This is an important article. The broad story it tells isn’t new: Donald Trump held back Congressionally appropriated funds for Ukraine, in contravention of law and recommdations by the Departments of Defense and State. What is new is the detail of how that was done, an attempted legal justification, and who was eager to help him.
News reports about the administration now usually give information about the sources the reports are based on. In this case, it was
Interviews with dozens of current and former administration officials, congressional aides and others, previously undisclosed emails and documents, and a close reading of thousands of pages of impeachment testimony[.]
Here’s a short summary. Lots more details in the article. Basically, Trump decided to withhold the money; White House lawyers tried to construct a justification; civil servants and even some of Trump’s appointees tried to talk him out of it; his messenger boys went to the departments to work it out; and, when the whistle was blown, Trump gave it up. All this time, Rudy Giuliani was meeting with Ukrainian officials and others; this was not known to all participants at the time.
Robert Blair, Assistant to the President and Senior Advisor to Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, was a key player along with Mulvaney. Mulvaney brought him along when he moved to the White House. On December 23, he was named Special Representative for International Telecommunications Policy, although he will also continue to serve in his previous role.
On June 19, Blair called Russell T. Vought, the acting head of the Office of Management and Budget, and told him to hold up the aid. Trying to understand the reason for the holdup, Vought’s staff searched the internet and found an article in the Washington Examiner that might have set off the President. In a normal White House, a decision like this would have been made in consultation with experts from the Departments of State, Defense, and Treasury. In fact, State and Defense had already certified sending the funds to Ukraine as appropriate.
The career official in the budget office in charge of the funds was Mark Sandy. He phoned other officials in the budget office and Defense Department to try to understand what was happening. It was not a normal request. He was concerned that it might violate the Impoundment Control Act, which prohibits the President from holding up money Congress has appropriated.
A month later, on July 18, William Taylor, acting Ambassador to Ukraine, and other officials learned about the hold in a meeting. Taylor testified to Congress that he was astonished. On the same day, administration sources called four Congressional staffers and urged that they look into the hold.
A week later, Trump famously telephoned Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelinsky and asked for a favor. Ninety minutes after the call, the budget office sent an email to the Pentagon saying not to spend the money. Ukrainian officials were beginning to get word that something was up.
In late July, Sandy’s authority over the funds was removed and given to his boss, a political appointee. Defense Department officials were becoming impatient. Deadlines were approaching by which portions of the money had to be spent, or it would be lost.
Backed by a memo saying the National Security Council, the Pentagon and the State Department all wanted the aid released, Mr. Bolton made a personal appeal to Mr. Trump on Aug. 16, but was rebuffed.
On Aug. 28, Politico published a story reporting that the assistance to Ukraine had been frozen. After more than two months, the issue, the topic of fiery internal debate, was finally public.
Mr. Bolton’s relationship with the president had been deteriorating for months, and he would leave the White House weeks later, but on this front he had powerful internal allies.
On a sunny, late-August day, Mr. Bolton, Mr. Esper and Mr. Pompeo arrayed themselves around the Resolute desk in the Oval Office to present a united front, the leaders of the president’s national security team seeking to convince him face to face that freeing up the money for Ukraine was the right thing to do.
Through this time, White House lawyers were trying to develop a legal justification for the hold. Then came the whistleblower’s report, at the end of August. Shortly after, the hold was lifted.
Many questions remain unanswered, like who knew about Giuliani’s activities and when they knew; how long the shakedown was in progress before the hold; and how Trump came to his ideas about Ukraine. Once again, it was civil servants who tried to hold firm against inappropriate actions.
In addition to Trump’s corrupt use of government funds to force Zelensky into helping his election campaign, holding up those funds and causing uncertainty in the Ukrainian government benefits Russia.
The specifics in this article will be helpful in making a case that Mulvaney and other officials must be called as witnesses in the Senate impeachment trial.
Cross-posted to Nuclear Diner
debbie
Were you surprised to read that Pompeo was one of the ones trying to stop Trump? I know I was; he’s such a yes man.
Cheryl Rofer
@debbie: I was surprised. It may have been a matter of peer pressure. There’s a lot we still don’t know.
JPL
The article shows why the testimony is important, but paints a picture of such incompetence, Mitch will never allow it.
Even trump’s base would understand that playing golf with John Daly wasn’t as important as national security. nah, never mind I jest.
