Posted on 01/16/2020 7:57:13 AM PST by Swordmaker
The Trump administration violated the law by withholding appropriated security assistance to Ukraine, the Government Accountability Office said Thursday in a report.
The independent watchdog said the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) withheld the appropriated funds last summer.
The report said U.S. law “does not permit the president to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law.”
“Therefore, we conclude that OMB violated the [Impound Control Act],” GAO said.
The withholding of the aid is central to the ongoing impeachment proceedings against President Trump.
--This breaking news report will be updated.
I don’t care if Trump never gives a dime to Ukraine, or any other country. This is a crime?
I meant GAO no difference though.
Sure it does because it removes any credibility of the GAO. If the GAO did not publish any issues with the last administration, then they are just bias, partisan hacks without any credibility.
Even if he did violate the law, it’s not an impeachable offense. Government officials are routinely reversed in court for actions outside their governing statutes.
Good
The ICA separates impoundments into two exclusive categories—deferrals and rescissions. The President may temporarily withhold funds from obligation—but not beyond the end of the fiscal year in which the President transmits the special message—by proposing a “deferral.”4 2 U.S.C. § 684. The President may also seek the permanent cancellation of funds for fiscal policy or other reasons, including the termination of programs for which Congress has provided budget authority, by proposing a “rescission.”5 2 U.S.C. § 683.
But the deferral is a holding beyond the period when the spending authorization would expire, i.e. the fiscal year. THAT is when the President must send a deferral proposal. NOT just for a temporary hold. Otherwise the President would become a puppet of the House of Representatives, always sending deferral proposals for minor holds. The definition section of the law is quite explicit on this. When the president does not want to CANCEL the spending but anticipates the spending might span into the next fiscal year, then he would send a request to defer the spending into the next period. SHEESH!
I went and read the law and there’s a section on how many days the Congress HAS to take action on rescission requests, but not on notices of deferrals. Not a WORD about a temporary hold.
The President is NOT beholding to minor functionaries in his own branch’s decisions about when to spend money. HE is the one where “The Buck Stops Here,” not them. It is HIS authority that things are spent under, not some bureaucrat. Everything they do is under HIS direction. Not the other way around.
This is especially true where foreign affairs are concerned. CONGRESS HAS NO ROLE except to vote funds. They cannot micromanage the expenditure after that! This NEEDS to be ruled on by SCOTUS and found unconstitutional. . . Especially the part about the Department of Defense directly reporting its findings to Congress and then having THAT obligate the President to expend of funds for Foreign Affairs. That is DOUBLY unconstitutional on its very face.
That’s what I’ve been trying to point out to people. The Framers wisely put Foreign Affairs in the hands of a single person, the President, because they knew that such things can turn on a dime, while a committee, including Congress would act glacially. This is an effort by Congress to micromanage Foreign Affairs.
The budgetary items under discussion here were passed back in September 2018! The spending expired on September 30, 2919. . . and it was expended in large part before then.
A lot can happen in the 10 months between the aid being passed and July when the Ukraine Aid was put on hold while President Trump was taking the measure of Ukraine’s new president. The question before Trump was whether Zelensky was truly a reformer or just another corrupt thug like previous politicians elected to high office in Ukraine, playing musical chairs with the same corrupt officials, doing the same thing others had done before. Zelensky had been elected in April and had so far done nothing to show he was a reformer.
The only ones committing a felony was Eric Ciamarella and the person who leaked to him, likely LIGHT Colonel Vindman, the one you refer to as the Whistleblower. You really DO swallow everything the Dems claim, don’t you?
Have you even bothered to read the transcript of the call? Can you type the name of Eric Ciamarella on this forum or is that anathema to you?
Not only can I name him, I can spell his name.
C-I-A (what a giveaway!) R-A-M-E-L-L-A
and I read the transcript of the call so well, I saw the blatant quid pro quo coming right out of Trump’s maw.
Ah, another Never Trump DEM Schitt Swallow Shill makes his presence felt. Just because the Defense Department certified that the Ukraine Military had made changes in their procurement procedures to do something about corruption did NOT mean that there had been other changes in the MAIN STREAM GOVERNMENT OF UKRAINE where the same corrupt people were still in the same offices!
Have you yet been able to type the name Eric Ciamarella on FreeRepublic, Semimojo??? Are you still incapable of doing that?
And no mention of Biden on tape bragging about withholding [aid]?
—
Yes.
WHY IS NO ONE TALKING ABOUT THIS?????
I just searched for it on youtube. If it’s still there youtube search isn’t revealing it. F*ing nazis.
Or how about all the prior substitution of policy priorities in place of standing immigration law?
