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from the the-enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend dept.
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
The view among the national security officials was unanimous: Military aid to Ukraine should not be stopped. But the White House's acting chief of staff thought otherwise.
That was the testimony of Laura Cooper, a Defense Department official, whose deposition was released Monday in the House impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump.
"My sense is that all of the senior leaders of the US national security departments and agencies were all unified in their - in their view that this assistance was essential," she said. "And they were trying to find ways to engage the president on this."
Cooper's testimony was among several hundred pages of transcripts released Monday, along with those of State Department officials Catherine Croft and Christopher Anderson.
Cooper told investigators that, in a series of July meetings at the White House, she came to understand that Trump's acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, was holding up the military aid for the US ally.
[...] When she and others tried to get an explanation, they found none.
[...] She said it was "unusual" to have congressional funds suddenly halted that way, and aides raised concerns about the legality of it. The Pentagon was "concerned" about the hold-up of funds and "any signal that we would send to Ukraine about a wavering in our commitment", she said.
Cooper told investigators that she was visited in August by Kurt Volker, the US special envoy to Ukraine, who explained there was a "statement" that the Ukraine government could make to get the security money flowing.
[...] "Somehow, an effort that he was engaged in to see if there was a statement that the government of Ukraine would make," said Cooper, an assistant defence secretary, "that would somehow disavow any interference in US elections and would commit to the prosecution of any individuals involved in election interference."
For a handy reference to the documents that have been released concerning this, npr has posted Trump Impeachment Inquiry: A Guide To Key People, Facts And Documents:
Written words are central to the Ukraine affair. The significance of the whistleblower's original complaint and the White House's record of its call with Ukraine are debated, but the text is public. Here are the documents to refer to as the inquiry proceeds:
Texts and memos
- Call:The White House memorandum (Sept. 25)
- Aid:The Pentagon letter on military aid to Ukraine (Sept. 25)
- Complaint:The whistleblower complaint (Sept. 26)
- Texts:Batch of texts between diplomats released by House Democrats (Oct. 4)
The whistleblower's complaint has largely been corroborated by witness testimony, public statements and media reports. See how the document checks out — with a detailed annotation of the text.
Testimony released by Congress following closed depositions
- Christopher Anderson, former special adviser for Ukraine negotiations
- Laura Cooper,deputy defense secretary
- Catherine Croft, former Ukraine adviser on the National Security Council
- Fiona Hill, former White House adviser on Russia
- George Kent, deputy assistant secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs
- Michael McKinley, former State Department adviser
- Gordon Sondland,U.S. ambassador to EU
- William Taylor, acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine
- Alexander Vindman, top Ukraine expert on the National Security Council
- Kurt Volker, former Ukraine envoy
- Marie Yovanovitch, ex-U.S. ambassador to Ukraine
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 13 2019, @02:20AM (5 children)
Uhhhh, not quite. Congress does have an important constitutional role in setting foreign policy.
Are you sure that America is the right place for you? Something tells me that Saudi Arabia may be better suited to your ideals.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Wednesday November 13 2019, @12:43PM (4 children)
Note that the foreign policy in question is the previous administration historically and provably accepted bribes in exchange for favorable treatment, which is already illegal.
There's no clause in the constitution stating something like "democrats can accept bribes of millions of dollars for their kids in exchange for favorable policies and its treason to investigate or complain about it". I must have missed that part.
Essentially if you have a party of extreme corruption then any investigation of corruption will by definition be "political" in some sense if the Venn diagram of criminals and one party is overlapping almost completely.
(Score: 2, Touché) by khallow on Wednesday November 13 2019, @01:53PM (2 children)
"If" and "if". Corruption is bipartisan. Blaming one party for the whole deal is missing the picture in a way that enables the whole thing to continue.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 13 2019, @04:04PM (1 child)
Well maybe if you would accept simple reality we could investigate all the corruption, but all we get from you is denial and "but her emails!!" while ignoring every shitty thing done in the WH.
You just want to avoid the proper blame so you fall back on false equivalency. That level of hypocrisy does not make for good team work.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday November 13 2019, @10:19PM
If you were familiar with my posting history, you would know that assertion is false. But since you mentioned it, Clinton's emails are yet another shitty thing done in the White House.
Moving on
The previous AC was claiming that the Democrat party was almost completely the source of corruption in the US. That was ridiculous. The equivalency wasn't false.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 13 2019, @04:54PM
You must have been too busy with the multiple investigations of Benghazi to notice the bribes.