into iraq that the theocracy in iran would sort of work its way through insurgency coin-type operations into the iraqi government. and that may be the case. i mean, we need to be very careful as we move forward with that. another topic, if i can. this, in the ukraine scandal, particularly as we re preparing likely for a senate trial here, the new york times reporting today of an interesting oval office meeting, where you had a defense secretary mark esper, all lobby the president directly to release the hold on military aid to ukraine. as you know, the principled republican defense in the house was, well, there s no edirect li line to the president here. insufficient evidence. if the president didn t order the hold, why were his senior advisers going directly to him to try to get those aid hold lifted? i would expect those guys to
decision. this is a decision the president has to make. so turns out that president trump was at bedminster, it was in august, it was a monday. and that morning he was out playing golf with professional golf player. the meeting that the defense department wanted to take place to get this money released did not end up happening. and the hold continued. and we know that ukraine was noticing it, because there was sworn testimony where ukraine officials were asking their dod counterparts where this was. did the white house react to your story? we got some indications that generally that they thought the story was fair and that it was accurate. we didn t hear any significant pushback, so, i mean, one thing that did become very apparent was that what was happening with the aid hold and what was happening with rudy giuliani and the quote three amigos over in ukraine was, there were two different tracks that were happening. and there was not a great deal of intermingling. the people at the
management and budget didn t have much visibility at all into what was happening with ukraine and any suggestion that the aid hold was contingent upon the burisma investigation. so to some extent, there was more of a division than i think we expected to find between the aid hold and then the campaign to influence the president of ukraine. and yet those officials remain silent in public. eric lipton, thanks for your reporting. joining me now, julie pace, washington bureau chief for the associated press, cnn political analyst, and former republican congressman, charlie dent. he s now a cnn political commentator. thanks to both of you. hope you got a break for the holidays or will. charlie dent, the republican defense here, as i said to eric, is that, well, insufficient evidence that this order came from the president. you have, you know, an email. this is a potus-level decision. you have the president s senior-most advisers going to him to try to get the aid released. does this remove
with us now is congresswoman debbie wasserman schultz of florida. good morning and happy thanksgiving. good morning, ana. happy thanksgiving to you as well as all your viewers. there are new details that seem to be trickling out day after day that do poke holes in the president s timeline and the republicans defense. we now know the president released the aid and used that phrasing no quid pro quo only after learning of this whistle-blower complaint. we also know two omb officials resigned at least in part over the aid hold. that s some of the newest information we ve learned in the last 48 hours or so. so do you think house intel ended its public hearings too soon? you know, i think there s a mountain range of evidence that s come to light through public testimony, through the private depositions that i ve had an opportunity to listen to as a member of the oversight committee, that the president abused his power, violated appropriations law by withholding hundreds of millions o
aid to ukraine, that weeks after that actually happened, omb officials, the white house chief of staff mick mulvaney, were exchanging emails, still trying to figure out the legal rationale for that aid hold. so it suggests that this was not a typical process for an aid to be a package of aid to be frozen and, in fact, that it was a presidential decision to withhold this aid for whatever reason and that after the fact officials at the white house, at the office of management and budget, were essentially scrambling to come up with an explanation here, a legal rationale, and clearly in the emails that the washington post has either reviewed or that sources are describing to them, it indicates that, begiag there was a conversation, a debate for weeks after that aid was put on hold. very interesting new information and we ll let you know as soon as we get a reaction from the white house. please do. jeremy diamond at the white house, thanks very much.