Behind the Ukraine Aid Freeze: 84 Days of Conflict and Confusion

[Pete F.]

Not to be found in the Epoch Times

Deep into a long flight to Japan aboard Air Force One with President Trump, Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, dashed off an email to an aide back in Washington.

“I’m just trying to tie up some loose ends,” Mr. Mulvaney wrote. “Did we ever find out about the money for Ukraine and whether we can hold it back?”

It was June 27, more than a week after Mr. Trump had first asked about putting a hold on security aid to Ukraine, an embattled American ally, and Mr. Mulvaney needed an answer.

The aide, Robert B. Blair, replied that it would be possible, but not pretty. “Expect Congress to become unhinged” if the White House tried to countermand spending passed by the House and Senate, he wrote in a previously undisclosed email. And, he wrote, it might further fuel the narrative that Mr. Trump was pro-Russia.

Mr. Blair was right, even if his prediction of a messy outcome was wildly understated. Mr. Trump’s order to hold $391 million worth of sniper rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, night vision goggles, medical aid and other equipment the Ukrainian military needed to fight a grinding war against Russian-backed separatists would help pave a path to the president’s impeachment.

The Democratic-led inquiry into Mr. Trump’s dealings with Ukraine this spring and summer established that the president was actively involved in parallel efforts — both secretive and highly unusual — to bring pressure on a country he viewed with suspicion, if not disdain.

One campaign, spearheaded by Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, aimed to force Ukraine to conduct investigations that could help Mr. Trump politically, including one focused on a potential Democratic 2020 rival, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

The other, which unfolded nearly simultaneously but has gotten less attention, was the president’s demand to withhold the security assistance. By late summer, the two efforts merged as American diplomats used the withheld aid as leverage in the effort to win a public commitment from the new Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to carry out the investigations Mr. Trump sought into Mr. Biden and unfounded or overblown theories about Ukraine interfering in the 2016 election.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/29/u...itary-aid.html

[Pete F.]

As early as June, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney worked to execute the freeze for Trump, and a top aide to Mulvaney — Robert Blair — worried it would fuel the narrative that Trump was tacitly aiding Russia.

Internal opposition was more forceful than previously known.

The Pentagon pushed for the money for months.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and then-national security adviser John Bolton privately urged Trump to understand that freezing the aid was not in our national interest.
Trump was unmoved, citing Ukraine’s “corruption.”

We now know Trump actually wanted Ukraine to announce sham investigations absolving Russia of 2016 electoral sabotage and smearing potential 2020 opponent Joe Biden.

The Times report reveals that top Trump officials did not think that ostensibly combating Ukrainian “corruption” (which wasn’t even Trump’s real aim) was in our interests.

Lawyers at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) worked to develop a far-fetched legal argument that Trump could exercise commander-in-chief authority to override Congress’ appropriation of the aid, to get around the law precluding Trump from freezing it.

Michael Duffey, a political appointee at OMB, tried to get the Pentagon to assume responsibility for getting the aid released, to deflect blame away from the White House for its own role in blocking it. This led a Pentagon official to pronounce herself “speechless.”

Duffey froze the aid with highly unusual bureaucratic tactics, refused to tell Pentagon officials why Trump wanted it withheld and instructed them to keep this “closely held.”

[Sea Dangles]

👌🍔👌
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

Not to be found in the Epoch Times

The Epoch Times has a solid record of accuracy and truth. The NY Times has a long and checkered history including slanted journalism sprinkled with inaccuracies.

[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by detbuch

The Epoch Times has a solid record of accuracy and truth. The NY Times has a long and checkered history including slanted journalism sprinkled with inaccuracies.

Are you serious, show me one source that says that ET meets that claim.

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

Are you serious, show me one source that says that ET meets that claim.

Show me where Epoch Times doesn't meet that claim.

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

Are you serious, show me one source that says that ET meets that claim.

if trumps impeachment is more popular than he has ever been, you have nothing to worry about, he will lose in november. Yet for some
reason, you’re terrified.

you’re trying to convince yourself
something you don’t really believe. that’s why you post so
much, and why what you post, is so lopsided.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by detbuch

Show me where Epoch Times doesn't meet that claim.

Who owns it?

[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

if trumps impeachment is more popular than he has ever been, you have nothing to worry about, he will lose in november. Yet for some
reason, you’re terrified.

you’re trying to convince yourself
something you don’t really believe. that’s why you post so
much, and why what you post, is so lopsided.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

A little projection?

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

Who owns it?

Who owns you?

[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by detbuch

Show me where Epoch Times doesn't meet that claim.

