House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff told CNN “I have been very reluctant to go down the path of impeachment. But if the president is essentially withholding military aid at the same time he is trying to browbeat a foreign leader into doing something illicit, providing dirt on his opponent during a presidential campaign, then that may be the only remedy that is coequal to the evil that that conduct represents.”
Per MSN, President Trump told his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to hold back almost $400 million in military aid for Ukraine at least a week before a phone call in which Trump is said to have pressured the Ukrainian president to investigate the son of former vice president Joe Biden, according to three senior administration officials.
Officials at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) relayed Trump’s order to the State Department and the Pentagon during an interagency meeting in mid-July, according to officials who spoke on the condition on anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. They explained that the president had “concerns” and wanted to analyze whether the money needed to be spent.
Administration officials were instructed to tell lawmakers that the delays were part of an “interagency process” but to give them no additional information — a pattern that continued for nearly two months, until the White House released the funds on the night of Sept. 11.
Trump’s order to withhold aid to Ukraine a week before his July 25 call with Volodymyr Zelensky is likely to raise questions about the motivation for his decision and fuel suspicions on Capitol Hill that Trump sought to leverage congressionally approved aid to damage a political rival. The revelation comes as lawmakers clash with the White House over a related whistleblower complaint made by an intelligence official alarmed by Trump’s actions.
Roll call reports some Democratic lawmakers who have been reluctant to push for an impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump appeared to warm to the idea after Trump admitted to a July conversation with his Ukrainian counterpart about investigating a company linked to the son of Joe Biden.
House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff of California suggested Sunday that the House may have “crossed the Rubicon” as new revelations about Trump’s conversation with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky emerged in media reports. Until now leadership in the Democrat-controlled House has been ambiguous about whether it is pursuing an impeachment investigation against the president.
“I have been very reluctant to go down the path of impeachment,” Schiff said in an interview on CNN. “But if the president is essentially withholding military aid at the same time he is trying to browbeat a foreign leader into doing something illicit, providing dirt on his opponent during a presidential campaign, then that may be the only remedy that is coequal to the evil that that conduct represents.”
Trump on Monday acknowledged that he talked to Ukraine’s Zelensky, a former comedian-turned-politician, about that country’s government investigating the involvement Biden’s son with a Ukrainian energy company.
Sept 22nd Schiff told Jake Tapper, “I want to make sure before we go down this road that we could persuade the public that this was the right thing to do”
Rep. Adam Schiff on Democrats continuous call for President Trump’s impeachment: “I want to make sure before we go down this road that we could persuade the public that this was the right thing to do” #CNNSOTU pic.twitter.com/cMnMe0Zgye
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) September 22, 2019
#NEW: House Intel CMTE chairman Adam Schiff says Congress may be “forced down this road” of impeachment if Pres. Trump is found to have pushed Ukraine to probe Joe Biden’s son, adding the president previously sought foreign assistance as a candidate. pic.twitter.com/e24M8tHMB8
— Jennifer Franco (@jennfranconews) September 22, 2019
This article was written by the staff of TheConservativeOpinion.com
By CK Heltzel
