On or shortly before July 18, Donald Trump instructs Mick Mulvaney to have the Pentagon put a hold on nearly $400 million in military and security aid to Ukraine.
The Pentagon is instructed to tell Congress, which approved the aid, that there is a delay due to “interagency process” and not to say more.
The administration was looking at harnessing multiple foreign packages, several aides believed, when Trump took a special interest in Ukraine, at times railing about how the country wasted money in his eyes. This surprised several staffers because, as CNN has reported, Trump had not been interested in engaging with Ukraine in the past, believing Ukraine was a corrupt country that wasn’t committed to reform.
But his attentiveness to the country had ramped up in recent weeks as his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani pushed muddled corruption accusations against Biden, who was leading in national polls against Trump, and his son Hunter.
CNN
A week later, Trump calls Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky and asks for investigations before continuing the countries’ defense relationship.
In January 2020, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office determines that the White House’s Office of Management and Budget violated federal law by withholding the aid.
Sources
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-ordered-hold-on-military-aid-days-before-calling-ukrainian-president-officials-say/2019/09/23/df93a6ca-de38-11e9-8dc8-498eabc129a0_story.html
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/09/23/politics/trump-ukraine-military-aid-call/index.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/16/us/politics/gao-trump-ukraine.html
Photo: Gage Skidmore
