A Republican senator says he questioned President Trump in August about a potential quid pro quo with Ukraine after learning of it from a U.S. diplomat.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) told The Wall Street Journal in a Friday interview that U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland told him the U.S. was tying military aid to Ukraine and Trump's request for an investigation related to the 2016 presidential election. As Johnson put it, he says he was told that Ukraine would need to "get to the bottom of what happened in 2016" and "if President Trump has that confidence, then he'll release the military spending."
"At that suggestion, I winced," Johnson said. "My reaction was: Oh, God. I don't want to see those two things combined.”
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This prompted Johnson to question Trump on a phone call, and he says the president denied it, telling him, "No way. I would never do that." Trump withheld military aid to Ukraine in July prior to a phone call in which he pushed for an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and interference in the 2016 election. Johnson also told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Friday that Trump told him he was considering withholding aid to Ukraine due to alleged 2016-related corruption.
In a series of texts released by the House of Representatives Thursday, Sondland had said Trump has been "crystal clear no quid pro quo's of any kind" in respose to a diplomat saying, "I think it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign."
The exchanges released Thursday also showed officials discussing a meeting between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as dependent upon an investigation, with Kurt Volker, U.S. special envoy to Ukraine, writing to a Zelensky aide, "assuming President Z convinces trump he will investigate / 'get to the bottom of what happened' in 2016, we will nail down date for visit to Washington."
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