Originally Posted by Pete F.

Who owns it?

Originally Posted by detbuch

Who owns you?

Are you entertaining or just misleading?

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

Are you entertaining or just misleading?

When did you stop beating your wife?

[Got Stripers]

Boy getting down to the level of SD insults, thought you were above that, but not much surprises me on this forum.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[The Dad Fisherman]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

if trumps impeachment is more popular than he has ever been, you have nothing to worry about, he will lose in november. Yet for some
reason, you’re terrified.

you’re trying to convince yourself
something you don’t really believe. that’s why you post so
much, and why what you post, is so lopsided.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

https://news.gallup.com/poll/273125/...-man-2019.aspx
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by The Dad Fisherman

https://news.gallup.com/poll/273125/...-man-2019.aspx
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

Give it time and exposure

This year's results are based on a Dec. 2-15 poll.

Americans' choice for most admired man this year is sharply divided along party lines: 41% of Democrats name Obama, while 45% of Republicans choose Trump. Relatively few Democrats choose Trump and relatively few Republicans pick Obama, while independents' choices are divided about equally between the two men.

[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

As early as June, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney worked to execute the freeze for Trump, and a top aide to Mulvaney — Robert Blair — worried it would fuel the narrative that Trump was tacitly aiding Russia.

Internal opposition was more forceful than previously known.

The Pentagon pushed for the money for months.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and then-national security adviser John Bolton privately urged Trump to understand that freezing the aid was not in our national interest.
Trump was unmoved, citing Ukraine’s “corruption.”

We now know Trump actually wanted Ukraine to announce sham investigations absolving Russia of 2016 electoral sabotage and smearing potential 2020 opponent Joe Biden.

The Times report reveals that top Trump officials did not think that ostensibly combating Ukrainian “corruption” (which wasn’t even Trump’s real aim) was in our interests.

Lawyers at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) worked to develop a far-fetched legal argument that Trump could exercise commander-in-chief authority to override Congress’ appropriation of the aid, to get around the law precluding Trump from freezing it.

Michael Duffey, a political appointee at OMB, tried to get the Pentagon to assume responsibility for getting the aid released, to deflect blame away from the White House for its own role in blocking it. This led a Pentagon official to pronounce herself “speechless.”

Duffey froze the aid with highly unusual bureaucratic tactics, refused to tell Pentagon officials why Trump wanted it withheld and instructed them to keep this “closely held.”

Originally Posted by Got Stripers

Boy getting down to the level of SD insults, thought you were above that, but not much surprises me on this forum.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

It's his job to distract, he always changes the subject and attacks when confronted with evidence to which he has no response. Quite Trumpian

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

It's his job to distract, he always changes the subject and attacks when confronted with evidence to which he has no response. Quite Trumpian

QUOTE=Pete F.;1183018]Not to be found in the Epoch Times[/QUOTE]

Originally Posted by detbuch

The Epoch Times has a solid record of accuracy and truth. The NY Times has a long and checkered history including slanted journalism sprinkled with inaccuracies.

Originally Posted by Pete F.

Are you serious, show me one source that says that ET meets that claim.

Originally Posted by detbuch

Show me where Epoch Times doesn't meet that claim.

And you couldn't show that but asked who owns it as if that were expositive. And I followed suit with similar gibberish as yours. I didn't distract or change the subject. I responded directly to what you said.

[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by detbuch

QUOTE=Pete F.;1183018]Not to be found in the Epoch Times

And you couldn't show that but asked who owns it as if that were expositive. And I followed suit with similar gibberish as yours. I didn't distract or change the subject. I responded directly to what you said.[/QUOTE]

It is not to be found in the Epoch Times which is a 19 year old right wing paper, funded by Falun Gong and there is no bigger media supporter of Floridaman. You will not find things that question Floridaman there.
You claim that the NYT has a long and checkered history. It's history is 150 years longer than the Epoch Times and produces far more copy. It leans left.
Floridaman has always wanted NYT coverage. Why else did John Barron, David Dennison and John Miller leak to them about Floridaman.
https://www.google.com/search?q=John...hrome&ie=UTF-8

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

And you couldn't show that but asked who owns it as if that were expositive. And I followed suit with similar gibberish as yours. I didn't distract or change the subject. I responded directly to what you said.

It is not to be found in the Epoch Times which is a 19 year old right wing paper, funded by Falun Gong and there is no bigger media supporter of Floridaman. You will not find things that question Floridaman there.

