Speaking to reporters at the UN on Tuesday, President Trump changed his position on why Ukraine military aid was withheld, and also confirmed that he intends to continue to withhold the money.
Trump had been presenting this, as recently as yesterday, as aid being withheld over concerns about Ukrainian corruption, saying his concern about the corruption was totally appropriate, and not directly related to Joe Biden.
The new story is that the aid was frozen long before he even talked to Ukraine about Biden or corruption, and that he was mad that Europe wasn’t paying more of the overall cost of aid to the Ukrainians.
“I said, ‘Hold it up. Let’s get other people to pay,'” Trump told the reporters. Trump says that while Ukraine’s funds were fully paid he intends to withhold again and continue to withhold until either European or other nations come forward to pay for it.
That the US was withholding aid to Ukraine was a source of anger among many in Congress, who believe that any military aid to Ukraine is necessarily against Russia. Early reports were that the administration doubted that the aid would benefit US interests.
After the aid was freed up it seemed the issue was over, but it again become an issue when the scandal surrounding Trump’s conversation with Ukraine’s president grew.
I wouldn’t mind if he permanently cut it off. Better use for taxpayer dollars than giving it to neo-fascist militants.
Ukraine should be handed back to Russia where it rightfully belongs.
Rightful? The Ukrainians are not Russian, on the other hand in the east of the country it is a 50/50 split between the ethnicities so a thorny problem to say the least. Psychos on both sides can likely be encouraged to keep the conflict going.
about 20 % of the Ukrainian Estonians and Latvians speak Russian So there must be some close ties with Russia .
You have a mix of ethnic Russians and Ukrainians I think as you go east in Ukraine (towards Russia) the mix becomes much more Russian.
Who do you propose do the “handing back” of one nation to another nation that’s indicated no particular desire to have it?
Ukrainian people themselves should decide in a referendum.
Why should some of the Ukrainian people get to decide for the rest?
The same reason that some people decided trump should be my president
The same reason ‘ the rest ‘ gets to decide for ‘ some’ .
Russia accepted the Crimea back
Biden bragged on camera about his corruption with his actions in Ukraine. Why is Trump being impeached for pointing out Biden’s crimes?
If Trump is impeached, it will probably be for the same thing Biden bragged about — abusing the power of his office and the disposition of taxpayer money to pressure a foreign government to do something personally advantageous to him.
Or, the House might instead impeach on one of any number of actual crimes for which which Trump has either committed in plain public view or publicly admitted to committing.
In the Ukraine case, one of those could be failing, as the Constitution requires, to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. That would be include the law clearly and unambiguously requiring the executive branch to hand over whistleblower complaints to Congress on demand, a law which has not been followed and which Trump has publicly countenanced the non-following of instead of taking care to see faithfully executed.
The law about reporting whislteblowers is not “unambiguous”, not when it states that the complaint must be “credible”. “Credible” is about a ambiguous a term as there is. Who says it’s “credible”? And actually it doesn’t require the president to turn over anything, the requirement is that the complaint be turned over to the DNI who must turn it over to congress and that’s after a period of time that isn’t’ close to being up yet. Furthermore, the law doesn’t actually say anything about what the president must do or must not do and again that’s IF it’s deemed credible. That’s a far cry from unambiguous.
As for Multiple crimes he’s committed in public view or admitted, what would those happen to be? You didn’t name any so are you maybe imagining that these crimes reach impeachment levels of criminality? I’m certainly not seeing it.
As for claiming it was personally advantageous to him, so what? If something is both in his best interest and the best interest of the US then it’s not illegal. They would have to prove his sole reason was self enrichment, good luck with that. Same thing goes for Biden by the way, Just about everyone in charge in Europe thought that prosecutor was corrupt and they were all calling for him to be removed. Just because it also might have helped his son to remove the guy doesn’t meant that Joe didn’t have other legit reasons for doing it.
Honestly go vote the man out, I’d love to see him replaced by anyone who is actually anti-war, but impeachment over this? I don’t think that would do anything but bolster his support because none of his fans care one whit about whether or not Trump tried to boss Ukraine around in regards to Biden.
