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The REAL No-Kidding Reason For Trump’s Review Of Military Aid To Ukraine lidblog.com/military-aid-t… via @yidwithlid
@yidwithlid What was this earlier, actual reason for reviewing the military aid package for Ukraine? Here was a big one, proven by the reports of two weeks ago to have genuinely been at issue:
@yidwithlid Border wall funding.
It’s all out there in black-and-white and has been for a while. Now, it’s fair – and essential – to point out that finding funds to raid for the border wall wasn’t the only reason for reviewing the specific program that affected Ukraine’s aid funding.
It’s all out there in black-and-white and has been for a while. Now, it’s fair – and essential – to point out that finding funds to raid for the border wall wasn’t the only reason for reviewing the specific program that affected Ukraine’s aid funding.
@yidwithlid A prior reason was articulated in March 2019, when the Pentagon requested an umbrella military aid package for Europe in 2020 reduced by 10% from the one for the current fiscal year. This package includes the military aid for Ukraine.
@yidwithlid The funding reduction, from a total of $6.5 billion to a total of $5.9 billion, met with disapproval at the time from much of the foreign policy establishment.
@yidwithlid It was felt that reducing the funding request for the European Deterrence Initiative (EDI) – the name of the overarching program – sent the wrong signal to Russia.
@yidwithlid The Trump administration’s characteristic reasoning, about allies paying a fair share and the U.S. resetting priorities, was suggested again in late August. (For a brief few days, the media-spin emphasis was on the potential that this was about appeasing Russia.
@yidwithlid Other reporting at the time put the aid review in the context of an across-the-board scrubbing of foreign aid, launched by Trump in early August. These latter reports about foreign aid reflected actual policy statements from the administration.)
@yidwithlid (a) aid packages for European security have been under extra scrutiny from the Trump administration because of Trump’s particular, well-known perspective on them;
@yidwithlid and (b) the Ukraine funding itself falls in the budget portfolio of the European Deterrence Initiative, and that’s why it was under general review.*
@yidwithlid We don’t have to deduce these details from circumstantial clues. They were stated repeatedly and explicitly, in March 2019, when the defense budget for 2020 was proposed and in late August and early September 2019, when the recent review of military aid for Ukraine was reported.
@yidwithlid Meanwhile, by early September, numerous media outlets including the Washington Post, the Daily Beast, Defense News, and others were reporting in black-letter prose that the purpose of reviewing the EDI at that specific time was to find the money for the border wall.
@yidwithlid By 6 September, the Trump administration had clarified for Congress that it would not seek to reduce the funding for Ukraine under the EDI. Some reports had this clarification being made as early as 29 August.
@yidwithlid But other projects under the EDI in Europe were to be postponed to fund the border wall; see here, for example, for the Navy’s cut, and the Washington Post link from 4 September for a more general list. news.usni.org/2019/09/04/fun…
@yidwithlid At this point, we’ve learned that the so-called “whistleblower” didn’t actually witness or hear first-hand the presidential phone conversations s/he has made allegations about.
@yidwithlid We’ve been given information that directly contradicts the reported assertions of the “whistleblower”: that Trump put unseemly pressure on the president of Ukraine (Ukraine says he didn’t), and that the pressure involved a quid pro quo (Washington Post sources say it didn’t).
@yidwithlid We’ve figured out that there is no smoking gun even alleged to point to this putative quid pro quo. It remains putative, concocted from circumstance.
@yidwithlid We’ve been reminded that the circumstance in question is guilty circumstance – but it’s guilty for the Obama State Department, Obama’s ambassador to Ukraine, Joe and Hunter Biden, the Democratic Party and its machinations in 2016, and the Hillary Clinton campaign.
@yidwithlid Some circumstances relate to general issues like the expenditure of U.S. aid funds and the uses of U.S. influence in Ukraine. Some relate to the 2016 election campaign, Russiagate, and Spygate; i.e., the misuse of the elements of national power against the Trump campaign.
@yidwithlid Some of it indicates in particular that the Bidens’ activities in both Ukraine and China, and perhaps elsewhere, fully warrant urgent investigation as a matter of U.S. national security. foxnews.com/opinion/peter-…
@yidwithlid Investigating the Bidens isn’t about Trump and the 2020 election; it’s about the American people needing to know what the Bidens have been doing overseas under the aegis of taxpayer-funded foreign policy.
@yidwithlid We’ve recognized that members of Congress, notably Adam Schiff, started a drumbeat of innuendo about the Biden-Ukraine investigation and the Ukraine military aid back in August.
@yidwithlid Others have noted the eruption of National Security Action theme-mongers Ben “Echo Chamber” Rhodes and Ned Price all over the Ukrainegate circus, and have recognized that, in turn, as a sign of prior concoction and theme placement.
@yidwithlid That certainly bears a resemblance to the media-Democrat theme factory that hasn’t scrupled, for the last 15-plus years, to simply make things up about Trump, Obama’s electoral opponents in 2012 and 2008, and George W. Bush.
@yidwithlid But now we can also remind ourselves of the record that’s been out there all along. The Trump administration had the entire European Deterrence Initiative, which includes the military aid for Ukraine, under review for multiple reasons.
@yidwithlid And a reason that actually produced consequences was this simple one: Trump was looking for ways to shift defense funds and use them for the border wall.
@yidwithlid That is an unvarnished, no-spin record of what happened. It’s been there in plain sight all along. Democrats and their fellow travelers in the media refuse to report it. They would rather rely on rumor, speculation, political innuendo, and fevered fabrication from Never Trumpers