Re-read the passage you cited:
"The President may temporarily withhold funds from obligation—but not beyond the end of the fiscal year in which the President transmits the special message—by proposing a “deferral.”4 2 U.S.C. § 684."
Another explanation from the House Budget Committee: the deferral cannot extend beyond the end of the fiscal year in which the special message is sent
When the president does not want to CANCEL the spending but anticipates the spending might span into the next fiscal year, then he would send a request to defer the spending into the next period.
That sounds reasonable except for the explicit language that prevents deferrals into the next fiscal year.
It is HIS authority that things are spent under, not some bureaucrat.
Huh. And all these years I've been taught that Congress had the power of the purse.
CONGRESS HAS NO ROLE except to vote funds.
I hope you'll excuse me if I want my elected Representatives to have some oversight on how my tax dollars are spent.
That's true, but it did provide the certification that Congress required before the funds were released.
According to the GAO, any concern Trump had about generalized corruption wasn't a valid reason to withhold the funds provided his administration certified that the military aid funds would be well applied.
What you or I think about the Impoundment Control Act isn't really the point - it's the law.
If you saw it, then QUOTE IT, idiot. I don’t see it. Where did he offer anything or threaten to withhold anything? PLEASE show us poor rubes who seem to have such a poor grasp of the English language that we simply cannot see it. Is it found between the lines? WHERE IS IT? Where is this blatant Quid Quo Pro????
Let me explain something that even an idiot should be able to grasp.
If President Trump threatened the Ukrainians with withholding a desperately needed military assistance, money to buy Javelin Missiles to fight the invaders of the country, arguably EXISTENTIAL assistance for the survival of the nation, then let’s take that as a given.
If that were the case, and they desperately need this military aid, then the government of Ukraine would be DESPERATELY doing everything they could to comply to assure they GOT THAT AID in a timely manner! Would you not agree?
Now, the Democrats are claiming that President Trump was pressuring President Zelensky to merely ANNOUNCE that Ukraine was opening an investigation into the Bidens. . . even if they were they were NOT going to be opening an investigation into the Bidens. ABSURD assertion because the only claim they have for that was Ambassador Sondland’s claim that Trump would have been happy with that.
Ambassador Sondland’s only connection with Trump was he made a large donation to Trump’s inauguration and was not even a campaign donor. He only met Trump afterward for a short meeting. He’s not a personal friend of Trump’s to know his mind about anything.
So, returning to Ukraine’s reactions. Did they do anything about this supposed Quid Pro Quo you claim was so prominent in the July 25th phone call? Nope, Crickets. Did they open an investigation into the Bidens or even Burisma? Nope. Did they even put out a press release that they MIGHT open an investigation? Nope! Ukraine SAT ON ITS HANDS FOR SIX WEEKS!
Only then do we have a third-hand rumor, again from Ambassador Sondland that he heard from someone in the Ukraine government that they were talking about arranging an interview with CNN Euro for Zelensky for sometime in September. . . WOW! That must be really important to the Ukrainians if they waited until September 5th to even START talking to a CNN producer about arranging an interview! That should tell you they knew NOTHING about any threat to withhold funding!
Ergo, there could have been no threat.
The Ukrainians were not acting like they were being blackmailed. Zelensky said he heard nothing like a Quid Quo Pro. The other Ukrainian officials on the line said there WAS nothing like a QUID QUO PRO in the call. For there to have been one you have to call the president of another country a LIAR. You have to call their Minister of Foreign Affairs a LIAR. You have to call the President of the United States a LIAR.
The Ukrainians did not behave at all like they got a Quid Quo Pro that threatened their existence or security, because it would have been extremely EASY to put out a press release saying they’d opened an investigation into Burisma and the Biden’s involvement, but they simply did not. . . but YOU in your ultimate wisdom are the only one along with all the DIM DEMS who are able to, somehow FIND a QUID QUO PRO THERE.
How? Where? Please, tell us.
PS, you are delusional.
The problem is the law, which says once his administration certifies that the aid will be well spent he pretty much has to spend it.
General concerns about corruption or policy changes aren't a valid reason to withhold the aid.
I'm not saying that's a great law, but I think the GAO is going by the book.
I don’t think that is necessary. The fellow travelers in the Deep State know what their roles are to play in this melodrama and they just step up when they see an opportunity. Then there are the ~8,000 political appointees of Obama that in the last days of his administration that he converted to civil service administrators with high positions in the government. That is a huge problem in the government. . .
If a Leftist does something wrong and YouTube and Google don’t allow searching for it, did it really happen? If a tree falls in the forest, and no one can hear it. . .
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