Under Donald Trump 'Extortion and Corruption Are Probably...the Norm,' Says Former Bush Speechwriter

A former speechwriter to President George W. Bush suggested that extortion and corruption are "probably by now the norm" in President Donald Trump's communications.

The comment followed testimony by Dr. Fiona Hill, the former senior director for Russia and Europe on the National Security Council in the Trump administration, to the impeachment inquiry.

Hill was asked about the infamous July 25 call between President Donald Trump and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

An edited transcript of that call, released by the White House, shows Trump asking Zelenskiy for a "favor" and to open investigations into a widely debunked conspiracy theory involving the Democratic Party and dubious corruption allegations against former Vice President Joe Biden.

Trump is facing impeachment over accusations that he tried to pressure Ukraine into opening investigations that would benefit him personally at the 2020 election by withholding military aid and offering a White House visit. Trump denies any wrongdoing.

In Hill's deposition before her public testimony to the House intelligence committee on Thursday, she described the call—which she did not listen in on, having left the administration six days prior to it taking place—as shocking and saddening.

"I will just say that I found this particular call's subject matter and the way that it was conducted... surprising," Hill said on Thursday.

Hill said she and her boss Ambassador John Bolton, Trump's former top national security adviser, had opposed a call with Zelenskiy for some time unless it was "very well prepared" and that they were confident that the most important mutual U.S.-Ukraine interests would be raised.

"And I saw in this call that this was not the case," Hill said.

According to the intelligence whistleblower complaint that kicked off the impeachment proceedings, there are presidential call transcripts locked up on a standalone "codeword-level" computer system "solely for the purpose of protecting politically sensitive—rather than national security sensitive—information."

In a discussion on Twitter, David Frum, who wrote speeches for Bush and is now a senior editor at The Atlantic, responded to a tweet that noted there "are people who know what's in that top secret vault of Trump calls. And it's difficult to believe there isn't a lot more to learn about Trump's relationships with heads of state based solely upon his own interests."

Frum replied: "The fanciful part of my mind imagined that this is why Fiona Hill hesitated to agree with the description of the Trump-Zelenskiy call as 'unusual.' Extortion and corruption are probably by now the norm for communications by the American president."