12/29/19: The New York Times gathers up documentation, in part the result of a Freedom of Information Act request, and analyzes what it finds. You know: the “Enemies of the People” doing what journalists do. Reporters assemble a detailed outline of behind the scenes maneuvers by members of the Trump administration in an effort to block military assistance to Ukraine.
And: not get caught.
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Trump puts self-interests above U.S. and Ukrainian security concerns. |
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The
scheme to hold up aid to Ukraine is hatched.
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May 23: The scheme to hold up aid to Ukraine is hatched in the spring. Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, Mulvaney aide Robert B. Blair, and the president met in the Oval Office. Trump insists he does not want to give the Ukrainians any aid, saying, “They are all corrupt, they are all terrible people.”
(Leave
it to Trump to make insulting generalizations about entire religious groups and
nationalities.)
At the time the United States was planning to provide $391 million in military aid to the Ukrainians. That included $250 million allocated by the Pentagon for sniper rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, grenade launchers, medical supplies, and night vision goggles. The State Department would send $141 million in aid “to buy night-vision devices, radar systems and yet more rocket-grenade launchers.”
Neither Congress nor the Ukrainian government was notified about the plan to put a hold on the aid.
June 19: Blair called Russell T. Vought, the acting head of the Office of Management and Budget or OMB. “We need to hold it up,” he said, meaning aid to Ukraine. The Times quotes officials who had been briefed.
June 27: In a newly revealed email to Blair, Mick Mulvaney writes, “I’m just trying to tie up some loose ends. Did we ever find out about the money for Ukraine and whether we can hold it back?”
Blair knew the House and Senate had both passed the aid package. It could be done; but it wouldn’t be pretty if word leaked. “Expect Congress to become unhinged,” he said.
Mark Sandy, a veteran of the War in Afghanistan and a career
official, was in charge of the flow of money. After learning of the president’s
June 19 decision to hold up aid, Mr. Sandy contacted the Pentagon. Sandy
later testified as part of the impeachment inquiry. He told lawmakers that
he repeatedly pressed Michael P. Duffey, a political appointee to OMB, for an explanation. Why had Trump decided to hold up
aid?
Duffey “didn’t provide an explicit response on the reason,” Sandy explained. “He simply said we need to let the hold take place – and I’m paraphrasing here – and then revisit this issue with the president.”
Several political appointees insisted it would be legal to hold aid until September 30, when the fiscal year ended. Congress had not been notified by the State Department about the plan to provide $141 million in assistance. So, it would be easy to hold that money – simply by telling State not to notify Congress. “But the Pentagon has already certified that Ukraine was cleaning up corruption and the aid should go forward.” Sandy told lawmakers that Mr. Duffey suggested adding a footnote to routine budget documents, saying aid was delayed “for a brief time.”
This would be good for up to four days.
Mr. Sandy later testified that in his twelve years at OMB, he had never seen anything like this.
The Times explained:
And there was a problem with
this maneuver: Mr. Sandy was concerned it might violate a
law called the Impoundment Control Act that
protects Congress’s spending power and prohibits the administration
from blocking disbursement of the aid unless it notifies Congress.
“I asked about the duration of
the hold and was told there was not clear guidance on that,” Mr. Sandy
testified. “So that is what prompted my concern.”
Mr. Duffey continued to skirt the rules by inserting
footnotes in budget documents every few days, holding aid that way. Mr. Sandy
made his concerns about the legality of this hold known. The White House
responded by removing control of the funding from his office and handing
the reins to Duffey.
July 18: The story begins to leak. During a conference call, a number of diplomats and U.S. officials learn from an unidentified voice at OMB that the aid has been on hold since at least June 19. One or more persons were concerned enough that day to make four phone calls to the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
As the Times notes, Mulvaney has said that he learned about the contents of the president’s July 25 call weeks later. According to multiple witnesses, National Security Adviser John Bolton complained in a July 10 meeting with representatives of the Ukraine, Ambassador Sondland and others, that he wanted no part of the “drug deal” that Mr. Mulvaney and Mr. Giuliani were cooking up. We now know, according to Sondland, that Mulvaney had told him to promise a White House meeting between Trump and Zelensky if the investigations happened.
That is: the first of two quid pro quos was in play no later than July 10.
The Ukrainians continued to resist being dragged into U.S.
politics; but they were increasingly worried.
July 25: President Trump called President Zelensky; and as we all know (except the 40% of Americans who love Trump and will never read the White House call memorandum), Trump asked the Ukrainian leader to “do us a favor.” That favor: investigate Burisma and Hunter and Joe Biden.
That call ends at 9:33 a.m.
At 11:04 a.m., Duffey sends a request to the Pentagon. The president wants the military aid held up. “Given the sensitive nature of the request,” he tells his contact on the other end, “I appreciate your keeping that information closely held to those who need to know to execute the direction.” That note was revealed as part of a Freedom of Information request filed by the Center for Public Integrity, which later passed on the documents it had received to the Times.
(If you’re
getting the feeling Duffey knew laws were being broken, you’re right.)
August 2: We know that Rudy Giuliani, acting in his capacity as Trump’s personal lawyer, met with Andrey Yermak, a top aide to President Zelensky, in Madrid. The Ukrainians are well aware of what Trump wants.
