TELL IT TO THE JUDGE!
Gov’t watchdog slaps Ukraine aid wrangle on brink of Don impeach trial
The White House broke the law by blocking millions of dollars in U.S. aid to Ukraine, a nonpartisan congressional watchdog said Thursday, dealing a significant blow to President Trump ahead of his imminent Senate impeachment trial.
In a long-awaited report, the U.S. Government Accountability Office concluded the White House Office of Management and Budget’s still-unexplained freeze on $391 million in military assistance to Ukraine violated the 1974 Impoundment Control Act, which bars the executive branch from withholding congressionally approved funds for political purposes.
“Faithful execution of the law does not permit the president to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law,” GAO General Counsel Thomas Armstrong wrote in the nine-page report. “OMB withheld funds for a policy reason, which is not permitted under the Impoundment Control Act … Therefore, we conclude that the OMB violated the ICA.”
Armstrong noted that both the Budget Office and the State Department refused to comply with his office’s inquiry into the matter — much like how Trump ordered his entire administration to defy legally backed subpoenas from House impeachment investigators.
In the absence of any explanations from the administration, Armstrong said his office had no choice but to conclude it was violating the law.
“We consider a reluctance to provide a fulsome response to have constitutional significance,” Armstrong wrote. “All federal officials and employees take an oath to uphold and protect the Constitution and its core tenets, including the congressional power of the purse.”
Still, Armstrong said he hopes “State and OMB will provide the information needed.”
A senior Trump administration official, speaking only on condition of anonymity, claimed the GAO’s findings were “a pretty clear overreach” and an “attempt to insert themselves into the media’s controversy of the day,” even though the congressional office is independent and nonpartisan.
Budget Office spokeswoman Rachel Semmel said she disagrees with the Accountability
Office’s conclusion and that the White House Budget Office only uses “its appointment authority to ensure taxpayer dollars are properly spent.”
The GAO’s findings blow a hole in Republicans’ claim that Trump was impeached despite not breaking any laws.
The watchdog’s conclusion also came on the heels of the House Intelligence Committee’s release of explosive new impeachment evidence.
A cache of text messages and other records from Lev Parnas — a Florida businessman who worked closely with Rudy Giuliani on his Trumpendorsed dirt-digging mission in Ukraine — shed new light on the lengths to which Trump and his associates went in trying to squeeze Ukraine for politically motivated investigations.
Parnas also gave back-toback TV interviews Wednesday, in which he alleged that Attorney General William Barr was part of the “team” that worked on Trump’s sketchy Ukraine effort, implicating yet another top administration official in the impeachment scandal.
The dizzying developments gave fresh ammunition to Democrats as they push for additional witnesses and records to be subpoenaed for Trump’s trial.
The administration has consistently refused to explain exactly why it held the crucial military cash for nearly two months, but a parade of current and former administration officials testified in the House impeachment inquiry that Trump used the aid as leverage in his dubious bid to pressure Ukraine into announcing investigations of Joe Biden and other political opponents before the 2020 election.
Trump released the aid on Sept. 11, but only after an anonymous whistleblower complaint about the Ukraine scandal had begun circulating on Capitol Hill.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said GAO’s conclusion “reinforces again the need for documents and eyewitnesses” to be subpoenaed at Trump’s impeachment trial.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who will play a key role in Trump’s trial as the chamber’s top Democrat, echoed Pelosi’s sentiment, saying additional evidence is “even more needed now because GAO confirmed the president broke the law.”
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who will present the Democratic case for Trump’s removal from office as the lead impeachment manager of the trial, said the GAO decision “demonstrates once again that the president violated his constitutional duty” and “put his personal and political interests above the interests of the nation and its security.”
Trump’s trial is expected to get underway for real next week, though senators went through some housekeeping business Thursday.
Once the trial’s underway, Schumer and other Senate Democrats plan to push for votes on resolutions to subpoena former national security adviser John Bolton, acting Trump chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and some other administration officials who refused to testify in the House impeachment inquiry.