(Deputy Associate Director for National Security Programs at the OMB since 2013)
intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/…
Spoiler: First Trump broke the law. When he was about to get caught, he looked for an excuse for having done it.
The OMB prepared a description for him, and sent it the next day.
Sandy then went on leave.
He returned July 18 to learn that the president placed a hold on the security aid.
Sandy was responsible for preparing the legally binding document holding the funds.
He explained to Duffy that legal questions needed to be addressed.
[Narrator: We can learn about the Impound Control Act here⤵️
budget.house.gov/publications/r…
Clearly Trump's hold violated this law.]
For more, see: ]
He cannot recall another time a significant amount of funding was held up without rationale.
Two colleagues, including someone in the OMB general counsel’s office resigned. . .
Sandy helped prepare a memo arguing for the release of the funds because the security aid was consistent with US national security interests.
In early September, Sandy received requests from the White House for information about what other countries had contributed to Ukraine’s security.
After the lifting of the hold on September 12, the DOD was unable to fully obligate USAI funds before the end of the fiscal year.
One of the GOP defenses is that Trump withheld the security aid because he wanted to make sure other countries were also providing aid to Ukraine.
Another GOP defense is that nobody ever heard Trump specifically say that withholding security aid was linked to any attempt to pressure Ukraine into opening the investigation into Burisma /Biden.
For more on how that works, see my latest NBC Opinion piece:
nbcnews.com/think/opinion/…
One thing that went wrong for Trump is that Operation Ukraine Shakedown required lots of career. . .
While lots of them were bullied into silence, others are willing to speak.
It also seems that Trump is getting bad legal advice.
His lawyers talk about made-up doctrines like "absolute immunity"
So Trump does whatever he wants.
In this case, he violated the Impound Control Act as part of his attempt to pressure Ukraine into announcing an investigation of Biden.
Senators who acquit have to say, "Yes! The president can break any law he pleases while leveraging government to benefit himself."
It sort of puts them on the spot.
They specifically guarded against that.
This should be easy.
This time, though, he overreached.
And Trump didn't provide a justification, or apparently even try to find one, until after he learned about the Whistleblower's report.
It's elementary, my dear Watson🕵️♂️