Investigations.
Of the Bidens.
No one else. Only Hunter and Joe. That is the second quid pro quo.
Records show that another footnote was added to budget documents that day, calling for a “brief pause” in aid till August 5.
August 9: A new problem for Trump and his cronies arises. Elaine McCusker, a top budget official at the Pentagon, notifies OMB that either $61 million will have to be spent by the following Monday, or it will be lost. According to analysis by the Times and information from other sources, “The budget office saw her threat as a ploy to force release of the aid.”
Mr. Duffey continues to insert footnotes in budget documents every four days.
August 10-11: President Trump spends
another weekend at one of his private golf resorts, this time in Bedminster,
N.J.
August 12:
In a previously unreported
sequence of events, Mr. Mulvaney worked to schedule a call for that day with
Mr. Trump and top aides involved in the freeze, including Mr. Vought, Mr.
Bolton and Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel. But they waited to set a
final time because Mr. Trump had a golf game planned for Monday morning
with John Daly, the flamboyant professional golfer, and they did not know how
long it would take.
Late that morning, Ms. McCusker
checked in with the budget office. “Hey, any update for us?” she asked in an email obtained by
Center for Public Integrity.
Mr. Duffey was still waiting for
an answer as of late that afternoon. “Elaine – I don’t have an update,” he wrote back. “I am attempting to get
one.”
The call involving the various officials and the president never
took place. Later that day a whistleblower filed an official complaint.
August 16: Mr. Bolton personally appeals to President Trump for a release of the aid. He makes it clear that the National Security Council, Pentagon and State Department all back the aid.
By now, the assistance has been delayed at least 58 days.
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“I have no doubt about why the president allowed the assistance to go forward. He got caught.”
Chairman Eliot L. Engel of the House Foreign
Affairs Committee
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August 28: Politico reveals for the first time, publicly, that the aid has been frozen. At that point, the delay is at least 70 days.
Late August: Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Bolton have a “previously undisclosed Oval Office meeting with the president.” The three men try but fail to convince him to release the aid. “This is in America’s interest,” Mr. Bolton is said to have told Mr. Trump. Secretary Esper assured the president: “This defense relationship, we have gotten some really good benefits from it.” Knowing that dollars and cents mean a great deal to Trump, he pointed out that most of the money was being spent on equipment made in the United States.
It is reported, and here Trump fans might find a fig leave of cover, that Trump complained that other European nations weren’t doing enough to help Ukraine. He told his top officials that he didn’t believe Mr. Zelensky’s promises of reform. “Ukraine is a corrupt country,” he insisted. “We are pissing away our money.”
The aid remained blocked.
August 31: Senator Ron Johnson, a Republican, arranges a call with the president. Johnson had been told days earlier by Mr. Sondland that the aid would be unblocked only if the Ukrainians gave Mr. Trump the investigations he wanted.
Johnson asks Trump directly: Is the aid held up until the
Ukrainians agree to pursue the investigations Trump wants? Trump replies with a
string of expletives and says there is no such demand.
September 1: Trump is scheduled to attend an 80th anniversary meeting of the start of World War II in Poland. With Hurricane Dorian headed for the U.S., he decides to stay home. VP Pence is sent instead. In a private meeting, President Zelensky has a chance to ask Mr. Pence about the aid.
Sondland later tells lawmakers that the same day, he had a private meeting with Mr. Yermak and told him: no investigations, no aid.
The delay has now lasted for 74 days, or more.
September 9: Congress has now received the whistleblower complaint. For some reason it had been held up, contrary to U.S. law. Three House committees announce they will join in opening an investigation.
Aid has now been delayed for 82 days, at least.
September 10: Mr. Duffey sends a long email to Ms. McCusker, the top budge official at the Pentagon. It would seem clear he is covering his exposed posterior. He insists that the Defense Department had the authority to do more to ensure that the aid could be released to Ukraine all along, and certainly by the congressionally mandated deadline of September 30.
Forty-three minutes later, McCusker, with whom Duffey had been arguing all summer, sent a stinging reply. “You can’t be serious. I am speechless [emphasis added].”
September 11: Sen. Rob Portman and the president talk by phone. Trump complains again that other nations are not doing enough to help Ukraine. “Sure, I agree with you,” the senator says. “But we should not hold that against Ukraine. We need to release these funds.”
Trump reverses himself and aid is unfrozen later that day.
Here, the Times gives the last word to Chairman Eliot L. Engel of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “I have no doubt about why the president allowed the assistance to go forward,” he says.
After 84 days, or more, “He got caught.” (See: 1/2/20, for
more on the hold on Ukrainian military aid.)
*
GOP Sen. James Lankford admits what most Americans have already figured out for themselves.
On Face the Nation, he says: “I don’t think that President Trump as a person is a role model for a lot of different youth. That’s just me personally,” he says. “I don’t like the way that he tweets, some of the things that he says, his word choices at times are not my word choices. He comes across with more New York City swagger than I do from the Midwest and definitely not the way that I’m raising my kids.”
Let’s be clear. “New York swagger” is fine.
Trump is an asshole, and a liar, too.
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Would you want your children to behave like the president? |
