WASHINGTON — Long before a telephone call with Ukraine’s president that prompted an impeachment inquiry, President Trump was exchanging political favors with a different Ukrainian leader, who desperately sought American help for his country’s struggle against Russian aggression.
Petro O. Poroshenko, Ukraine’s president until May, waged an elaborate campaign to win over Mr. Trump at a time when advisers had convinced Mr. Trump that Ukraine was a nest of Hillary Clinton supporters.
Mr. Poroshenko’s campaign included trade deals that were politically expedient for Mr. Trump, meetings with Rudolph W. Giuliani, the freezing of potentially damaging criminal cases and attempts to use the former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort as a back channel.
From the start, Mr. Poroshenko’s aides also scrambled to find ways to flatter the new American president — advising their boss to gush during his first telephone call with Mr. Trump about Tom Brady, the star New England Patriots quarterback whom Mr. Trump has long admired.
