President Donald Trump had gotten off scot-free. A great day for me , he declared on July 24. Former special counsel Robert Mueller s testimony about Trumps alleged obstruction of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election had failed to convince House Speaker Nancy Pelosi let alone congressional Republicans to impeach him.

With not one member of his circle in prison for attempting to collude with a foreign power, and with the prospect of impeachment rapidly fading thanks to Pelosis hand-wringing and stonewalling, Trump did what any rational leader would do: He apparently did it again.

The day after Muellers testimony, Trump called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and pressured Zelensky to help him win the 2020 election by investigating former Vice President Joe Bidens son, Hunter, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday . In the weeks that followed, Trump refused to grant Zelensky a meeting at the White House and halted $250 million of congressionally authorized military aid to the country, raising the possibility that the president was, as The Washington Post put it in an unsigned editorial, not just soliciting Ukraines help with his presidential campaign but using U.S. military aid to extort it.

That allegation, if true, would unambiguously constitute an impeachable offense, national security expert Benjamin Wittes wrote Friday. That would be a very big deal indeed.

If the reports are correct, there is truly no bottom to President Trumps willingness to abuse his power and abase our country, Joe Biden said in a statement released late Friday. This behavior is particularly abhorrent because it exploits the foreign policy of our country and undermines our national security for political purposes. It means that he used the power and resources of the United States to pressure a sovereign nation to subvert the rule of law in the express hope of extracting a political favor.

For months, Trumps personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani has been pushing the unfounded theory that Joe Biden, when he was vice president, pressured Ukraine to fire the countrys former special prosecutor because Biden was mad the prosecutor was investigating a gas company with ties to his son Hunter. Giulianis theory is based on a web of misinformation. Theres no evidence that Joe Biden knew anything about an investigation into Hunter Biden. And the U.S. government , along with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, wanted Ukraine to fire the prosecutor. That didnt have anything to do with Hunter Biden. Instead, the U.S. and its allies wanted the prosecutor gone because he wasnt doing enough to investigate corruption in Ukraine.

Those facts didnt stop Trump from pushing for a probe: During a July 25 phone call with Zelensky, Trump urged his Ukrainian counterpart about eight times to help Giuliani investigate the Bidens, according to the Journal. The details of that phone call first reported Friday by The Wall Street Journal, then confirmed by The Washington Post and The New York Times are the subject of a still-secret whistleblower complaint the president and his allies are fighting hard to keep out of the hands of lawmakers.

Trump made his pitch on July 25, just after Muellers underwhelming testimony on Capitol Hill. Muellers 22-month investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Moscow to tilt the election in Trumps favor was over. Despite compiling hundreds of pages detailing the campaigns outreach to Russian officials and Trumps subsequent efforts to cover it up Mueller did not recommend criminal charges against the president and instead deferred to Congress . But congressional leadership balked at conducting oversight and indefinitely stalled launching an impeachment proceeding .