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The Fix Analysis
How Trump tells people to do bad things

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky with President Trump this week in New York. (Ukraine Presidential Press Service/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)

By Aaron Blake
September 28
We now have a rough transcript of President Trump’s phone call with the Ukrainian president, along with the whistleblower complaint. And despite plenty of very passionate arguments, neither contains an explicit quid pro quo. In fact, while we knew there was a “promise” involved, the only reference to a “promise” comes from the inspector general, who suggests the promise might have come from Volodymyr Zelensky — not Trump.

But the operative word there is “explicit.” And a look at Trump’s history strongly suggests that he knew exactly what he was doing here. Indeed, that history makes it very difficult not to see this as at least an implicit quid pro quo.

In the phone call, Trump makes multiple references to how good the United States is to Ukraine, and Zelensky then refers to buying U.S. military weaponry — “Javelins.” Trump then quickly launches into a “favor” he wants, an investigation related to the 2016 election, and then mentions another investigation, related to Joe and Hunter Biden. Judging by the rough transcript, what Trump hoped to get from the call was obvious.

But let’s try to suspend our disbelief for a minute. Let’s pretend it could just be some kind of amazing coincidence that Trump was talking about all the nice things he did for Ukraine just before asking a “favor.” Let’s ignore the power imbalance in their relationship and the fact that Trump had reportedly been withholding a meeting from Ukraine, and then appeared to grant it the moment Zelensky said he would pursue the investigations.

Even setting aside all that, Trump’s history speaks volumes.

Rough transcript reveals key moments from Trump-Ukraine call
President Trump on Sept. 25 released the rough transcript of a July 25 phone call with Ukraine's president. Here are some key takeaways. (Monica Akhtar/The Washington Post)
His former personal attorney Michael Cohen explained in his testimony how Trump tells you to do problematic things.

“It would be no different than if I said: ‘That’s the nicest-looking tie I’ve ever seen. Isn’t it?’ What are you going to do? Are you going to fight with him? The answer is no,” Cohen said. “So you say, ‘Yeah, it’s the nicest-looking tie I’ve ever seen.’ That’s how he speaks.”

Cohen added: “He doesn’t give you orders. He speaks in code. And I understand the code because I’ve been around him for decades.”

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report includes other examples of Trump using just such a code. When he wants FBI Director James B. Comey to back off Michael Flynn, he doesn’t say it in so many words. He says, “I hope you can let this go,” according to Comey.

Mueller reasoned that Trump’s meaning was pretty clear:

A second question is whether the President’s statements, which were not phrased as a direct order to Comey, could impede or interfere with the FBI’s investigation of Flynn. While the President said he “hope[d]” Comey could “let[] Flynn go,” rather than affirmatively directing him to do so, the circumstances of the conversation show that the President was asking Comey to close the FBI’s investigation into Flynn.


Mueller adds that, “because the President is the head of the executive branch, when he says that he ‘hopes’ a subordinate will do something, it is reasonable to expect that the subordinate will do what the President wants.”

Zelensky doesn’t report to Trump, but there is a similar power imbalance.

Trump’s alleged request for “loyalty” from Comey is also in this vein. Again, from the Mueller report:

According to Comey’s account, at one point during the dinner the President stated, “I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.” Comey did not respond and the conversation moved on to other topics, but the President returned to the subject of Comey’s job at the end of the dinner and repeated, “I need loyalty.”: Comey responded, “You will always get honesty from me.” The President said, “That’s what I want, honest loyalty.” Comey said, “You will get that from me.”


The White House disputed this account, but Mueller found it to be credible and consistent. And it tracks with the idea that Trump knew that asking for “loyalty” was code for something else.

Another example involves Trump’s apparent repeated efforts to shutter the Mueller probe. At one point in August 2018, he tweeted, “This is a terrible situation and Attorney General Jeff Sessions should stop this Rigged Witch Hunt right now, before it continues to stain our country any further.”


Donald J. Trump
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@realDonaldTrump
..This is a terrible situation and Attorney General Jeff Sessions should stop this Rigged Witch Hunt right now, before it continues to stain our country any further. Bob Mueller is totally conflicted, and his 17 Angry Democrats that are doing his dirty work are a disgrace to USA!

89.2K
6:24 AM - Aug 1, 2018
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Then-White House press secretary Sarah Sanders would soon clarify that “the president is stating his opinion; it’s not an order.” Except then we found out that Trump did try to shut down the investigation — including by trying to get others to apply pressure on Sessions. Then-White House counsel Donald McGahn interpreted Trump’s entreaties as orders, and Trump aides Corey Lewandowski and Rick Dearborn both declined to deliver messages to Sessions because they viewed them as problematic.

(Lewandowski, implausibly, explained in testimony this month that he had merely gone “on vacation” and never had the right forum to deliver the message. Mueller’s report says plainly that Lewandowski “did not want to deliver the President’s message personally” and that “Dearborn was uncomfortable with the task and did not follow through.”)

Nine ridiculous moments from Corey Lewandowski's testimony
President Trump’s ex-campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, faced off with the Democratic-controlled House Judiciary Committee in a hearing on Sept. 17. (Mahlia Posey/The Washington Post)
There are, of course, times when officials have interpreted Trump in a more friendly light. One of them is former National Security Agency director Michael Rogers. Again, from the Mueller report:

On March 26, 2017, the day after the President called [then-Director of National Intelligence Daniel] Coats, the President called NSA Director Admiral Michael Rogers. The President expressed frustration with the Russia investigation, saying that it made relations with the Russians difficult. The President told Rogers “the thing with the Russians [wa]s messing up” his ability to get things done with Russia. The President also said that the news stories linking him with Russia were not true and asked Rogers if he could do anything to refute the stories. Deputy Director of the NSA Richard Ledgett, who was present for the call, said it was the most unusual thing he had experienced in 40 years of government service. After the call concluded, Ledgett prepared a memorandum that he and Rogers both signed documenting the content of the conversation and the President’s request, and they placed the memorandum in a safe. But Rogers did not perceive the President’s request to be an order, and the President did not ask Rogers to push back on the Russia investigation itself. Rogers later testified in a congressional hearing that as NSA Director he had “never been directed to do anything [he] believe[d] to be illegal, immoral, unethical or inappropriate” and did not recall ever feeling pressured to do so.”


Zelensky seems to be taking the Rogers approach, insisting this week that he didn’t feel pressured by Trump — and also adding that he never actually “push[ed]” his “independent” prosecutor general. He has every reason to leave that impression, of course, if for no other reason than to avoid alienating the very powerful U.S. president who has apparently been leaning on him pretty hard, and to make it look as if he’s not Trump’s stooge.

But if you look at the examples above, is it really at all ambiguous that Trump dances around problematic requests like this and clearly wanted to leave the impression that bad things could happen if Zelensky didn’t play ball?

Trump has exploited plausible deniability throughout his presidency; at some point, people who suspend their disbelief are truly doing so willfully.

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Aaron Blake
Aaron Blake is senior political reporter, writing for The Fix. A Minnesota native, he has also written about politics for the Minneapolis Star Tribune and The Hill newspaper. Follow
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