Yutsano
I’ll take your summary as I still refuse to give FTFNYT anything regarding my information or my money.
Jeebus what a Charlie Foxtrot! All because a simpering, worthless, inhumane carnival barker got the Russians to change things just enough to win the Electoral College. I don’t know how any country could trust us ever again.
Adam L Silverman
My favorite part was about Mulvaney leaving the room every time the President met with Giuliani in order to “preserve the President’s attorney-client privilege”.
Redshift
The other questions that remain unanswered are Trump’s and Giuliani’s activities with the previous president of Ukraine. I’ve read reports that he was more corrupt/cooperative, and this whole cluster was in part because they had to scramble after his surprise election loss. But I’d like to see it in a major news outlet.
Adam L Silverman
@Redshift: It appears that in order to prevent a cut off on aid, Poroshenko had his government stop cooperating with Special Counsel Mueller’s office.
Betty Cracker
There are also plenty of indications that Giuliani and his goons, Perry and perhaps others were looking for a way to cash in on their roles commercially. Now we know Giuliani was also involved in back channel talks in Venezuela, probably to include opportunities to wet his beak. There doesn’t seem to be an end to these people’s corruption and greed. We’ll probably never know about even a 10th of it.
debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
He should have just stuck his fingers in his ears and shouted, “La, la, la, la, la.”
mrmoshpotato
@Adam L Silverman: Surprised it wasn’t “Mick, Rudy and I need to talk tremendous bigly crime things. Go to that end of the room, cover your ears and go ‘Lalalallalalala I can’t hear you!'”
MattF
My immediate reaction on learning that Giuliani was involved in holding up the Ukraine aid was ‘Well, of course he was involved’. But we have to look for the critical points in the Giuliani/Trump timeline– it now seems to me that Giuliani stepped in at the exact time that the argument was Trump vs. everybody. Trump values loyalty above all, and Giuliani offered it.
Warblewarble
Step 1 ,Lock them all up. Step 2, twist keys into pretzels.
Cheryl Rofer
@Betty Cracker: There is a whole story line about Rick Perry and Ukraine’s gas company that we haven’t heard much about. Dmytro Firtash, who was paying Giuliani’s friends Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman and others through them, has long wanted to control Ukraine’s gas companies.
Citizen_X
A reminder that there was a clock ticking: a deadline in September (the 30th?) by which the money had to be spent, and now an entire month out of the 3 1/2 months remaining had passed before the ambassador heard anything about the hold.
The Trumpers did not give a shit.
Gin & Tonic
@Redshift:
[citation needed]
jeffreyw
@Adam L Silverman:
Micky? Is you taking notes on a criminal conspiracy?
Martin
@Gin & Tonic: Oh, he totally was. That’s not even in question. Where Zelenski needs to have his arm twisted to do Trumps bidding, Poroshenko was like Trump – just give him a favorable set of terms and he was on it. Dealmaking is easy when you are utterly amoral.
laura
The trumpers have been and continue to be scuzzy shake down artists engaged in questionable/criminal behavior since jump street.
It’s hard to imagine that any/every country has been subject to massive cronyism since before the inauguration. When the information dam finally breaks and we learn the scope of the president led crime wave, every greasy weasel that’s propped up, supported, covered for, justified this shite show needs a long prison sentence after a series of trials.
Only then can we as a nation expect to start working to regain a semblance of worth. But then again, all the babies and children we’ve torn from their parents should be old enough to start dishing us out some well deserved blow back.
We. Are. Fucked.
Jinchi
The Trump era is highlighting all the failure points of modern American democracy. The Republican party has collapsed completely. The courts have been a mixed bag, and are showing signs of weakening as more Trump judges get confirmed. The media as a whole appears to be getting marginally better, finally willing to call a lie a lie. And for all the flak they get from the pundits, voters have been pretty solid.
Civil servants are on the frontline of the fight and have performed honorably and selflessly, but are highly vulnerable to assault from above. People shouldn’t have to risk their careers and face death threats defending the country against their bosses.
Hopefully the country doesn’t fall into the trap of “looking forwards, not backwards” once Democrats regain power. There’s a lot that needs to be fixed to prevent this from happening again.
Brachiator
I am a simple man maybe looking at this too simply. Some questions and observations.
Did Putin tell Trump that Biden was corrupt? The “investigation” into the Bidens is pointless. They did nothing wrong. Trump doesn’t seem smart enough to get anyone to manufacture and plant evidence of a crime. So, why did he bother with this nonsense in the first place?
