TY - BOOK AU - Abramson,Seth TI - Proof of corruption: bribery, impeachment, and pandemic in the age of Trump SN - 9781250272997 PY - 2020/// CY - New York PB - St. Martin's Press KW - Trump, Donald, KW - Political campaigns KW - Corrupt practices KW - United States KW - Political corruption KW - History KW - 21st century KW - COVID-19 (Disease) KW - Political aspects KW - Politics and government KW - 2017- KW - Foreign relations N1 - Includes index; Introduction: The rule of law -- Manafort -- Euromaiden and Crimea -- Parnas and Fruman -- Shokin -- Kilimnik -- The Black Ledger and the Javelins -- DiGenova and Toensing -- Stone -- Giuliani -- Naftogaz -- Flirtash -- Trump-Venezuela -- Vogel and Stern -- Orban and Soros -- Leshchenko -- CrowdStrike, Onyshchenko, and Kolomoisky -- Nunes and the BLT Prime Team -- Solomon -- Poroshenko and Artemenko -- Yovanovich -- Parnas -- Hyde -- The first Trump-Zelensky call -- Zelensky and Lutsenko -- Taylor -- ABC News and the hold -- Sondland and Pompeo -- The second Trump-Zelensky call -- Sondland and Giuliani -- Trump-China -- Vindman -- The whistleblower -- Pence -- September -- Barr, Durham, and Horowitz -- Trump-Turkey -- Trump and Zelensky -- Trump-Iran -- The impeachment -- The trial -- The aftermath -- COVID-19 -- Epilogue: The unrest and the election N2 - The Harvard-educated defense attorney and "Newsweek" political columnist presents an in-depth account of the Ukraine scandal that exposes years of clandestine activities, explaining why Trump's corrupt international deals have been particularly consequential during the COVID-19 pandemic; Abramson traces in exacting detail the clandestine schemes of Trump and his cadre of agents and advisers from 2015 onward. While the facts of each Trump bribery scandal are complex, the pattern of corruption remains the same: seeking to appease Vladimir Putin by returning Ukraine's energy industry to Kremlin control; freezing aid to Ukraine to extort bogus "intelligence" on Joe Biden from corrupt Ukrainian prosecutors; ignoring November 2019 intelligence warning of a dangerous virus outbreak in China due to his business interests in Beijing; promoting a dangerous and ineffective treatment for COVID-19 at the behest of his richest campaign donors. With Donald Trump, all roads lead-- by design-- to personal enrichment. -- adapted from jacket ER -