This was somebody there are people who were skeptical about donald trump from the very beginning. This was Somebody Playing Ball with donald trump and was a supporter and maybe even going to be his Vice President ial candidate. So the fact that hes saying these kinds of things shows that he gave him a fair hearing, was willing to give him a try, and its become pretty clear that this is a highly problematic president. Part of the thing that is worrying to me is were starting to see everything through the prism of heres another twitter scandal, heres another bit of the crazy. How crazy. Youre talking about somebody who has more access to information about threats to america than almost any human being on earth, Senator Corker, saying hes afraid of world war iii, to the paper of record for the country. That should be a full stop, all traffic comes to a halt moment. Because this is a cry for help for the country. And yet but it doesnt come until after donald trump personally insults him on
democrats have been looking for a reason to impeach president trump since the day he was elected. president trump could not have pressured volodymyr zelensky because they didn t know aid was being withheld. then-deputy foreign minister elena zerko who said she saw a cable saying the aid wasn t coming. it was in the end of july and it was one of the cables we receive usually on the permanent ground from our embassies. it was mentioned that without any reasons the issue is not solved. it was one sentence that military aid was not resolved. that s right. while the deputy foreign minister said the ukrainians did not know president trump had placed a hold on the aid they
it that we really should not overlook the laura cooper testimony this evening. because that point about when the ukrainians knew that the aid wasn t coming. now, if you think about it for five minutes, how would they not know, right? how would you not know that $400 million in military aid that you desperately need had not arrived on time? that it had been approved, and usually it shows up. yeah. exactly you look in your bank account on payday and if your salary isn t there, you notice. and if you re ukraine, absolutely you notice. we got confirmation of what you could assume, yes, they noticed. they knew the money wasn t there and knew something was up. chuck rosenberg, eugene mentioned sondland s confident air and smile. sean patrick later called it a
and isn t it correct that this administration, the trump administration has been conducting a foreign assistance review to re-establish norms that guide the assistance as we provide aid overseas? that s correct. you testified that this review had been going on for quite a while and the administration did not want to take a business as usual approach to foreign assistance, a feeling that once a country has received a foreign assistance package, it s something that continues forever. and you continued. the program had to be evaluated they were actually worthy beneficiaries of our assistance, that our program made sense, that we avoid nation building strategies and that we provide assistance to countries that are lost in terms of our policy to our adversaries, is that correct? that s correct. and you testified you warmly welcomed this assistance review. correct. and again just to get this on record for the millions of americans viewing, security assistance was in fact releas
get lethal aid because is lethal aid covered under these two buckets? there are two separate pieces to our overall ability to provide equipment to the ukrainian armed forces. the first is the foreign military finance system, which is a state department authority, and countries around the world have this authority. that authority is used for some of the training and equipment. there s also the ukraine security assistance initiative. that s a dod authority. unlike the state authority, the dod authority is only a one-year authority. and then third there s opportunity for defense sales. and that is something that we re working with the ukrainians on now so that they can actually purchase u.s. equipment. but the javelins specifically was provided under fmf initially. and now the ukrainians are interested in the purchase of