Quote:
Originally Posted by detbuch
Although, clearly, Trump is not ultimately guilty of withholding funds. And he did, on a few occasions, explain why he temporarily did
|
It's not clear at all, and the testimony conflicts with your statement.
Also the documents that would prove one way or another are being withheld as part of Floridamans obstruction, so just what do you think the documents say?
This is the stuff that people in previous administrations have been indicted for and likely will this time also.
Cooper, during Oct. 23 testimony before the three House committees leading the impeachment inquiry into Trump's Ukraine dealings, also said that she had been told Trump had repeatedly expressed concerns about Ukraine and military aid to the country — weeks before the aid was frozen.
Cooper told impeachment investigators that she and other Pentagon officials had answered questions about the Ukraine assistance in the middle of June — so she was surprised when one of her subordinates told her that a hold had been placed on the funds after an interagency meeting in July 18.
“I got, you know, I got a readout from the meeting — there was discussion in that session about the — about OMB [Office of Management and Budget] saying that they were holding the Congressional Notification related to” Ukraine, Cooper testified, according to the transcript.
Cooper, according to the transcript of her testimony, described the hold as "unusual."
Cooper said that she attended a meeting on July 23, where "this issue" of Trump's "concerns about Ukraine and Ukraine security assistance" came up. She said in that meeting, the president's concerns were "conveyed" by acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney.
Asked by lawmakers if the president was authorized to order that type of hold, Cooper said there were concerns that he wasn't.
"Well, I'm not an expert on the law, but in that meeting immediately deputies began to raise concerns about how this could be done in a legal fashion because there was broad understanding in the meeting that the funding — the State Department funding related to an earmark for Ukraine and that the DOD funding was specific to Ukraine security assistance. So the comments in the room at the deputies' level reflected a sense that there was not an understanding of how this could legally play out. And at that meeting the deputies agreed to look into the legalities and to look at what was possible," she said, according to the transcript.
At the next meeting with national security personnel, she said she told attendees
"there were two legally available mechanisms should the President want to stop assistance" — a presidential rescission notice to Congress or for the Defense Department to do “a reprogramming action.”
“But I mentioned that either way, there would need to be a notification to Congress,” she said, according to the transcript.
Asked if that happened, Cooper said, "That did not occur."
In all the relevant inter-agency discussions, Cooper testified, it wasn't just Defense Department officials who believed the aid should flow to Ukraine.
"It was unanimous with the exception of the statements by OMB representatives, and those statements were relaying higher level guidance," she said, according to the transcript.
Investigators have zeroed in on the testimony of several key figures in the Ukraine affair — including Bill Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, and George Kent, a deputy assistant secretary of state who worked on Ukraine and five other countries — to support the allegation that the Trump administration froze aid intended for Ukraine as part of an attempt to pressure the country to open probes that would benefit Trump politically.