Source: I Never Told ABC White House Set Preconditions For Trump-Zelensky Meeting

Chuck Ross

Politics, Americas

What else did they mess up?

ABC News added a major correction to a report that U.S. officials set preconditions for a meeting between President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s president.

• ABC inaccurately identified the source of the story, Serhiy Leshchenko, as an adviser to Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president. 

• Leshchenko has not been an adviser to Zelensky for months. Leshchenko also disputed the quotes attributed to him in the ABC article, but an ABC reporter said he has a recording of Leshchenko’s remarks.

• Nellie Ohr testified to Congress in 2018 that Leshchenko was a source of information for Fusion GPS.

ABC News added a major correction to a would-be bombshell report Wednesday that said the Trump administration required Ukraine’s president to discuss Joe Biden as a precondition to meet with President Donald Trump.

The story would have been a huge development in the saga involving a whistleblower who filed a complaint regarding a July 25 phone call between Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian leader. The whistleblower asserted in the complaint that Trump pressured Zelensky to investigate Biden’s son’s Ukrainian business dealings.

A transcript of that phone call shows Trump brought up concerns about the Bidens, but Trump denied pressuring Zelensky on the matter.

If true, the ABC story would have called that denial into question, and given Democrats more ammunition for their push to impeach Trump.

But the story has several problems.

The source for the report was Serhiy Leshchenko, a former member of Ukraine’s parliament who ABC inaccurately identified as a current adviser to Zelensky.

ABC quoted Leshchenko as confirming Trump associates told Ukrainian officials Biden had to be a topic of discussion in order for Trump to meet Zelensky.