I don't know if any of this is covered in Epoch Times. I would suspect that if it were it would not have the obvious left stance that the NYT article has. And there will be important factual and well sourced articles that will not be found in NYT. The left leaning MSM has not reported on many of the things that right leaning outlets have and which turned out to be the truth. This was evident throughout the Mueller investigation when the lefties constantly and breathlessly reported on the certainty of Trump/Russia collusion, and the righties pointed out that there was no real evidence of it. And this one-sided reporting from the left is still going on. Outlets like Epoch Times give another factual side. I note that you did not dispute anything by Epoch Times videos that I posted.

It is funded by a subscription, advertising. and donation model. It prints in 21 languages in 35 countries covering the usual topics, world and national news, op eds, sports, entertainment, business, arts and culture, travel and health. Some of the stuff in its "beyond science" section are questionable. But I don't care about that kind of stuff.

I don't know if there is a bigger media supporter of Trump, nor would that in itself influence my perception of what it says. There would probably be some negative opinions about Trump, especially in regard to his trade negotiations with China.

Per Media Bias//Fact Check, for straight news (which is the only thing that would interest me) it is well sourced and reasonably low biased. It also states that it has not failed any fact checks.

BTW, the ET newspaper is not a source for me. I don't subscribe to it. My interest lies in the youtube videos it produces. The American Thought Leaders series is really good. And it gives factual information that won't be found in the NYT.

You claim that the NYT has a long and checkered history. It's history is 150 years longer than the Epoch Times and produces far more copy. It leans left.
Floridaman has always wanted NYT coverage. Why else did John Barron, David Dennison and John Miller leak to them about Floridaman. [/QUOTE]

Yes it has a checkered 150 year history. Including episodes of pro Russian, pro communist reporting. And saying that it "leans" left is putting it mildly.

[zimmy]

I had never heard of epoch times so I did some reading.
Apparently one of the YouTube channels they promote is: "Edge of Wonder," a verified YouTube channel that releases new NTD-produced videos twice every week and now has more than 33 million views. In addition to claims that alien abductions are real and the drug epidemic was engineered by the “deep state,” the channel pushes the QAnon conspiracy theory, which falsely posits that the... “Spygate” cabal is a front for a global pedophile ring being taken down by Trump."
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[spence]

Originally Posted by zimmy

I had never heard of epoch times so I did some reading.
Apparently one of the YouTube channels they promote is: "Edge of Wonder," a verified YouTube channel that releases new NTD-produced videos twice every week and now has more than 33 million views. In addition to claims that alien abductions are real and the drug epidemic was engineered by the “deep state,” the channel pushes the QAnon conspiracy theory, which falsely posits that the... “Spygate” cabal is a front for a global pedophile ring being taken down by Trump."
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

That all does make sense when you think about it.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by zimmy

I had never heard of epoch times so I did some reading.
Apparently one of the YouTube channels they promote is: "Edge of Wonder," a verified YouTube channel that releases new NTD-produced videos twice every week and now has more than 33 million views. In addition to claims that alien abductions are real and the drug epidemic was engineered by the “deep state,” the channel pushes the QAnon conspiracy theory, which falsely posits that the... “Spygate” cabal is a front for a global pedophile ring being taken down by Trump."
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

As I mentioned above, some of the Epoch Times sections are questionable. Obviously, there is a huge market for the "beyond science" kind of stuff which is one of the sections in their news paper. But the straight news reporting is very good, and a reliable alternative to, or if you like, a balance to the hyper slanted NYT.

You picked "one" youtube channel. One that demonstrates how you want to characterize the whole of Epoch times. I recommend that you watch several of the "American Thought Leaders" videos hosted by Jan Jekielek.

I would also say that the so called mainstream outlets including CNN, NBC, and CBS have far left series that push anti-traditional, anti-religious, anti-conservative, conspiratorial nonsense as well (such as Rachel Maddow, and Chris Cuomo, etc). And just as there are those who believe in Qanon, there are those in the mainstream media who promote that Trump is a White Supremacist, misogynist, Neo-Nazi, anti-American, Putin puppet, racist, and so forth--as well as mischaracterizing or downright falsifying various events such as the Nick Sandmann incident, and many others.

I haven't posted any of the questionable ET videos. And those I did post were not rebutted or proved to be false.

It seems that those of us on the so-called "right" here are aware of leftist views and media outlets and are willing to discuss and debate their content. But those on the "left" have very little awareness of actual right leaning or conservative right wing alternative media, and when they are exposed to an article or video, they are immune from acknowledging or discussing the content, but go straight to trying to discredit the source.

