Multiple US officials said Ukrainians had to agree to 'play ball' with Giuliani to get Trump phone call: Whistleblower

Among the many stunning details in the intelligence community whistleblower report against President Donald Trump are revelations that multiple American officials said that the Ukrainian government felt strong-armed into working with Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani if they wanted a phone call with the president.

On page 7 of the report, the whistleblower writes that "multiple U.S. officials told me that Ukrainian leadership was led to believe that a meeting or phone call between the President and Zelensky would depend on whether Zelensky showed willingless to 'play ball' on the issues that had been publicly aired by Giuliani."

By this point, Giuliani had been publicly and privately lobbying the Ukrainian government to launch investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden, who is one of Trump's potential rivals in the 2020 election.

During his now-infamous phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump repeatedly pressed the Ukrainian leader to launch an investigation into Biden.