This is going to come across as the Democrats trying to win via impeachment because they can’t win any other way. It’s going to be correctly seen as an attack on the people who voted for Trump. It’s not just an attack on Trump it’s an open attack against the millions of people who voted for him. If congress is going to put itself ahead of the voters they better have a sight better reason than this, that’s all I’m saying. Just like nobody cared about slick willies blowjobs nobody cares about Trump pushing around Ukraine. In the scheme of things it’s simply not as important as having the guys you chose kicked out of office.
Tulsi Gabbard is right, the thing to do is to vote him out. Impeachment ignores the will of the voters, it’s divisive, political and ultimately self defeating because there is no real underlying crime here, not one that would require the undoing of the voters will.
Personally I’ve never understood libertarian types that root for impeachment, not now and not back when slick willy was in office. I’d rather see the people, as flawed as they are, decide who runs the country, rather than a prosecutor and a bunch of political hacks. If these lawyers and political hacks can undo the will of the voters on a whim, then we have given them too much power. Same goes for special prosecutors and all that Bullshit.
Very well said.
“As for Multiple crimes he’s committed in public view or admitted, what would those happen to be?”
His misappropriation of funds not authorized by Congress for his wall project was not just an admission of a crime, although it was also that, it was a declaration of dictatorship.
That’s one. We could talk about others if you like.
To be fair, every other president (at least in my lifetime) has also committed crimes in plain sight. Trump is just serving Obama’s third “I’ve got a pen and a phone” term.
When Obama launched his first drone attack 2 weeks in, murdering an American citizen, I was for impeachment. Likewise, trump has escalated numerous illegal wars, and in my mind impeachable on any of them. Notably, sending 3000 marines to Syria, and his Syrian missile attack. I say, impeach em all for whatever they can be impeached for. Perhaps if the CIC is busy moving, the world might find some peace somewhere, somehow, even for a day.
Yep. A co-conspirator in the murder of Nawar Anwar al-Awlaki, among other crimes.
And his son.
“it’s not just an attack on trump, it’s an open attack on the millions of voters who voted for him.” Right, seems to have slipped your mind, congress is voted in also, by millions of voters, and impeachment is part of their responsibility to them. Shared powers much ?
“It’s not just an attack on Trump it’s an open attack against the millions of people who voted for him.”
A vote for Trump or Clinton was a vote against America, freedom, human life on earth, and baseball. Those 130 million or so moral reprobates or mental retards SHOULD be attacked.
Are you sure you are Thomas Knapp?
Well, I’m a Thomas Knapp. There are others. The best known is probably the late quick-draw champion and trick shooter Tom Knapp.
More US “aid” means more chaos & killing.
It’s wonderful Trump wants to withhold military “aid” for whatever reason but doesn’t it seem odd that the man that would sell weapons to anyone with cash suddenly is worried about corruption?
I mean, let’s just be more general about this. Trump is easily the most corrupt man in is politics.
I’m not against cutting off aid. But his stated reasons to do so (and for everything else) is a lie.
What kind of proof do you have of Trumps corruption . I think Trump is perhaps the most honest man in politics . He surely has told us a lot of truth our former presidents neglected to do . Without Trump we would have never learned of a corrupt FBI and 16 lying intelligence agencies . You might still even be believing in fake news . We all should be thankful for Trump .
“I think Trump is perhaps the most honest man in politics.”
Sure, why not. Oh wait.
http://www.politicususa.com/2018/11/02/trump-has-told-6420-lies-since-becoming-president.html
How many lies has Trump told since elected?
Trump Has Told 6,420 Lies Since Becoming President. During the first 649 days of his presidency Donald Trump has told 6,420 lies, according to the Washington Post Fact Checker. And perhaps in a sign of his increasing desperation, over the past seven weeks of campaigning for the midterms his rate of lying has increased dramatically.
(And that’s from almost a year ago.)
Alas, the Democrats will apparently again be faulting Trump for not being rabidly, militantly anti-Russian enough. Pelosi said as much between the lines of her statement last night.
I certainly would go along with this just to keep it out of the bank accounts of the clowns in control in Ukraine-corruption is a way of life in Ukraine. As far as more weapons systems, why? Civilians in the east get shelled almost on a daily basis now with area type arty and grads.