Breaking: OMB filing reveals Trump involved in discussions on Ukraine aid as early as June

[Dennis Donovan]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/01/politics/trump-ukraine-aid-emails-omb-justice-department/index.html

By Katelyn Polantz, CNN

Updated 10:15 AM ET, Sat February 1, 2020

Washington (CNN)The Department of Justice revealed in a court filing late Friday that it has two dozen emails related to the President Donald Trump's involvement in the withholding of millions in security assistance to Ukraine -- a disclosure that came just hours after the Senate voted against subpoenaing additional documents and witnesses in Trump's impeachment trial, paving the way for his acquittal.

The filing, released near midnight Friday, marks the first official acknowledgment from the Trump administration that emails about the President's thinking related to the aid exist, and that he was directly involved in asking about and deciding on the aid as early as June. The administration is still blocking those emails from the public and has successfully kept them from Congress.

A lawyer with the Office of Management and Budget wrote to the court that 24 emails between June and September 2019 -- including an internal discussion among DOD officials called "POTUS follow-up" on June 24 -- should stay confidential because the emails describe "communications by either the President, the Vice President, or the President's immediate advisors regarding Presidential decision-making about the scope, duration, and purpose of the hold on military assistance to Ukraine."

Trump's decision to withhold nearly $400 million in US military aid to Ukraine as he pressed the country to investigate Hunter Biden and Joe Biden, his potential 2020 general election rival, are at the center of the President's impeachment trial. Trump and his allies have repeatedly made unfounded and false claims to allege that the Bidens acted corruptly in Ukraine.

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[dem4decades]

1. Of Course. Bolton already said May.

[jmg257]

2. Is this news? Vindman said he knew "concretely" it was being held up on July 3rd.

Seems obvious trump made the call before then.

[Dennis Donovan]

3. This is the WH / OMB owning up to the earlier timeline

...which backs up Lt Col Vindman.

[jmg257]

4. WAs this being argued? I don't recall it being an issue?

We know ghooliani was "investigating" I mean trying to dig up dirt, WAY before then.

[jmg257]

5. AH they are talking this very matter on CNN - cheers! nt

[Moostache]

6. If the rule of law still existed, this might matter...

Now?
Who fucking cares? Really?

What can be done about it with 51 craven assholes in lock step to protect the biggest criminal in US History?

I hope they all die.
I PRAY for them to be killed in horrific accidents or via flesh-eating bacteria or by incurable diseases.

But our country, and its experiment in self-rule and representative republic, died yesterday.
There is no longer three, co-equal branches of government.

There is a captive SCOTUS, with a partisan hack CJ...
There is a cover-up abetting Senate, with no checks or balances on ONE FUCKING MAN holding sway and deciding life for 350+ MILLION people NOT living in fucking Kentucky...
There is a House of Representatives shorn of any oversight remedies or subpoena power with teeth.

This is now a dictatorship and in a couple years, it will become a hereditary monarchy and 45% of the people in this shit hole nation WON'T FUCKING CARE as long as DJTJ is able to keep "owning the libs"...

So, seriously, more evidence that a guilty man did EXACTLY what he was shown to have done anyway? Who cares...

[smirkymonkey]

7. +1000

I really wish I didn't agree with so much of what you said, but unfortunately, I do.

[Moostache]

8. I really wish I didn't believe it too...

I am so frustrated and angry today and seething with bitterness that I am intentionally avoiding human contact until later in the day. It is such a feeling of helplessness and despair, a hollow, acidic burning sensation (without an actual ulcer).

Its a sad moment in time, where everywhere things seem to be on the verge of really unraveling, but no one in charge is big enough to see a solution. It feels like the precipice that would have been the world without Churchill and FDR...we have Trump and Boris Johnson.

And I thought I couldn't feel any worse...

[smirkymonkey]

9. Sorry Moostache!

I know exactly how you feel. That's why I am spending the weekend watching funny/uplifting movies, but couldn't resisting popping into DU to see what was going on. Do something that makes you happy today and try to avoid politics for a few days. That's what I am doing. This anger and despair is just eating me alive. I need to connect with life again. Take care of yourself.

[Moostache]

11. Thanks....sound advice!

I am actually going to grab a book and catch up on some reading this weekend...that usually helps a little....the politics on TV and radio is already turned off!

See you on the flipside (hopefully in a much better place for both of and the country)!

[PA Democrat]

10. DRIP! DRIP DRIP! Every single day.