Trump himself has raised corruption to new heights. Or lowered it to new depths.
Trump sincerely believes that the US government is his to do with it as he pleases. It is an extension of the Trump organization.
The eagerness with which some of his hires collude in these crimes and eagerly seek to please Trump is staggering. All these people belong in jail. But their toadying is pathetic and disgusting.
These new revelations seem to be an easy to follow trail. Trump and these people are delusional if they thought that they would not be exposed.
And yet, the GOP dominated Senate will clear them.
Another Scott
@laura:
Speaking of blowback, AlJazeera:
It’s a good thing that we’re working in consensus with our partners in the region… :-/
Cheers,
Scott.
Yutsano
@Brachiator:
That’s the biggest scandal to me. Yes President Toadface is committing crimes right and left and his nepotism hires are pretty much lining their pockets with every petty scam they can. It’s the Republicans in general that are the real problem. Every single one to a man is enabling all this. And despite all the speculation no one can say exactly why. The Era of the Orange will end. What do Republicans do then? Keep going in on all alternative facts while hoping rural states keep their power outsized?
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
This is as pointless as Trump’s trade war with China. There is no coherent policy here, nor any way that Iran could reasonably comply with any US demands short of complete submission to Trump’s will.
Adam L Silverman
@Betty Cracker: @Cheryl Rofer:
balloon-juice.com/2019/10/25/black-psyop-la-affair-ukraine-ag-barrs-investigation-and-the-impeachmen…
Dmbeaster
@Adam L Silverman: As a trial lawyer, this canard about using the privilege as some sort of legal omerta is just galling. I am sure that there is no privilege, or any such privilege would be voided by the crime fraud exception. But they have to be secret to maintain the pretense.
Trump learned long ago the utility of lawyers for doing fraudulent business deals, even though the privilege does not apply. Its just another layer of criminality.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
He doesn’t have to prove anything to get a significant effect. Just having Ukraine announce an investigation would be enough to get the media into a frenzy. Even if they eventually concluded there was nothing there, the months of talking about Biden and corruption in the same sentence would convince people that he was corrupt. This is the essence of the Big Lie approach to propaganda; a lie that’s repeated enough can never be completely debunked in popular opinion. You have only to look at Hillary Clinton’s reputation to see how effective it can be.
Kay
Good article asking Ivanka Trump grown up questions:
If she wants to play senior adviser she should be held to that standard. If she WERE held to that standard there wouldn’t be any more Ivanka interviews, because she would fail in a humiliating way.
Let her fail! Stop propping her up! It’s not out fault she took a nepotism position she isn’t qualified to hold. We don’t have any duty to play along with her fantasy.
Brachiator
@Yutsano:
Because a good chunk of voters support Trump, and another chunk is willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and sit back while he does his thing, the GOP sees that they have an unparalleled opportunity to achieve their dreams.
And they will lie and gerrymander and suppress votes to try to retain power after Trump is out of office.
And as a former president with elder statesman status, Trump will continue to be a celebrity. He will be the shitty gift to the country that keeps on giving.
Adam L Silverman
@Another Scott: @Brachiator: Leaving the fact that at the national strategic level the policy and strategy is all hosed up because the President has hosed it up, as well as empowering people like Bolton and Pompeo to hose it up, this targeting decision was made at the the theater strategic command level. The Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF OIR) Commanding General is my former boss. I was his cultural advisor/senior civilian advisor when he was deployed to Iraq as a brigade combat team commander in 2008. I know him very well. I spent almost a year in targeting meetings with him. I know his decision making process. And while I don’t know any specifics regarding these strikes other than what has been reported, based on my experience serving with him I can guarantee that the target selection for this was appropriate.
Full disclosure: I have been in touch with him since he took command of CJTF OIR, provided some reach back support, and have offered to deploy forward twice if he decides he needs/wants me back in Iraq.
Cheryl Rofer
@Adam L Silverman: Yep. I still don’t see how it all fits with Perry’s Texas oilmen who want to sell natural gas to Ukraine or maybe be on the national gas company’s board of directors (not clear is this is all the same oil men).
In some ways, the situation with Firtash is clearer, but I’ll bet there are some surprises there too.
Adam L Silverman
@Dmbeaster: I’m just a criminologist who has professionally wandered far afield of his doctoral education and training, but that was my take too.
