Trump vs. The Truth: In Short, He Can't Handle the Truth (From a Famous Movie Line)

Trump: “No quid pro quo” – Just Tit not Tat

(His own words mean what then???)

WASHINGTON (via Yahoo News) — In the summer of 2018, Congress authorized $250M in military aid to Ukraine. That was part of the U.S. continuing effort to help them defend itself against Russia.

Several months later, Laura Cooper, the Pentagon official in charge of Ukraine and Russia policy, touted the forthcoming aid package, which would be joined by $141 million from the State Department saying in a video address on December 7, 2018 standing in front Ukrainian and American flags: “You can count on the United States to remain your strong partner in strengthening Ukraine’s military to defend Ukrainian democracy.”

But months went by, and the authorized aid assistance did not come, not even after a May letter from the undersecretary of defense in charge of policy, John Rood, in which he affirmed:  “The Ukrainians have taken substantial actions to make defense institutional reforms for the purposes of decreasing corruption, increasing accountability, and sustaining improvements of combat capability enabled by U.S. assistance.”

Now, less than a year later, Cooper, who played a crucial role in trying to move the Ukrainian aid forward, is set to testify next week in the impeachment inquiry being led by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), House Intelligence Committee chairman. Cooper, who was originally slated to appear before lawmakers on October 18. 

She will be the first career Pentagon official to testify which has largely remained outside the recent political controversy. 

That House impeachment committee has already heard from former Ukraine Envoy Kurt Volker; former National Security Council aide and Russia expert Fiona Hill; and State Department official George Kent; and U.S. Ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland, who testified twice, including on October 17.

Capitol Hill staffers and foreign policy experts suggest that no one is sure precisely what Cooper might say, but there is broad consensus she pushed to have the aid released and expected sometime in early 2019.

Since Cooper was involved in such efforts, her testimony is crucial to the Democrats argument that Trump and his loyalists were guided solely by political considerations to threaten and hold back the aid.

How we got here – review in this 6-minute video from Vox.com:

Can you hear me now

What we know from the public record is that by June, the money remained tied up in a bureaucratic quagmire because the White House OMB (also BTW headed by Acting CofS Mick Mulvaney) put a hold on it.

Throughout the summer, frustrated Pentagon officials endeavored to figure out why that hold was in place. They went so far as to conduct a legal analysis, determining the hold had no merit, since Congress had already appropriated the funds.

FYI: That legal analysis apparently forced OMB to tell the Pentagon that the aid hold had been in fact ordered by President Trump himself.

My 2 cents: Now might be a good time for a Rick “Oops” Perry moment, maybe from Rudy Gee, too?  Reflection of that .45 second GOP debate moment that he still can’t shake:

Nice recovery Mr. Perry (oops)

Maybe that also speaks as to why Rick Perry is preparing to jump ship – in short the rats have taken all the life jackets and the last life boat is nearly full – so jump now and save yourself, Rick – hope you can swim? Oops…!!!

Reminder of the Trump-Zelensky phone call (July 25, 2019, 9:03 - 9:33 a.m. EDT) seen here .pdf format — 5 pages.

Note: That White House memo is not a verbatim transcript of the call that Trump wants the public to believe.

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