This post was written by Taylor Foster.

It has been hard not to acknowledge the occurrence of Trump’s most recent issue. It has been brought to the attention of the American public that there is an impeachment inquiry against President Trump which was brought on by the House of Representatives after a whistleblower filed a complaint against him. House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi had announced the impeachment inquiry on September 24th, 2019. She remarked that “The President must be held accountable” and “No one is above the law,” when referring to President Trump’s calling upon the Ukrainian Leader, President Zelensky. 

The whistleblower’s identity is still anonymous but the complaint that was filed against trump has now been made public. What is exactly stated in the complaint though? The whistleblower had made it clear that over the course of four months, Trump had been using the power of his office to solicit interference with Ukraine in the 2020 Presidential Elections. The whistleblower explained in the complaint that Trump had pressured Ukraine to look into his main political rival, Joe Biden, for any information that may pose a threat to his 2020 campaign. Though the whistleblower says they were not a witness of the communication between Trump and Zelensky, nor do they know who initiated the call, they do make it clear that six United States officials had expressed their concerns to them. The consistent patterns of the U.S. officials made it clear to the whistleblower that the information that was being relayed to them was, in fact, credible and trustworthy. 

The person who filed the complaint expressed their concern that the action taken by Trump has posed a severe risk to the United States National Security, as well as undermining the United State’s efforts to monitor and stop all interferences with foreign countries in the 2020 Presidential Elections. 

The call between Trump and Zelensky occurred on July 25th, only four days after Zelensky had been inaugurated into office. According to sources that the whistleblower trusted, the President was kind enough to begin the call with Zelensky with pleasantries and then used the rest of the time during the call to what the filed complaint states, “advance his personal interests.” There were approximately twelve White House officials present during the call because it was simply a “routine” call with a foreign leader. Only six of these White House officials came to the whistleblower and gave consistent information. 

In the days following the call, White House officials were directed by White House lawyers to remove the transcript from the computer system which would coordinate and distribute the transcript to cabinet officials. They were told to move the transcript to another computer system which would handle the information in a more classified and sensitive manner. 

The whistleblower further expressed some ongoing concerns with the relationship between Ukraine and the United States. America Diplomat, Kurt Volker and US Ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sonder met with President Zelensky on July 26th, 2019. The complaint mentions that Volker and Sondland provided advice to Zelensky on how to navigate the demands of President Trump. 

Leading up to the infamous phone call between Trump and President Zelensky, there were certain circumstances brought to the attention of the whistleblower. According to the Hill’s articles, there have been several Ukrainian officials, the most notable official being General Prosecutor, Yuriy Lutsenko, who have made several allegations against other Ukrainian officials. The allegations consist of Ukrainian officials holding back information that interfered with the 2016 presidential elections. United States Ambassador, Marie Yovanovich, had interfered with Ukrainian law enforcement agencies’ pursuit in corruption cases, as well as give them a list of people not to prosecute. Not only did she do this, but she had blocked Ukrainian prosecutors from delivering evidence about the corruption of the 2016 election.