As much trouble as his dealings with Ukraine have already caused him — most notably impeachment — you’d think that Donald Trump would want to stay as far away from Ukraine as possible.
But it appears that Trump never ever learns his lesson, even when he’s been burned by his own foolish actions.
BuzzFeed News is reporting that Trump is dispatching Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Ukraine next week, right in the middle of the Senate impeachment trail that was brought about by the president’s attempt to extort political dirt on one of his political opponents from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky:
“Three diplomatic sources described Pompeo’s upcoming visit as substantive and not simply a drop-in. Pompeo, the sources said, is expected to also meet with top government officials, and to pay his respects to Ukraine’s fallen soldiers and revolutionaries at memorials in the capital.”
What? Why in the world is Trump’s State Department suddenly kissing up to the Ukrainians?
Would it surprise you to know that Trump is sending Pompeo to make sure no surprises suddenly start to emanate from Kyiv? That’s what Ivan Yakovina, a foreign policy columnist for Ukraine’s Novoye Vremya newsmagazine, thinks is going on. He speculates that Pompeo is showing up to guarantee “no bad surprises would come from Kyiv during the Trump Senate trial.”
What kind of bad surprises? Yakovina elaborated:
“I mean no word-to-word transcripts of the relevant phone calls or other documents will leak. If I were him I would assure the Ukrainians that they will be rewarded if nothing unexpected happens during the trial. And punished if comrade Trump’s enemies will get some sort of help or comfort from Kyiv.”
Sounds a bit like blackmail, doesn’t it? And keep in mind that such an arrangement could conceivably lead to more articles of impeachment against Trump, not to mention Pompeo.
So don’t be surprised if you hear in the near future that Trump is in trouble once again for sending his secretary of state to Ukraine for the purpose of cooking up some new harebrained scheme to steal the 2020 election.