and, you know, circumstantially this unprecedented act of putting this political appointee in charge of holding up or disbursing the money and instead putting in a trump appointee, the former executive director of the wisconsin republican party, putting that guy in charge of disbursing the money instead of the technocrats who usually do that sort of stuff. circumstantially, that replacement, taking the career guy out, putting the political guy, in that appears to have been an effort to seamlessly continue to carry out this order of the president to withhold the aid despite the expressed belief by senior staff at the agency that those orders from the president were illegal. if you ve got career staffers who are starting to squeak about whether or not they re going to carry out this potentially illegal order of the president, well you might want to get them out of the way, put in somebody
president himself simultaneously pressuring ukraine that they need to give him these investigations he wants to help him for 2020. the president himself questioning the aid to ukraine, ordering the aid to ukraine, that s in writing now we now know. second at least two officials at the white house resigned over the president putting this hold on military aid to ukraine. third, multiple officials overtly expressed that the hold might be illegal, including telling the guy the guy they were telling to sign the paperwork to implement the hold. he s one of the people who told them, hey, this might be an illegal thing you re asking me to do. i think we should bring this to the lawyers. in response that guy was replaced by a trump appointee who had said this was the president s wish, who had ordered it done, and who had been advised by these career staffers that this might be an illegal thing. he s the one that took it over himself. and there s a paper trail for all of these pieces of the pr
at least two of the officials resigned. third, multiple officials overtly expressed that the hold might be illegal, including telling the guy that the guy they were telling to sign the paperwork to implement the hold. he s one of the people who told them, hey, this might be an illegal thing you re asking me to do. i think we should bring this to the lawyers. in response, that guy was replaced by a trump appointee who had said this was the president s wish, who had ordered it done, and who had been advised by these career staffers this might be an illegal thing. he s the one who took it over himself. and there s a paper trail for all of these pieces of the process. i mean, there s a million instances like this just in this one deposition that was released tonight. but look at one of them. this is there s a million instances in this testimony where they just spell out the paper trail and how to find it, right? no wonder the white house is
guy in charge of dispersing the money instead of the technocrates who do that sort of stuff, that appears to have been an effort to seamlessly continue to carry out this order of the president to withhold the aid despite the expressed belief by senior staff at the agency that those orders from the president were illegal. if you ve got career staffers who are starting to squeak about whether or not they re going to carry out this potentially illegal order of the president, well you might want to get them out of the way, put in somebody who s not going to squeak. and we now know that that was the order of events. and we now know there is an overt paper trail for all of it. and that s the other thing that s new here tonight. question, did you hear of any questions that were being raised by omb about ukraine security assistance at the end of june or the beginning of july? answer, ques.
regular channel, the regular channel atop which sits donald trump, the vice president, the secretary of state, rudy giuliani is swirling around and contaminating some of it, but that was the policy. not a single witness, republican or democratic, has disputed that fact, ever. reporter: no. and i think the last couple of pillars of the republican defense that are still standing to some degree here, and i think we ll see them fall back on here, are the questions, does biden equal burisma. here you see career staffers, experts in ukraine, who are very quick to make that connection whereas some of the political appointees were slower to make that connection. does biden equal burisma in terms of investigations, to what degree is rudy giuliani speaking for the president when he s speaking for the president. i think those will be the key things here. and whether or not the withholding of aid was conditioned on the investigations or whether it speaks to the president s, you know, long held c