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In July, just before his call with Zelensky, Trump delayed $250M of military aid due to Ukraine. But there's an even earlier instance of the executive branch withholding foreign aid from Ukraine that, in light of recent events, I think is worth some additional scrutiny.
Some background: In Ukraine, the Prosecutor General's Office is responsible for prosecuting criminal violations. Back in 2015/2016, the Prosecutor General was Shokin, who, in many respects, left a lot to ask for. For one thing, he failed to prosecute any serious corruption cases.
There was international consensus that Shokin needed to go – that's where Biden got involved – and after Shokin left office, he was eventually replaced by a new Prosecutor General, Yuriy Lutsenko. (He too left a lot to be desired. For one thing, he didn't have a law degree.)
From May of 2016 until last month, it was Lutsenko what was in charge of prosecuting any cases that involved, say, Burisma. Or Hunter Biden. Or Ukraine's role in exposing Manafort's criminal dealings in the middle of the 2016 election.
Back in March of this year, Lutsenko briefly became a star in the conservative media world, after he announced that he had "opened a probe into alleged attempts by Ukrainians to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election." thehill.com/hilltv/rising/…
This announcement came from an interview that Lutsenko gave to John Solomon, and it got discussed a lot on Fox News. Trump was a big fan.
But there was another part of Lutsenko's interview that I'm even more interested in. Because Lutsenko told Solomon about an "actually rather strange" situation, in which money his office was due to receive from the United States never got delivered. thehill.com/hilltv/rising/…
According to Lutsenko, approximately $4.4 million in U.S. foreign assistance had been designated for the Prosecutor General's Office, but it never arrived like it was supposed to. So Lutsenko started "a dialogue" with the US embassy to ask about what had happened to the money.
Lutsenko, in his interview with Solomon, blames the U.S. Embassy for withholding the $4.4M. At the time, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine was Yovanovitch – that's the one, btw, that Giuliani accused of "working for Soros" to undermine Trump's presidency. She was dismissed in May.
But Lutsenko's claim that the disfavored ambassador is to blame for all this is contradicted by The Hill's own reporting. The Hill reached out to the State Department, and received quite a remarkable explanation about what had happened to the money:
The State Department says that because Lutsenko had shown that "the political will for genuine [justice sector] reform proved lacking," it had "exercised [its] fiduciary responsibility to the American taxpayer," and cut off $4.4M that was supposed to go to Lutsenko's office.
So tl;dr: (1) The PGO, which initiates prosecutions, had been designated to receive over $4M in U.S. foreign aid; (2) State Dept cuts off all funding to PGO, citing its "lack of political will for genuine reform"; (3) PGO suddenly opens an investigation into Trump's opponents.
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