Adam L Silverman
@Cheryl Rofer: No arguments from me. The Texas connection, other than Perry just trying to do favors for people that have done favors for him in the past and might do so again in the future, is a bit weird. But Perry isn’t particularly bright. So I’m sure that figures in here somehow.
Another Scott
@Roger Moore:
+1
It’s even more insidious than that. Our conscious mind doesn’t control our bodies and thoughts and actions as much as we think.
With Good Reason – The Illusion of Control (7 minutes)
Fascinating stuff, which has implications that we’re just beginning to understand when it comes to politics, etc., etc.
Cheers,
Scott.
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
I understand the Art of the Smear, and how Trump tries to use it. But much of this had already been looked at, and the conclusion was that there was nothing there.
So, Trump’s continued insistence of an investigation only appeals to his base.
Even the lazy and idiot part of the media see that there is nothing here. They can’t work up a media frenzy if there the available information leads nowhere. With Clinton’s emails, people could fill in the gap and imagine damaging emails. There is not the same thing here.
This leaves Fox News and Sinclair Broadcast group. They are trying hard, but again, ultimately preach to the already converted.
Getting Ukraine’s cooperation is not sufficient. It’s messy and unreliable. They could announce an investigation, but unless they were adept at manufacturing damning evidence, this would go nowhere fast. And being under pressure is not the same thing as being a willing goon. Good results are not guaranteed.
Trump had been more successful with a lower level of smear tactics. He got too ambitious here, and it is biting him in the ass.
Gin & Tonic
@Martin:
Evidence, please?
Yutsano
@Adam L Silverman: So…basically you have semi-permanent impostor syndrome?
Brachiator
@Adam L Silverman:
I hear you. Thanks for this info. However, the political context is perhaps beyond the domain of the military decision. The right thing, even the necessary thing, might have unfortunate consequences.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: Everything I have heard on all the podcasts about this share Martin’s point of view, but I certainly am not in a position to provide “evidence”. Perhaps Martin will be.
Are you in disagreement with the concept that the new president is less corrupt than the previous one?
Adam L Silverman
@Yutsano: My name isn’t actually Adam L Silverman and I am not now, nor was I ever, here.//
Adam L Silverman
@Brachiator: Without a doubt. But he both understands that and understands that it is above his pay grade. He has to do what is necessary within the ROE, the Laws of Armed Conflict, and our agreements with the Iraqi government allowing US and coalition forces to be in Iraq and operate there to both effectively execute the theater strategy and to appropriately conduct force protection (FORCEPRO) operations.
J R in WV
@Adam L Silverman:
I didn’t know Mulvaney was a lawyer !! // ;-)
randy khan
@Adam L Silverman:
Mulvaney is smarter than I thought if he came up with that excuse. I’m sure he really was leaving because he didn’t want to become a co-conspirator in whatever crime Giuliani was trying to commit.
Tsquared2001
@Kay: The Face the Nation interview was an exercise in vapid game recognizing other vapid game. Disgraceful.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
I think you’re underestimating the importance of an official announcement of an investigation, at least if Trump had managed to keep his fingerprints off it. It’s true that the media had done some investigation and concluded there was no there there. But if the Ukrainian government had officially announced they were opening an investigation, it would have changed that. The announcement itself would have been major news, especially given the news media’s proven propensity to repeat anything that comes from an important person regardless of supporting evidence (e.g. breathless repetition of anything Trump says). It would also have forced them to reopen their investigations to check to see if there was something they had missed. Once those investigations were open, they would have had an excuse to repeat any evidence against Biden, no matter how questionable, if only to justify the effort.
The official announcement would also open the media to typical influence by the puke funnel. Remember, this is the same media that accepts “people are talking about it” as an excuse to repeat right wing smears. How much more willing will they be when those smears appear to be backed up by an official Ukrainian investigation? And again, they don’t have to make the charges stick; they just have to create an air of sleaze around Biden to shift public opinion.
J R in WV
@Yutsano:
I will point out that the first President to be Impeached and found not guilty by the Senate, Andrew Johnson, was “cleared” by the sitting Senate by one vote according to Wikipedia:
What is more interesting than this vote count is that not one of the 19 Senators who voted not guilty ever held any elective office ever again. I think people should be pointing this out to the current sitting Senators.
