Trump aides tasked with carrying out Ukraine funding freeze shortly after Zelensky call

[mystery-ak]

Trump aides tasked with carrying out Ukraine funding freeze shortly after Zelensky call
By Marty Johnson - 12/21/19 11:00 AM EST

Newly released documents from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Pentagon provide further insight into the timeline regarding the White House's freezing of congressionally-approved aid to Ukraine.

The Center for Public Integrity obtained the documents through a FOIA request and published them late Friday.

According to the new documents, shortly after President Trump's now-infamous July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, White House aides were tasked with halting the $391 million of military aid.


Specifically, the obtained documents, while heavily redacted, contain emails sent by senior White House official Michael Duffey. Duffey, a Trump appointee, works through the OMB and is responsible for overseeing national security money.

"Based on guidance I have received and in light of the Administration's plan to review assistance to Ukraine, including the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, please hold off on any additional DoD obligations of these funds, pending direction from that process," Duffey wrote to OMB and Pentagon officials on July 25.

more
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/475600-trump-aides-tasked-with-carrying-out-ukraine-funding-freeze-shortly

[Formerly Once-Ler]

Immediately after the July 25th call between Zelensky and Trump, the one I like to call the Extortion Call, the White House instructs OMB not to release funds and to be quiet about it.

What a coinky-dink!

Senior White House official Michael Duffey would make a fine witness at the Senate trial.

[TomSea]

Trump wanted Ukraine-aid details weeks before Zelensky call: documents
By Mary Kay Linge
December 21, 2019

President Trump prodded staffers for details about US military aid to Ukraine five weeks before his July 25 phone call with President Volodymyr Zelensky, a heavily redacted batch of internal administration documents reveal.

Emails sent between officials at the Pentagon and the Office of Management and Budget show that the hold on the aid was placed just hours after the two leaders spoke.

Michael Duffey of the OMB told the Pentagon to freeze the payments “in light of the Administration’s plan to review assistance to Ukraine.”

Read more at: https://nypost.com/2019/12/21/trump-wanted-ukraine-aid-details-weeks-before-zelensky-call-documents/

This email story is pretty big in the news now; but I don't see it posted anywhere. Most of the articles do not have this "positive" spin of this one.

"Emails sent between officials at the Pentagon and the Office of Management and Budget show that the hold on the aid was placed just hours after the two leaders spoke."

I'm sure I'm missing someone as having posted it.

[TomSea]

Why is this just coming out now??

Trump Administration Officials Worried Halt to Ukraine Aid Violated Spending Law
MORE EMAILS RELEASED

But key details of what they said to one another are again blacked out in documents released to the Center for Public Integrity under court order.
Center for Public Integrity
Updated Dec. 21, 2019

By R. Jeffrey Smith, Center for Public Integrity

When President Donald Trump ordered a halt to aid to Ukraine last summer, defense officials and diplomats worried first that it would undermine U.S. national security. Ukraine is, as some of them later testified before Congress, on the front lines of Russian aggression, and only robust American support would fend off aggressive Moscow meddling in the West. This worry eventually helped galvanize congressional support for one of the two impeachment articles approved by the House of Representatives on Dec. 18.

But there was also a separate, less-noticed facet of the internal administration uproar set off by Trump’s July 12 order stopping the flow of $391 million in weapons and security assistance to Ukraine. Some senior administration officials worried that by defying a law ordering that the funds be spent within a defined period, Trump was asking the officials involved to take an action that was not merely unwise but flatly illegal.

The administration so far has declined to release copies of its internal communications about this vital issue—the legality of what Trump had ordered. On Friday, in 146 pages of new documents provided to the Center for Public Integrity under a court order, the Justice Department blacked out —for the second time—many of the substantive passages reflecting what key officials at the Pentagon and the Office of Management and Budget said to one another.

Read more at: https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-administration-officials-worried-halt-to-ukraine-aid-violated-spending-law

[truth_seeker]

During WWI Churchill desparately wanted arms from the US. The US military was not yet able to provide same.

The Republicans, in congress were not fully supportive of the war,, or of shipping ams to support Britain.

American pilots joined the Canadian AF, to ferry planes to Britain.

The American public were not fully supportive until  Pearl Harbor, Hitler declares war etc.

In those days, FDR was out on a limb, leading to help our ally GB as best he could. He probably bent some rules.

It was the Obama admin denying arms to Ukraine, not Trump.

Trump eventually provided arms to Ukraine, and Ykraine did NOT investiate Bidens.

I suggest that some here, need to replace your daily quests for Trump "gotchas," with some actual knowledge of history, deiplomacey, leadership, etc.

[PeteS in CA]

Narrative fail: https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/23/politics/trump-ukraine-military-aid-call/index.html . The decision happened a week or more before the phone call and was carried out at the speed of government. This relevant fact was known 3 months ago, yet, "strangely", The Hill doesn't mention this. Almost as if The Hill had a narrative to push and omitted a fact that "inconvenienced" the narrative.

Sometimes lying is effected with omissions.

[bilo]

Narrative fail: https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/23/politics/trump-ukraine-military-aid-call/index.html . The decision happened a week or more before the phone call and was carried out at the speed of government. This relevant fact was known 3 months ago, yet, "strangely", The Hill doesn't mention this. Almost as if The Hill had a narrative to push and omitted a fact that "inconvenienced" the narrative.

Sometimes lying is effected with omissions.

The Rats have so manipulated the public through their propaganda wing i.e., the media, that people believe it is a crime if the POTUS holds up aid. It's not a crime. One example would be the aid that was reduced, or held up, for Central American countries until we had cooperation from them on immigration. The media, Rats, and stupid Pubs, who let the Rats set the terms of discussion, all buy into the idea that a "quid pro quo" is a crime. The only way it can be a crime is if the POTUS is doing it for personal enrichment and even then it is very debatable.