Fact check: Trump's false claim that Democrats threatened Ukraine aid

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Fact check: Trump's false claim that Democrats threatened Ukraine aid


https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-impeachment-inquiry/fact-check-trump-s-false-claim-democrats-threatened-ukraine-aid-n1059156

Trump and Rep. Devin Nunes have said Democrats did the exact same thing Trump is accused of doing: pressuring Ukraine to investigate political rivals.

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Rep. Nunes attempts to frame whistleblower as 'fake news, 'information warfare'

Sept. 26, 2019, 5:05 PM CDT
By Jane C. Timm

President Donald Trump and his allies, amid fallout from the whistleblower complaint alleging he abused the power of his office for political gain, have attempted to turn the tables on Democrats, accusing them of their own Ukraine scandal.

Trump, who faces an impeachment inquiry, floated the claim in a news conference Wednesday, saying that Democrats "threatened" Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy "if he didn't do things." Rep. Devin Nunes, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee and a fierce defender of the president, made a similar point Thursday during the committee's hearing with the acting director of national intelligence.

"Today, they accused the president of pressuring Ukrainians to take actions that would help himself or hurt his political opponents. Yet there are numerous examples of Democrats doing the exact same thing,” the California Republican said.

Here are a handful of claims from Trump and Nunes, and the facts.

Claim: Democratic senators threatened Ukraine's aid

"And it got almost no attention, but in May, CNN reported that Sens. Robert Menendez, Richard Durbin, and Patrick Leahy wrote a letter to Ukraine's prosecutor general expressing concern at the closing of four investigations they said were "critical." In the letter, they implied that their support for U.S. assistance to Ukraine was at stake and that if they didn’t do the right thing, they wouldn’t get any assistance. Gee, doesn’t that sound familiar? Doesn’t that sound familiar?" Trump said Wednesday.

This is false — the senators did not imply anything of the sort.

In May 2018, Democratic Sens. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, Dick Durbin of Illinois and Patrick Leahy of Vermont wrote a letter to the top Ukrainian prosecutor at the time expressing concern over media reports that his office was "freezing" investigations in order to limit their cooperation with special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe for fear of angering Trump...............................................


Nowhere in the letter do the Democratic senators tie their support for the Congress-approved aid Ukraine receives to the reopening of various probes.

Read the letter here..........................