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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: 4, Interesting) by Thexalon on Wednesday November 13 2019, @03:47AM (5 children)
Some Americans, by all appearances, do in fact want to have kings.
And I'm not just talking about the people who voted for the current guy. I'm also talking about the people who gladly supported someone almost 20 years ago whose main qualification for the office of president was that his daddy was president, and whose administration was chock full of people who were describing a "unitary executive" theory that said that the president could treat everything Congress and the Supreme Court said as advisory rather than binding. And there were other people before that.
The impulse runs deep. It's basically "This guy ended up in charge of things and I didn't, that must mean they know something and/or are able to do things I don't understand. Therefor, they're better than I am, and I'm wrong to even question what they want me to do." Which is exactly the thinking of an authoritarian minion, the sort of person who would be perfectly at home in Stalin's USSR, Nazi Germany, or Ancien Regime France.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 13 2019, @06:04PM (4 children)
You're describing Hillary supporters?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 13 2019, @06:08PM
W's successful bid came before Hillary's, flamebaiter. Do try to read your history first. Now pipe down, adults are talking.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday November 13 2019, @08:14PM
Hillary? Oh, you mean the little old lady who has no job?
I can't imagine why you are so frightened of her.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Wednesday November 13 2019, @08:37PM (1 child)
No, I'm describing American conservatives, who have a strong belief in hierarchies and the justness thereof. They tend to like forms of organization that enforce that idea, such as the military and private businesses. (You might think that libertarian types aren't a part of this, but they are: Libertarians, at least in my experience, want to be sovereigns of their own small hierarchy rather than ensconced in somebody else's much bigger hierarchy, but aren't keen on challenging the idea of hierarchy in the slightest.)
Left-wing politics tends to be skeptical of hierarchies, at least as they exist now. The fundamental idea of the left-wing is that the people who are in charge aren't generally the most capable. There are variations: Modern liberalism (of the sort espoused by Hillary Clinton) argues that the problem is discrimination, which leads to a suboptimal outcome because more capable people are pushed further down hierarchies by irrational factors that often have nothing to do with their ability, such as their gonads or skin tone. Communists and socialists argue that hierarchies don't push more capable people down because of irrational discrimination, but as part of an intentional effort by incompetent people in charge to maintain their own lofty position and force those at the bottom of the hierarchy to do all the lousy jobs while having most of the value of their work stolen by the rich. This is why left-wing people tend to like forms of organization that create a strong sense of accountability for anybody in charge to the people they're supposed to be in charge of, with lots of voting or even consensus governance.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 13 2019, @09:13PM
He is just mad cause she is the graduation speaker at his middle school this year. She has family there and is doing it pro bono. Not quid pro quo.