WASHINGTON _ Text messages released late Thursday reveal that State Department officials discussed whether President Donald Trump's actions _ pressing Ukraine to open investigations that would help him politically even as the administration withheld military aid from the country _ were a quid pro quo, blowing a potential hole in Republicans' claims that there was no improper exchange.
"As I said on the phone, I think it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign," Bill Taylor, the acting U.S. ambassador in Ukraine, wrote in a text message on Sept. 9. European Union Ambassador Gordon Sondland refuted that claim in a reply, saying Trump did not want a "quid pro quo."
The release of the messages comes as House Democrats push forward their investigation into the president's interactions with Ukraine, including a July 25 phone call in which Trump pressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, a possible opponent in the 2020 presidential race.
Key committees deposed former special envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker on Thursday. Michael Atkinson, inspector general of the intelligence community, met behind closed doors Friday with staff and members of the House Intelligence Committee to discuss a whistleblower complaint about Trump.
Democratic leaders have threatened to subpoena the White House by Friday unless officials turn over documents related to the investigation.
Republican lawmakers in recent days have either stayed mum or blasted Democrats for pursuing a partisan investigation.
Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., said Democrats released only "cherry-picked text messages," and not the entirety of the Volker deposition.
"It's because (House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff is) misleading. Again," Meadows tweeted. "The actual interview directly undermined Democrats' impeachment effort."
But some cracks in the GOP position were beginning to form. The loudest rebuke came from former GOP presidential nominee and Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah. He said Trump's public appeal on Thursday to Ukraine and China for assistance in investigating Biden is "wrong and appalling."
"When the only American citizen President Trump singles out for China's investigation is his political opponent in the midst of the Democratic nomination process, it strains credulity to suggest that it is anything other than politically motivated," he said in a statement.
While speaking to reporters outside the White House, Trump continued to insist that his phone call with the Ukrainian president was innocent and that the impeachment inquiry has treated him "very unfairly."
"We are looking at corruption. We are not looking at politics," he said. "I don't care about Biden's campaign. But I do care about corruption."
Meanwhile, Ukraine's new prosecutor general said Friday that his office would revisit a raft of earlier legal cases that were closed or had gone dormant, including several involving an energy company whose board included Biden's son.
Ruslan Ryaboshapka, who assumed Ukraine's top law enforcement position last month, said the audit would involve 15 cases.
"We are reviewing all the cases which were closed down or broken into smaller (cases) to decide whether they were closed illegally and should be reopened," Ryaboshapka told journalists in Kyiv.
Ryaboshapka was appointed by Zelenskiy following his landslide election victory in April.
Ryaboshapka replaced controversial prosecutor Yuri Lutsenko, one of the prime movers behind allegations provided to Rudy Giuliani about Biden and son Hunter. Giuliani fed those rumors to Trump.
Lutsenko more recently, including in an interview with the Los Angeles Times last weekend, reversed himself and said there was, in fact, no evidence of any wrongdoing by the Bidens.
The probe involving Burisma, the gas company where Hunter Biden served as a board director, did not touch on his activities or role. Instead, it examined how the firm, controlled by oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky, obtained some of its licenses, among other questionable business practices.
Ryaboshapka suggested prosecutors will likely focus more on Zlochevsky and other Ukrainian figures than on Hunter Biden.
"As far as we can see, this is more a question of Zlochevsky and (Ukrainian businessman Sergei) Kurchenko than Burisma and Biden," he said.
Lutsenko and several of his predecessors were fired amid accusations of corruption and incompetence. Ryaboshapka and his team have, so far, won preliminary praise for their independence.
The text messages show that Volker had warned Giuliani to be careful about using Lutsenko as a source due the Ukrainian prosecutor's reputation for corruption.
