February 15, 2020

Ukrainian President Asks Trump to “Please, Please Stop Saying That Ukraine Is a Corrupt Country”

But, as President Zelensky already knows, Trump rarely does things for free.

President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks after a press conference in Kyiv in February 2020.STR/NurPhoto/Getty

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

President Donald Trump famously had a request for the president of Ukraine when the two leaders spoke over the phone on July 25. That request to launch politicized investigations into Joe Biden and his son turned into a months-long congressional investigation, making Trump only the third president in history to be impeached. 

Now President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has his own request for Trump. “Please, please stop saying that Ukraine is a corrupt country, because from now, it’s not true,” he told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Saturday. “We want to change this image.”

Corruption is a persistent problem in Ukraine but Zelensky, who once played the president of Ukraine on television, has actually taken steps to crack down on graft and abuse. He passed anti-corruption legislation within months of taking office and, in December, signed a whistleblower protection law that protects against workplace retaliation and provides free legal counsel to those who come forward. Trump, of course, has mused about whether the whistleblower who reported his call with Zelensky deserved the death penalty and, after his acquittal, fired or reassigned several witnesses who gave testimony as part of the House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry.

These reforms haven’t stopped Trump from repeatedly portraying Ukraine as hopelessly corrupt, which Trump argues is the reason why he wanted Zelensky to investigate the Bidens, not because it politically benefited him.

“We’re supporting a country; we want to make sure that country is honest,” Trump said in September. “It’s very important to talk about corruption. If you don’t talk about corruption, why would you give money to a country that you think is corrupt?” But as the Washington Post noted later that month, Trump’s concerns about corruption are “highly selective and remarkably convenient.” On the call with Zelensky, he brought up Burisma, a company where Hunter Biden served on the governing board, and CrowdStrike, a California cybersecurity firm that helped prove Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee in 2016. The investigation into Burisma never involved Hunter Biden and had long been dormant, while the flippant reference to CrowdStrike seems to invoke a baseless conspiracy theory that the firm’s analysis “was suspect because one of the firm’s co-founders is part of a nonprofit organization that receives funding from a wealthy Ukrainian,” the Post reported. Far from the vaunted anti-corruption warrior he proclaimed to be, Trump was asking Zelensky to investigate hogwash. 

All the attention Trump’s impeachment has put on Ukraine hasn’t stopped Zelensky from wanting another try at their phone call, though. “In my previous profession, when I was a producer, scriptwriter and actor, I wanted to get an Oscar, I wanted to be popular in the USA,” he joked to CNN. “Now I am very popular in the USA.”

He added, “If this way will help Ukraine, I am ready for the next call with Mr. Trump.”

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate