Thread by @moscow_project

Trump only lifted his hold on aid because he got caught.
There is no other explanation.

Witness after witness testified that, just as they were never told why Trump was withholding aid, they were never told why he was releasing aid—$18 million of which still hasn't reached Ukraine.

It's not just that $18 million still hasn't reached Ukraine.
It's also that, by the time the rest was released, the damage had been done—both Russia and Ukraine had gotten the message from the hold.

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.@RepJasonCrow pre-buts some of Trump's defenses:
-There was no policy review
-There was no inter-agency review, either

@RepJasonCrow -It definitely wasn't about corruption
-And there was no real concern about burden-sharing, either

@RepJasonCrow Trump released the aid without *any* of the facts on the ground changing.
He only released it because he got caught, because the only reason he withheld it in the first place was his own personal interest.

@RepJasonCrow Even as they tried to convince Trump to release the aid he was withholding from Ukraine, Trump's top administration officials were also working to keep it secret from the public.

@RepJasonCrow Administration officials took their concerns about Trump's actions to National Security Council lawyers.
They took it to the White House Counsel, Pat Cipollone.
We don't know how they responded—because Trump has obstructed that information from coming out.

@RepJasonCrow Multiple administration officials talked to NSC lawyers about the July 25 call.
They immediately took steps to bury it on a secret server.

@RepJasonCrow "Who ordered the cover-up of the call record? The American people deserve to know."

@RepJasonCrow When the whistleblower complaint reached the CIA's general counsel, they brought it straight to the White House.
Why?
So they could continue covering it up.

@RepJasonCrow When the whistleblower filed his complaint, the Director of National Intelligence brought it to the DOJ, too.
Once again, they worked to cover it up—in direct defiance of the law.

@RepJasonCrow "The Office of Legal Counsel issued a secret opinion concluding that, contrary to the plain language of the statute, the acting Director of National Intelligence was not required to turn over the complaint.
"The cover-up was in full swing."

@RepJasonCrow The Trump administration didn't invoke executive privilege over the whistleblower complaint.
They simply used the *specter* of doing so to cover it up.
Sound familiar?

@RepJasonCrow It should—because it's *exactly* the logic his Republican defenders in the Senate are using to justify their decision not to bother trying to thwart his coverup.

https://twitter.com/moscow_project/status/1220499193082580992