Highlights
Section 809 of the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, 2019 (section 809) prohibited the obligation or expenditure of funds in fiscal year 2019 to enact rules, regulations, or laws legalizing the sale, possession, or use of any schedule I substance. The Mayor and the Council of the District of Columbia obligated and expended funds to take various actions on a bill that would legalize the sale of marijuana in the District of Columbia for nonmedical use. These actions included introducing the bill to the Council and referring it to various Council committees. However, the D.C. government has not enacted the bill into law. The D.C. government officials actions did not constitute enactment of the measure, and therefore did not enact the legislation into law. As such, the officials did not violate section 809 or the Antideficiency Act.
you re make being making. the witnesses were heard in a grand jury and on multiple occasions. the witnesses that we need to hear from, that senators need to hear from in this trial have never been heard from because the president has forbidden them from testifying. let s look at what we re talking about here. right after the white house impeached donald trump as president, an email chain came out that showed they broke federal appropriations law, withholding hundreds of millions of dollars, from ukraine because the president had just hung up 90 minutes before after pressuring president zelensky in interfering in the 2020
kitchen sink at this situation. the efvidence is overwhelming. the president abused his power, jeopardized our national security, obstructed congress, which is certainly an article he can be charged with. the president is now refusing to participate in this process. and you know, fredricka, what came to my mind when i heard that he again refused to participate in his own defense is that the innocent defend themselves vigorously and vociferously. the guilty hide, obstruct, lie and obfiscate. it s very clear that president trump is going to cower in the corner because he is absolutely guilty of all of those of an abuse of power, of obstructing congress, of trying to get a foreign power to interfere in our elections for his own personal and political benefit and withheld vital foreign aid that was appropriations law. and if those aren t impeachable offenses, then as one of the
the president jeopardized our national security. i m a member of the appropriation committee. he violated the appropriations law that we passed providing almost $400 million to ukraine and he withheld it in order to try to wrestle the president of ukraine into launching investigations against his opponents. that is abuse of power. it is impeachable. and we ve begun going through a process to lay that out clearly and then debate it and take a vote. the president held a packed rally in your district last night as you know. yeah. are you losing the impeachment argument in your own backyard? oh, god, no. i wish i could have brought the president to watch because this was really the beginning of his retirement party. he is not going to win broward county. he got 31% of the vote here in 2016. this is the most democratic countries in the state and one of the most democratic counties in the country. they trucked in people from all
aid money for ukraine, if it violated the law. if they come back to you and say that it did violate appropriations law, senator, what do you do? so, kate, that is a good question. and let me just say before that that necessary are two distinct issues. and i want to emtz that becauem that. the focus of the abuse inquiry goes to the abuse of power where the president said to the ukrainian leader, we re not going the give you this funded tax military stangz. there is a separate law on the books to prevent presidents from withholding money. and the gao, in 2018, issued a legal opinion saying presidents could not sort of run out the clock at the end of the fiscal year by submitting rescission requests to take back money and not giving congress enough time