[zimmy]

Originally Posted by detbuch

Show me where Epoch Times doesn't meet that claim.

Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by zimmy

Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

If a daily newspaper has an astrology column, does that mean that its news section is inaccurate or untruthful? If a newspaper or a television or radio broadcasting company has a columnist or commentator who is, in your opinion, batchit crazy, does that make its news department inaccurate or untruthful? Do the popular culture sections which are full of ignorant opinion and stupid comments from celebrities in newspapers or programs on TV networks make the news reporting of those media unreliable, or inaccurate, or untruthful? Do the many programs on TV like the Jerry Springer show, or The View, mean that the news section of those networks are inaccurate or untruthful or unreliable? If a newspaper or TV network has a religious section or program does that make its news department inaccurate, or untruthful, or unreliable?

[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

Deep into a long flight to Japan aboard Air Force One with President Trump, Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, dashed off an email to an aide back in Washington.

“I’m just trying to tie up some loose ends,” Mr. Mulvaney wrote. “Did we ever find out about the money for Ukraine and whether we can hold it back?”

It was June 27, more than a week after Mr. Trump had first asked about putting a hold on security aid to Ukraine, an embattled American ally, and Mr. Mulvaney needed an answer.

The aide, Robert B. Blair, replied that it would be possible, but not pretty. “Expect Congress to become unhinged” if the White House tried to countermand spending passed by the House and Senate, he wrote in a previously undisclosed email. And, he wrote, it might further fuel the narrative that Mr. Trump was pro-Russia.

Mr. Blair was right, even if his prediction of a messy outcome was wildly understated. Mr. Trump’s order to hold $391 million worth of sniper rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, night vision goggles, medical aid and other equipment the Ukrainian military needed to fight a grinding war against Russian-backed separatists would help pave a path to the president’s impeachment.

The Democratic-led inquiry into Mr. Trump’s dealings with Ukraine this spring and summer established that the president was actively involved in parallel efforts — both secretive and highly unusual — to bring pressure on a country he viewed with suspicion, if not disdain.

One campaign, spearheaded by Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, aimed to force Ukraine to conduct investigations that could help Mr. Trump politically, including one focused on a potential Democratic 2020 rival, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

The other, which unfolded nearly simultaneously but has gotten less attention, was the president’s demand to withhold the security assistance. By late summer, the two efforts merged as American diplomats used the withheld aid as leverage in the effort to win a public commitment from the new Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to carry out the investigations Mr. Trump sought into Mr. Biden and unfounded or overblown theories about Ukraine interfering in the 2016 election.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/29/u...itary-aid.html

Originally Posted by Pete F.

As early as June, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney worked to execute the freeze for Trump, and a top aide to Mulvaney — Robert Blair — worried it would fuel the narrative that Trump was tacitly aiding Russia.

Internal opposition was more forceful than previously known.

The Pentagon pushed for the money for months.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and then-national security adviser John Bolton privately urged Trump to understand that freezing the aid was not in our national interest.
Trump was unmoved, citing Ukraine’s “corruption.”

We now know Trump actually wanted Ukraine to announce sham investigations absolving Russia of 2016 electoral sabotage and smearing potential 2020 opponent Joe Biden.

The Times report reveals that top Trump officials did not think that ostensibly combating Ukrainian “corruption” (which wasn’t even Trump’s real aim) was in our interests.

Lawyers at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) worked to develop a far-fetched legal argument that Trump could exercise commander-in-chief authority to override Congress’ appropriation of the aid, to get around the law precluding Trump from freezing it.

Michael Duffey, a political appointee at OMB, tried to get the Pentagon to assume responsibility for getting the aid released, to deflect blame away from the White House for its own role in blocking it. This led a Pentagon official to pronounce herself “speechless.”

Duffey froze the aid with highly unusual bureaucratic tactics, refused to tell Pentagon officials why Trump wanted it withheld and instructed them to keep this “closely held.”

I removed the distraction and left the information.

[Sea Dangles]

🍔
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[PaulS]

Now that the Russians have hacked Burisma obo of President Trump, how long do you think before they try to plant docs. implicating the Bidens and will Trump announce it before the docs. are discovered?

[scottw]

Originally Posted by PaulS

Now that the Russians have hacked Burisma obo of President Trump, how long do you think before they try to plant docs. implicating the Bidens and will Trump announce it before the docs. are discovered?

I missed you.....

[scottw]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

I removed the distraction and left the information.

I was hoping your new years resolution would be brevity sprinkled with a little sanity

[PaulS]

Originally Posted by scottw

I missed you.....

There was nothing interesting to discuss here.