I’ve been asking this for WEEKS!
WHEN did it become criminal, let alone unusual, for an American Administration to hold foreign aid as an inducement for assistance in ANY area from a foreign government?
AND, the Ukrainian government itself said that no such inducement was make, neither does the transcript from the call reveal any such thing.
That makes this, at best, a he-said/she-said impasse based upon HEARSAY.
Certainly we let other countries know what we care about when we agree to give foreign aid. However, I think it is a bit unusual for a president to make that aid conditional on help making a case against electoral opponents. To the newly elected Ukranian president, it might have seemed even stranger. He might have seen this as the way Russia would behave and been surprised.