Posted on 01/02/2020 5:28:44 PM PST by ctdonath2
[snip]
Sept. 1, 2019 - Sondland tells a top Zelensky aide, Andriy Yermak, that U.S. assistance is unlikely to flow until Ukraine provided the desired public statement, according to Sondland. Yermak disputes hearing this, however.
Early September 2019 - Zelensky makes an appointment to appear on CNN, where he plans to make the desired statement.
Sept. 10 - House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam B. Schiff, D-Calif., demands to see the whistleblower complaint.
Sept. 11 - OMB releases the Ukraine aid.
Sept. 18 or 19 - Zelensky cancels his CNN interview.
Sept. 30, 2019 - The deadline for all 2019 federal spending, by which time all the Ukraine aid was supposed to be disbursed, or it would be automatically cancelled. Ultimately, $35 million was not spent in time but the deadline was extended in new legislation passed Sept. 19.
[snip]
(Excerpt) Read more at publicintegrity.org ...
Democrats are touting this as proof of impeachable crimes.
Interesting how the verbose rendition of bureaucrats terrified (to the point of quitting their jobs) of missing the deadline makes the subtly mentioned & ignored timeline excerpted above.
If you come across a Leftist pointing at this article or the emails in question, make this point (buried within the article):
On 9/11, OMB released the aid.
On 9/19, Congress extended the 9/30 deadline.
NO LAW WAS BROKEN.
More communist(D) bullshit.
More commie LIES..If Trump doesnt want to give Ukraine the money that is his business
Trump comes from a big-money world where high-stakes hardball is played very close to the limits to maximize benefits. The Left is not used to the game Trump plays very well. Yes, there was a 9/30 deadline, which was partially missed - except that 9/19 Congress extended the deadline. Democrats are all stompy-feet that Trump won that game.
It was never Ukraine’s money, it belongs to every American tax payer!
Since when is holding OUR MONEY, stealing from a debtor state.
Notice that Schiff “demands to see the whistleblower complaint” on 9/10.
Two consequences (or coincidences):
1. Aid was released 9/11.
2. Deadline was extended 9/19.
If Schiff was trying to catch Trump violating the deadline, he did so too early - giving time for legal compliance.
These Deep Staters were only worried Trump would not give their Ukraine friends the monies needed to fund Democrats’ family members there. They created a “scene” because it could underpin a fake obstruction allegation and this further supported the same Democrats.
We have a treaty with Ukraine, signed by Bill Clinton in 1999, that required mutual cooperation in criminal investigations.
The Ukraine appropriations bill mandated that the President make sure the funds would not be stolen.
>>>We have a treaty with Ukraine, signed by Bill Clinton in 1999, that required mutual cooperation in criminal investigations
What criminal investigation were the Ukranians supposed to cooperate with? Has the DOJ opened an investigation into either Burisma or Crowdstrike?
More from the article (undermining itself):
“the Impoundment Control Act, which allows spending to be withheld for only three reasons — to provide for “contingencies,” to achieve savings from increased efficiencies, or as mandated by a particular law. The act also bars a deliberate holdup of spending until the end of a fiscal year, according to 2018 decision by auditors at the U.S. Government Accountability Office. And it said no funding could be delayed for more than 45 days without Congress’s approval.”
Article (of course) does not actually link to nor quote the law.
Insofar as it asserts the delay “without Congress’s approval” was more than 45 days, July 25 to September 11 is 48 days. That requires further details on exactly what constitutes “delayed” and “released”, which very well could work out to 7/26 to 9/9 ... i.e.: 45 days.
The article also conveniently leaves out what prompted & constituted the extended deadline passed on 9/19.
Article also asserts a “55 day delay” (not 48), which I don’t see the basis of (again, 7/25 to 9/11).
Finally, if this is (as purported) a criminal violation, the Articles of Impeachment should have referenced the exact laws broken. It did not, opting instead for little more than “orange man bad”.
If this analysis was truly relevant to the Impeachment Inquiry the Democrat Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee had a constitutional obligation to bring this to the attention of the rest of the House so that it could be included in the articles of impeachment. Since this was not done the only conclusion must be that either Adam Schiff obstructed justice to prevent this from being investigated or it was not relevant.
Short version: if Congress allocates funds to a particular use, they must be spent by end of fiscal year (9/30) and not delayed for more than 45 days - this is not subject to Executive choice not to.
Congress said “give Ukraine $X etc”, so Trump was obliged to. He just pushed the limits for maximum effect, and the worst which the Democrats can accuse him of is _maybe_ delaying 3 days more than he’s allowed to. Maybe.
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/25/trump-ukraine-phone-call-transcript-text-pdf-1510770
The President: I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think you're surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it's very important that you do it if that's possible.
Does anyone know if the Ukranians have actually used, or even deployed the Javelin missiles in question? If not, what was the urgency? It seems to me this is a critical question that no one is asking.
There is a requirement for funds to be disbursed by Sep 30 end of govt fiscal year. Except that legislation was passed on Sep 19 to extend the deadline. We can reasonably assume that some democrats voted to enact that extension legislation. So where’s the beef?
We should clear our books IF we have the money to allocate or UNLESS there are extenuating circumstances. Example one, we’re behind in our payments to Messico by billions. But it was more important to America to address our own costs of billions in flood and hurricane damage. Messico can wait. Example two, if we allocate a billion for Messico this month, and they declare war on us in August, or it’s discovered last year’s billion went into the cartels pockets, there is no law that says we have to give them any additional allocated billion by September.
And, since we’re at the calculating board, since Ukraine and Russia are signing a cease-fire, then where’s our refund of funds not spent directly on war? And why are we sending more money for a war that isn’t happening?
Trump is the de facto head of the DOJ. A diplomatic phone call requesting cooperation with the AG is more than sufficient.
Bingo!
There is no law that requires budgeted funds be expended. The only rush to spend budgeted funds is the concept of zero based budgeting where the starting point for a new budget for any Department or agency is what was actually spent in the previous fiscal year. . . the zero base. No bureaucrat wants to be trying for an increase in their budget starting from less than the previous year’s budget amount, so they desperately scramble to expend every penny budgeted, and more, if possible to start the budget amount as high as possible!
The President has the authority, especially in Foreign Affairs, to withhold allocated funds if he deems it advisable to do so, otherwise the House of Representatives would be unconstitutionally in charge of Foreign Affairs by simply ordering spending not approved by the president’s foreign policy.
The only beef I can find is that the “delay” _may_ have been 3 days longer than a required maximum of 45 days.
That explains why Schiff popped up on 9/10 - two days after the 45-day limit.
But still doesn’t detail two salient points:
1. What legally constitutes the timestamps for the delay? (i.e.: was it actually after, vs on, the 45th day?)
2. If the 45 day requirement was in fact broken, why is the exact law involved not referenced, by link nor quote, in the Articles of Impeachment?
Leftists just can’t deal with how Trump plays big-money hardball - by the rules.
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