# 2016 Republican Platform Ukraine Amendment The **2016 Republican Platform Ukraine Amendment** refers to the Trump campaign's intervention at the July 2016 Republican convention in Cleveland to weaken a proposed platform plank on arming Ukraine against Russian-backed forces in the [[Donbas War (2014-2022)]]. ## What happened Texas delegate Diana Denman, a Ted Cruz supporter, proposed that the platform commit to "providing lethal defensive weapons" to Ukraine. The adopted language instead pledged "appropriate assistance." Denman and other delegates said Trump campaign staff, including national-security director [[J.D. Gordon]], had been sitting at the side of the committee room and walked over to the co-chairs when her amendment came up; delegates Eric Brakey and Rachel Hoff also said the softer language came from Trump staff. The Daily Beast reported that the subcommittee's minutes were discarded after the convention *[single-sourced]*. ## The denials [[Paul Manafort]] said on *Meet the Press* that the change "absolutely did not come from the Trump campaign." Gordon later told Business Insider he gave campaign colleagues "a chance to intervene, if they wanted to." In December 2017 Denman said Gordon told her Trump had directed the change; Gordon replied that Trump "wasn't involved in the GOP Platform details. That was my job." ## Mueller's finding The [[Mueller Report]] stated: "The investigation did not establish that one Campaign official's efforts to dilute a portion of the Republican Party platform on providing assistance to Ukraine were undertaken at the behest of candidate Trump or Russia." ## Significance The plank was softened, not deleted. It is nonetheless the first concrete policy move by the Trump campaign in Moscow's favor, and it prefigures the MAGA right's later opposition to Ukraine aid. ## Not the Mariupol Plan This episode is often run together with the [[Mariupol Plan]], the pro-Kremlin "peace plan" [[Konstantin Kilimnik]] brought to [[Paul Manafort]]. The platform change came first, on July 11, 2016, and was Gordon's; the convention ran July 18–21; Kilimnik raised the plan with Manafort on August 2. See [[Ukraine War Timeline]]. ## See Also - [[Mariupol Plan]] - [[Ukraine War Timeline]] - [[J.D. Gordon]] - [[Paul Manafort Ukraine Operations]] - [[Mueller Investigation]]