Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • Congressman: “Sir, let me repeat my question:

  • Did you ever speak to the president

  • about this complaint?”

  • Congress is investigating allegations

  • that President Trump pushed a foreign government

  • to dig up dirt on his Democratic rivals.

  • It's just a Democrat witch hunt.

  • Here we go again.”

  • At the heart of an impeachment inquiry

  • is a nine-page whistle-blower complaint

  • that names over two dozen people.

  • Not counting the president himself,

  • these are the people that appear

  • the most:

  • First, Trump's personal lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani.

  • According to documents and interviews,

  • Giuliani has been involved in shadowy diplomacy

  • on behalf of the president's interests.

  • He encouraged Ukrainian officials

  • to investigate the Biden family's activities

  • in the country, plus other avenues that

  • could benefit Trump like whether the Ukrainians

  • intentionally helped the Democrats during

  • the 2016 election.

  • It was an agenda he also pushed on TV.

  • So you did ask Ukraine to look into Joe Biden.”

  • Of course I did!”

  • A person Giuliani worked with, Yuriy Lutsenko,

  • Ukraine's former prosecutor general.

  • He pushed for investigations that would also

  • benefit Giuliani and Trump.

  • Lutsenko also discussed conspiracy theories

  • about the Bidens in the U.S. media.

  • But he later walked back his allegations,

  • saying there was no evidence of wrongdoing by the Bidens.

  • This is where Hunter Biden comes in,

  • the former vice president's son.

  • He served on the board of a Ukrainian energy company

  • run by this guy, who's had some issues with the law.

  • While Biden was in office, he along with others,

  • called for the dismissal of Lutsenko's predecessor,

  • a prosecutor named Viktor Shokin,

  • whose office was overseeing investigations

  • into the company that Hunter Biden was involved with.

  • Shokin was later voted out by the Ukrainian government.

  • Lutsenko replaced him, but was widely criticized

  • for corruption himself.

  • When a new president took office

  • in May, Volodymyr Zelensky,

  • Zelensky said that he'd replace Lutsenko.

  • Giuliani and Trump?

  • Not happy.

  • They viewed Lutsenko as their ally.

  • During a July 25 call between Trump

  • and the new Ukrainian president,

  • Trump defended him, saying, “I heard

  • you had a prosecutor who is very good

  • and he was shut down

  • and that's really unfair.”

  • In that phone call, Trump also allegedly asked

  • his counterpart to continue the investigation

  • into Joe Biden, who is his main rival in the 2020 election.

  • Zelensky has publicly denied feeling pressured by Trump.

  • In other words, no pressure.”

  • And then finally, Attorney General William Barr,

  • who also came up in the July 25 call.

  • In the reconstructed transcript,

  • Trump repeatedly suggested that Zelensky's

  • administration could work with Barr and Giuliani

  • to investigate the Bidens and other matters

  • of political interest to Trump.

  • Since the whistle-blower complaint was made public,

  • Democrats have criticized Barr for dismissing allegations

  • that Trump had violated

  • campaign finance laws during his call with Zelensky

  • and not passing along the complaint to Congress.

  • House Democrats have now subpoenaed several people

  • mentioned in the complaint, as an impeachment inquiry

  • into the president's conduct continues.

Congressman: “Sir, let me repeat my question:

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it