president and according to our sources pressuring the ukrainian president to investigate biden s son. you know, i read to my audience the key paragraph in this story a couple of times, but i want to go a couple paragraphs lower where it says administration officials were instructed to tell lawmakers that the delays were part of a interagency process but to give them no additional information, a pattern that continued for nearly two months until the white house released the funds on the night of september 11th, 2019. now, carol, this is reporting. so you re not drawing conclusions as to what that means. but that is another layer of this story that is interesting, that it s not just that it was delayed. it s that there was some sort of message crafted for lawmakers who might wonder why this aid to an ally, particularly an ally that is fighting off russian
expansionism, was delayed. they would have legitimate questions about that and it seems not only was the money delayed but there was a response crafted that might have been less than truthful. well, we don t know what the truth is yet. we don t know the full truth yet. we ve had some administration officials, senior ones, tonight tell us that basically trump s goals were to focus on corrupti corruption. that he was worried whether or not the ukrainian government was going to spend the money properly, that it had nothing to do with zelensky. the issue, ali, is really the timing. while on september 9th the whistleblower s complaint is the congress is alerted to that complaint. on the 10th my understanding is that congress is starting to get upset about why they don t have the complaint, the nature of it from the director of national intelligence and the inspector gener general. and on the night of the 11th our understanding is the aid is
almost $400 million in military aid for ukraine at least a week before a phone call in which trump is said to have pressured the ukrainian president to investigate the son of former vice president joe biden according to three senior administration officials. not only have we taken a position in ukraine to help them fend off the expansionist tendencies of russia but they re not in a position to say no to a request made by the the president of the united states. no, i get it. and president trump is like every dumb criminal defendant i ve ever prosecuted. they all think if it s not in writing they can t prove anything. that s not true. circumstantial evidence is more powerful than eyewitness testimony. any prosecutor will tell you that. and the president thinks, well, i suspend this aid and then it s days later. not an hour but days later that i call and pressure the president to get dirt on hunter biden and joe biden, who i president trump think is my opponent. what are we, fools, de
i want to just go to the washington post. reporting that president trump told his acting chief of staff, as i mentioned, mick mulvaney, to hold back almost $400 million in military aid for ukraine at least a week before a phone call in which trump is said to have pressured the ukrainian president to investigate the son of a political opponent. that s according to three senior officials from the administration. joining me is carol leonnig, national investigative reporter for the washington post. carol, the reporting coming out of the post tonight is fast and furious on this. congratulations to you and your team for doing it. but it seems that someone s talking about the fact that yeah, not only did the president do this but there s context around it that should make it yet more worrying for americans. i think thank you, ali. i think what we re learning is in dribs and drabs what i assume must be painful for some people in the white house and the justice department, we re
mick mulvaney to hold back nearly $400 million to ukraine at least a week before a phone call in which trump is said to have pressured the ukrainian president to investigate the son of former vice president joe biden according to three senior administration officials. this is the kind of thing that has got people turning their heads, that there may have been a fairly absolute and clear quid pro quo implied by the president if there was aid going to a country that the united states and the congress had decided it was supporting, particularly in some of its efforts to stand up against russian expansionism. and then this was held off and then a request goes to the president of that country. it s sort of unheard of in american democracy. that s why we have to see the complaint. we have to see the whistleblower s complaint. we have to see the details. and we have to see the