that Joe Biden had acted improperly in Ukraine while he served as vice president during the Barack Obama presidency.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-defends-conversation-with-ukraine-leader-11568993176
By finding dirt on the Bidens, Trump and Giuliani hoped to discredit Biden, who was perceived as the leading candidate to become the Democratic candidate for president in the 2020 election.
Trump and Giuliani denied there was anything inappropriate about contacting Ukrainian officials. Trump describing his phone call to Zelenskyy as “perfect.” The administration said it had withheld military aid to Ukraine because of concerns about corruption in the Ukrainian government, the New York Times reported.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/14/world/europe/ukraine-biden-giuliani-trump.html
Really.
Trump was then impeached based on pressuring Zelenskyy to investigate the Bidens in exchange for military aid.
This was Trump’s first impeachment.
https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hres755/BILLS-116hres755enr.pdf
Not until the Trump presidency had the word “first” appeared before the impeachment of any president in 230 years of U.S. history.
Trump was impeached twice – or as many as all the impeachments of all previous presidents.
Dubinsky, Derkatch, and Kulyk announced in a series of press conferences in Ukraine they had evidence of corruption at the company where Hunter had sat on the board of directors.
Giuliani went to Ukraine and met with Dubinsky and Derkatch, who were working as Russian agents, according to the London-based Guardian newspaper.
Fox News reported that lawyers Joe DiGenova and his wife, Victoria Toensing, worked with Giuliani to try to find “damaging information on Joe Biden from Ukrainian officials.” In addition, Chris Wallace reported on his Fox News program Fox News Sunday that DiGenova and Toensing “were working ‘off the books’ — not within the Trump administration — and only the president knows the details of their work.”
Wallace also reported that Trump’s decision to withhold aid to Ukraine was made “in spite of several federal agencies supporting the aid.”
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/giuliani-was-not-working-alone-in-biden-ukraine-probe
(Chris Wallace no longer works at Fox News.)
Giuliani and Trump urged Dubinsky and Derkatch to promote what the New York Times called “a spurious theory that it was Ukraine, and not Russia, that had meddled in the 2016 presidential election in the United States.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/14/world/europe/ukraine-biden-giuliani-trump.html
This theory has been emphatically discredited.
PolitiFact said that charges that it was Ukraine – and not Russia – who meddled in the 2016 election, which have been repeated by Giuliani, Trump, and other Republicans, are categorically “false.”
In addition, the BBC and other news organizations have reported that Giuliani and Trump wanted Dubinsky and Derkatch to peddle “unproven allegations that Joe Biden had corrupt dealings with Ukraine as vice-president.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-defends-conversation-with-ukraine-leader-11568993176
The Ukrainian government’s charges of treason against Dubinsky, Derkatch, and Kulyk charge that they joined an organization formed by officials of Russia’s Military Intelligence,
“The main task of this organization is to shake the socio-political situation in Ukraine and discredit our state in the international arena,” Ukraine’s Security Service said in a statement.
Ukraine’s Security Service said that Dubinsky, in particular, spread disinformation about the country’s military and political leadership.
This also included spreading “fakes about the alleged interference of Ukrainian high-ranking officials” in the U.S. 2020 presidential election.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67425906
Let’s summarize: Trump, who borrowed heavily from Russian banks and praises Russian president Vladimir Putin, pressured the Ukrainian president Zeleskyy that in exchange for promised U.S. military aide he would have to find dirt on Biden, Trump’s political rival to improve the president’s changes of being re-elected in 2020. In addition, Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani worked with Russian agents to perpetuate a lie that it was Ukraine – and not Russia – that interfered in the 2016 Presidential Election to help Trump win the election. The three Russian agents then spread disinformation about the Ukrainian government to weaken the government as it defended itself against a Russian invasion.
Got it.
Dubinsky claims that he is the victim of “political persecution.”
Giuliani is charged with multiple criminal charges for his part in a conspiracy that included President Donald Trump and others to overturn the election results in Georgia to an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 Presidential Election.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/rudy-giulianis-2020-election-charges-explained
Giuliani also says he is the victim of “political persecution.”
Trump, who is being charged with 91 criminal counts, also says he is the victim of political “persecution.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/trump-charges-jan-6-classified-documents/
They have a point.
None of this persecution would be happening if they were living and working in Russia.
