President Donald Trump's dragged at least three other officials into his Ukraine scandal, and if it takes them down, it could result in Speaker Nancy Pelosi being the new president of the United States.
1. President Donald Trump
It's clear the president begged Ukraine's president to invent a scandal for him to bring up against former Vice President Joe Biden. Given Trump withheld international aid, and the president threatened Ukraine, it falls under the high crimes outlined in the Constitution that would constitute the impeachment of a president.
2. Secretary Mike Pompeo
Pompeo was on television over the weekend backing up Trump's account of the manufactured scandal about the Biden family. But more, Pompeo's State Department "asked" Rudy Giuliani to look into Ukraine, according to an interview with the former New York mayor.
“I never talked to a Ukrainian official until the State Department called me and asked me to do it. And then I reported every conversation back to them. Laura, I’m a pretty good lawyer, just a country lawyer, but it’s all right here, right here. The first call from the State Department," Giuliani said to Fox News host Laura Ingraham.
If the State Department told the president's lawyer to investigate a manufactured scandal on behalf of the U.S. government for the purposes of Trump's campaign, it plants Pompeo along with Trump and Giuliani in the middle of the conspiracy.
3. Attorney General Bill Barr
Trump never directly asks his people to do anything illegal. According to Trump's former "fixer" Michael Cohen, he says things in a way that makes it understood what he wants. As Politico reported, Trump told Ukraine’s president to work with Barr to probe the Biden family.
“The President dragged the Attorney General into this mess. At a minimum, AG Barr must recuse himself until we get to the bottom of this matter,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) tweeted.
“Attorney General Barr must set aside from this investigation,” Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) tweeted. “He’s a witness that will be called to testify.”
4. Mike Pence
Obviously, if Trump is out Vice President Mike Pence becomes the next president, but Pence was involved in the scandal too. The White House released an official transcript of Pence's conversation with President Duda of Poland, which publicly dealt with the issue of Ukraine.
While Pence's words were less overt, couched in the context of Trump's repeated requests for "dirt" on Biden and Rudy Giuliani's months of negotiations for inventing "dirt," Pence's statements are just as damning. You can read the transcript below (emphasis by Raw Story).
Q: Thank you very much, Mr. Vice President. I wanted to ask you about your meeting yesterday with the Ukrainian President and for an update on Ukrainian security aid money.Specifically, number one, did you discuss Joe Biden at all during that meeting yesterday with the Ukrainian President? And number two, can you assure Ukraine that the hold-up of that money has absolutely nothing to do with efforts, including by Rudy Giuliani, to try to dig up dirt on the Biden family?
VICE PRESIDENT PENCE: Well, on the first question, the answer is no. But we — with President Zelensky yesterday, we discussed — we discussed America’s support for Ukraine and the upcoming decision the President will make on the latest tranche of financial support in great detail.
The President asked me to meet with President Zelensky and to talk about the progress that he’s making on a broad range of areas. And we did that.
We, as I said yesterday, especially since Russian aggression — the illegal occupation of Crimea and Russian aggression in Eastern Ukraine — the United States has stood strong with Ukraine and we will continue to stand strong with Ukraine for its sovereignty and territorial integrity.
But as President Trump had me make clear, we have great concerns about issues of corruption. And, fortunately, President Zelensky was elected decisively on an anti-corruption message. And he and I discussed yesterday that as he’s assembled his cabinet, and as his parliament has convened, that even in the early days, he informed me that there have been more than 250 bills filed for — that address the issue of public corruption and really restoring integrity to the public process.
I mean, to invest additional taxpayer in Ukraine, the President wants to be assured that those resources are truly making their way to the kind of investments that will contribute to security and stability in Ukraine. And that’s an expectation the American people have and the President has expressed very clearly.
We also talked in some detail about what other European nations are doing for Ukraine. The simple fact is that the United States has carried the load on most of the security investments in Ukraine. And we have been proud to do that, but we believe it’s time for our European partners to step forward and make additional investments to stand with the people of Ukraine as they assert their territorial integrity and sovereignty.
President Zelensky and I talked in great detail about ongoing discussions about resolving the ongoing violence and occupation of Ukraine. And those were the issues that we covered.
But I assured him that the people of the United States stand with Ukraine for their sovereignty and territorial integrity. But I called on him to work with us to engage our European partners to participate at a greater level in Ukraine,
and also told him that I would carry back to President Trump the progress that he and his administration in Ukraine are making on dealing with corruption in their country.
This goes along with the possibility of Giuliani being implicated for his involvement as well. While the Department of Justice will refuse to prosecute the president, Giuliani can be prosecuted.
Removing Pence and Trump from office puts House Speaker Nancy Pelosi third in line to the presidency.
