More Ukranian shoes...
Just Security got a hold of some of the heavily redacted emails that were released to the Center for Public integrity a week or so ago. They offer more proof that the president himself was directing the bribery scheme, using hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer money hostage to help his re-election campaign.
“Clear direction from POTUS to continue to hold.”
This is what Michael Duffey, associate director of national security programs at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), told Elaine McCusker, the acting Pentagon comptroller, in an Aug. 30 email, which has only been made available in redacted form until now. It is one of many documents the Trump administration is trying to keep from the public, despite congressional oversight efforts and court orders in Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation.
Earlier in the day on Aug. 30, President Donald Trump met with Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to discuss the president’s hold on $391 million in military assistance for Ukraine. Inside the Trump administration, panic was reaching fever pitch about the president’s funding hold, which had stretched on for two months. Days earlier, POLITICO had broken the story and questions were starting to pile up. U.S. defense contractors were worried about delayed contracts and officials in Kyiv and lawmakers on Capitol Hill wanted to know what on earth was going on. While Trump’s national security team thought withholding the money went against U.S. national security interests, Trump still wouldn’t budge.
As always he assumed his strongarm tactics would get him what he wanted. And truthfully, they almost did. Zelensky was ready to go on Fareed Zakariah's CNN program (as instructed by the Trumpies) to announce that they would open the investigation into 2016 and Joe Biden. But, as usual, because he was crudely breaking the law, he ran into obstacles to his plan and by mid-September it had blown up and he had to release the money.
Trump is always dancing as fast as he can, creating new scams to cover for the old ones. He's like Bernie Madoff only with the nuclear codes. This one was particularly idiotic and totally unnecessary but because he has a very sever personality disorder, he was seduced by the idea that since the Mueller Report didn't deliver a lethal blow, the could get away with doing what he did in 2016, only with all the power of the presidency behind him. His sycophants and accomplices no doubt reinforced his self-destructive impulses.
Every day brings more evidence of Trump's direction of events. Every other day Giuliani is out there making incriminating statements. At least once a week we have accomplices in Rudy's scheme offering to hand over data to investigators.
Those Republican senators who are looking at a tough re-election have to be wondering if they are going to come out on the wrong side of this vote when all the evidence is in and end up paying for Trump's sins.
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