Gin & Tonic
@WaterGirl: I am in disagreement with the concept of “everyone knows” this or that when it comes to the politics of a country they don’t know, and which most people in the US, up until this summer, could not have reliably located on a map.
Petro Poroshenko is not a choirboy. Nobody who has amassed great wealth in Ukraine is. He had blind spots in several areas as President, but he was certainly substantially better than Yanukovych, and spent most of his Presidency saddled with the aftermath of the Maidan revolution and Russia’s war. The public grew tired of him, just as in many countries the public grows tired of their political leaders. Zelensky is young, he is not fabulously wealthy, and, by virtue of being a political neophyte he is not saddled with guys like Lutsenko. But his relationship with (in fact his reliance on) Kolomoisky is not a 99 & 44/100’s kind of cleanliness. The bright spot in Ukrainian politics is the Verkhovna Rada (the unicameral legislative body), which is 80% new, with a lot of young and idealistic people.
Poroshenko’s problem with respect to the US is that he was pretty clearly in favor of HRC, and sort of expected her to win (as did lots of Americans.) In part that was because he knew better than most what Manafort’s hiring signified. When Trump was elected, he had to do a lot of backpedaling (like the aforementioned non-cooperation with Mueller) to keep the dollars flowing.
Another Scott
@Adam L Silverman: I agree that that’s the way that it’s supposed to work, but the reporting sounds very weird in this case.
It sounds to me like Donnie’s political people wanted to quickly retaliate for the killing of the US contractor. So they told Sec. Esper to come up with a plan and get it done ASAP. And that’s when your colleague came up with a potential target list, etc. And then, when he had the list and timing, Sec. Esper called Iraq and said it was happening.
If it went through normal procedures and channels, why would Sec. Esper call Prime Minister Mahdi, and why would he go ahead when Iraq said no?
It seems to be another example of Donnie breaking norms.
But that’s just my impression – I have no inside knowledge.
Cheers,
Scott.
wvng
And this is the problem with FTFNYT. As terrible and destructive as their political reporting often is, the paper does incredible and necessary investigative reporting. This is just one example among many. We need them. We also need them to do politics right.
Roger Moore
@Gin & Tonic:
I think this is the thing most people here are reacting to. They see his willingness to suck up to Trump as evidence of corruption, rather than as the reasonable response of a leader trying to pick the best of a bad set of options. People who want to criticize Poroshenko for caving to Trump should bear in mind that Zelensky was literally hours away from doing the same when the whistle blower business became public and bailed him out.
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
Trump set the entire thing in motion. It was impossible for him to have kept his tiny hands off this charade. He is not practiced at the arts of deception.
Again, they would have announced an investigation which would immediately gone nowhere.
There is not much point in speculating how successful this thing might have been. We are where we are, at the border of Impeachment Towers.
Another Scott
@Brachiator:
You seem to be forgetting that DC is wired for Republicans. Remember how Barr played up the investigation into the FBI’s “misconduct” in “investigating Trump”?
Such an announced investigation involving the Bidens would be in the press and GOP talking points until the polls closed on November 3, 2020. Guaranteed.
Cheers,
Scott.
JPL
@Brachiator: I read Trump felt that Biden would be damaged by the mere mention that there was an investigation
Many others have responded before me. During the campaign trump said that Russia was justified in taking Crimea. Because of that many Ukrainian officials were vocal against trump. Trump is a vindictive shithead.
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
It’s more wired for the lazy, the stupid and the incurious.
But Barr was Trump’s guy. He was raised on the lackey farm and was an eager volunteer for Trump’s Army of Toadies.
But that’s not how it played out. The grand plan fell apart fairly quickly. Trump is not really much of a mastermind.
Mike in NC
@Brachiator: No, not a mastermind but definitely a megalomaniac who really believes the universe revolves around him. The Trumps could have stayed in midtown Manhattan and enjoyed the fruits of their criminal enterprise, but they were too greedy for their own good. May the New Year bring them all an avalanche of trouble.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
You say tomayto, I say tomahto.
Shalimar
@randy khan: My guess is if Mulvaney did leave the room for discussions between Trump and Giuliani, it was because Trump considers him the equivalent of a butler and ordered him out while the important people talked. He’s too much of a toady to leave on his own initiative.
artem1s
@Mike in NC:
Or there were no more fruits left from their bankruptcy, Ponzi development schemes and they had no choice but to find a way to pay up their overdue loans to their
loan sharkvery legitimate lenders.