who has been handling this in a much more explicit way. rudy giuliani. so the signaling around this and the sequence of events surrounding this call, i think would have been very clear to the president of ukraine. the president of the united states is on the phone with me, he will not let go of the idea that he wants an investigation. these guys are sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars in aid that we want. they re not, they are holding back the chance for me to meet with the president of the united states. you know what would you make of that set of circumstances if you were listening to trump? i understand that implication. i just am trying to also get straight in my mind as to whether there s a smoking gun somewhere. whether there s going to be a direct communication from the president. and it doesn t sound like that s the case. well i think that we have as we said in our story, we have one source on this call who said that trump did not explicitly
the reporting has evidence that investigative journalism is alive and well. at its root we have political opponents accusing each other of the same thing using the power of their office for personal political gain. please, spare me your drawing moral akwequivalence. viewed hypothetical in the worst light for each you have president trump wanting ukraine to investigate the business activities of hunter biden. the son of his presidential rival, joe biden. hunter biden was a paid executive. asking a foreign government to address possible corruption before being the beneficiary of u.s. aid isn t itself illicit, but it becomes problematic and becomes potentially criminal.
raise the aid. in other words there was no explicit as we pud putt it, quid pro quo. but i think if you read the sentence carefully, it s emphasized that that was true in this call. so whether there s, that sort of pressure being applied elsewhere or through other means is something we re trying to figure out. greg thank you so much for being here. absolutely. thank you. what are you saying on my twitter and facebook pages? investigating corruption by the previous administration does not constitute corruption. rudy, it s, it s a really difficult legal question. i don t think that you can say clearly that there was or wasn t based on assumed facts. criminal conduct here. but it would certainly be corrupt for someone to use the benefit of their corrupt, regardless of whether it s illegal. for someone to use the leverage of their office for personal