President Trump told his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to hold back almost $400 million in military aid for Ukraine at least a week before a phone call in which Trump is said to have pressured the Ukrainian president to investigate the son of former vice president Joe Biden, according to three senior administration officials.
Officials at the Office of Management and Budget relayed Trump's order to the State Department and the Pentagon during an interagency meeting in mid-July, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
Trump's order to withhold aid to Ukraine a week before his July 25 call with Volodymyr Zelensky is likely to raise questions about the motivation for his decision and fuel suspicions on Capitol Hill that Trump sought to leverage congressionally approved aid to damage a political rival.
Republican senators on the Senate Appropriations Committee said Sept. 12 that the aid to Ukraine had been held up while the Trump administration explored whether Zelensky, the country's new president, was pro-Russian or pro-Western.
Murphy, who spoke with Zelensky during an early September visit to Ukraine, said Monday that the Ukrainian president "Directly" expressed concerns at their meeting that "The aid that was being cut off to Ukraine by the president was a consequence" of his unwillingness to launch an investigation into the Bidens.
Congressional officials were notified twice this year, on Feb. 28 and again on May 23, that the administration intended to release large tranches of military aid to Ukraine.
Congress approved two large pots of military aid for Ukraine during fiscal 2019: $250 million, to be managed by the Pentagon, for equipment such as sniper rifles, counter-artillery radar systems, ammunition and grenade launchers; and $141 million, to be funneled through the State Department, for maritime security, NATO interoperability and various initiatives to help Ukraine's military fend off Russian aggression.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-ordered-hold-on-military-aid-days-before-calling-ukrainian-president-officials-say/ar-AAHJWJb
Officials at the Office of Management and Budget relayed Trump's order to the State Department and the Pentagon during an interagency meeting in mid-July, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
Trump's order to withhold aid to Ukraine a week before his July 25 call with Volodymyr Zelensky is likely to raise questions about the motivation for his decision and fuel suspicions on Capitol Hill that Trump sought to leverage congressionally approved aid to damage a political rival.
Republican senators on the Senate Appropriations Committee said Sept. 12 that the aid to Ukraine had been held up while the Trump administration explored whether Zelensky, the country's new president, was pro-Russian or pro-Western.
Murphy, who spoke with Zelensky during an early September visit to Ukraine, said Monday that the Ukrainian president "Directly" expressed concerns at their meeting that "The aid that was being cut off to Ukraine by the president was a consequence" of his unwillingness to launch an investigation into the Bidens.
Congressional officials were notified twice this year, on Feb. 28 and again on May 23, that the administration intended to release large tranches of military aid to Ukraine.
Congress approved two large pots of military aid for Ukraine during fiscal 2019: $250 million, to be managed by the Pentagon, for equipment such as sniper rifles, counter-artillery radar systems, ammunition and grenade launchers; and $141 million, to be funneled through the State Department, for maritime security, NATO interoperability and various initiatives to help Ukraine's military fend off Russian aggression.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-ordered-hold-on-military-aid-days-before-calling-ukrainian-president-officials-say/ar-AAHJWJb
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