A4 eZ su the washington post.tuesday, november 12 , 2019
pledging to investigate the Bidens
and the Democrats. That pressure
was transmitted to the new gov-
ernment by Ta ylor, Volker and Gor-
don Sondland, the U.S. ambassa-
dor to the European Union, who
recently amended his impeach-
ment testimony to agree that the
conditions for getting aid and a
White House visit were clear.
In mid-July, as a Sept. 30 dead-
line for approving the fiscal year’s
security assistance to Ukraine was
approaching, those working on
the issue for the White House were
told without explanation that it
was being held up on Trump’s or-
ders by the office of management
and Budget.
After meetings at increasingly
high levels through mid-August —
at which there was “unanimous”
agreement of all agencies that the
aid should go f orward — Vindman
testified that he was asked to draft
a “Presidential Decision memo”
for Defense Secretary mark T. Es-
per, Secretary of State mike
Pompeo a nd John Bolton, the pres-
ident’s national security adviser,
reflecting their “consensus” views
to release the funding, to present
“to the president for a decision.”
Their meeting with Trump took
place on Aug. 16. Vindman testi-
fied that he was given conflicting
reports of its outcome, saying that
the issue wasn’t raised, or that it
was raised but the president
“didn’t act on the recommenda-
tion.”
It was not until late August that
a story in Politico publicly revealed
the aid freeze, sparking strong bi-
partisan pushback by lawmakers.
I n quick succession in early Sep-
tember, a whistleblower com-
plaint raising concerns about the
Trump-Zelensky call was making
its way through the government.
Bolton left his White House job.
The Senate prepared a bipartisan
resolution rebuking Trump for
withholding the aid. The Sept. 30
end of the fiscal year approached,
and with it, the possibility that
authorization for the aid would
expire.
on Sept. 11, the administration
notified Congress that the securi-
ty a ssistance hold had been lifted.
[email protected]
[email protected]michael Birnbaum in Brussels and
david L. stern in Kyiv contributed to
this report.ing how the Javelins were defen-
sive weapons and would be highly
effective against a superior rus-
sian military, the official said. Al-
though Trump approved the shift
to lethal aid in December of that
year, agreement on the Javelins
was delayed for a week.
m oney for the Javelins, as is
normal in such transactions, was
paid directly to raytheon, the sys-
tem manufacturer, by the United
States. Although Ukrainian troops
were trained to operate them, the
Javelins have not been deployed.
They are in a warehouse about
1,000 miles from the front lines, as
a symbol of U.S. support.
Trump first raised a conspiracy
theory about Ukrainian interfer-
ence in the 2016 presidential elec-
tion just three months after taking
office. He periodically returned to
the subject, suggesting — despite
the opposite conclusions of the
U.S. intelligence community —
that it was Ukraine, not russia,
that had interfered, and that it was
to benefit Hillary Clinton, not him.
This year, Congress approved
nearly $400 million in combined
Defense and State security fund-
ing to Ukraine, s imilar to what was
authorized l ast year and part of the
uninterrupted flow of aid that had
continued through two adminis-
trations since 2014.
T he aid package, drawn up by
the two departments, included
sniper rifles, rocket-propelled gre-
nade launchers and counter-artil-
lery radars, electronic warfare de-
tection and secure communica-
tions facilities, and training sup-
port. Although Ukraine had asked
for an additional shipment of Jave-
lins, they were to be paid for with
Ukraine’s own funds rather than
U.S. assistance.
But when the official U.S. dele-
gation to Zelensky’s may 21 inau-
guration returned to Washington
with high hopes for the new gov-
ernment and U.S.-Ukraine rela-
tions, they found Trump in a foul
mood. The president started the
may 23 meeting “with kind of a
negative assessment of the
Ukraine... it’s a terrible place, all
corrupt, terrible people,” Kurt
Volker, the administration’s spe-
cial envoy to Ukraine, testified be-
fore the impeachment inquiry.
According to official testimony
and reports from Ukraine, the
White House began to press for a
public statement by Zelenskyprogress in Ukraine would “not be
possible w ithout strong bipartisan
support from the United States,
and very, v ery strong support from
the European Union,” Ukrainian
finance minister oksana
markarova said at a panel discus-
sion with several officials from the
new government held last month
at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace in Washing-
ton.
Another Ukrainian official at
the event, Katarina mathernova,
who works on Eastern European
and international financial insti-
tution issues at the European
Commission, said flatly that “the
European Union is the largest
partner and donor to Ukraine.”
Even as it favorably, and inaccu-
rately, compares U.S. assistance to
that of Europe, the a dministration
has also congratulated itself on its
support for Ukraine in compari-
son to that of former president
Barack obama. To tal figures of an-
nual foreign and military aid, how-
ever, have been similar through
the two administrations, although
Trump decided in late 2017 to al-
low “lethal” defensive weaponry.
While obama-era aid included
many of the nonlethal defense
items also on the current assis-
tance list, obama had rejected ap-
peals from within his own admin-
istration to include lethal defense
items, on the g rounds t hat it would
escalate the c onflict with russia.
Then-Ukrainian President Pet-
ro Poroshenko had pressed for de-
livery of sophisticated Javelin a nti-
tank weapons since 2015. A bipar-
tisan majority in Congress was
critical of obama’s hesitation and
in 2016 passed legislation backing
such weaponry, but obama was
unmoved.
In 2017, senior Trump national
security officials agreed that a
package of lethal aid to help
Ukraine defend itself a gainst rus-
sian aggression , including a
$47 million grant to finance the
purchase of 210 Javelin mis-
siles, would be a smart move. But
they had trouble persuading the
president, who, like obama, was
reluctant to cross russian Presi-
dent Vladimir Putin and who also
had a “reticence to provide any-
thing for free,” one former U.S.
official recalled.
Then-national security adviser
H.r. mcmaster had a Power Point
presentation drawn up explain-close scrutiny.
When Zelensky expressed ap-
preciation, in a July 25 telephone
call with Trump, for years of U.S.
security aid, Trump responded by
asking for “a favor.” He pressed
Zelensky to look into Biden and the
Democrats, advising him to con-
tact the president’s personal law-
yer rudolph W. G iuliani and Attor-
ney General William P. Barr for
details.
Trump did not mention any
wider concern about overall cor-
ruption related to U.S. assistance,
the subject that he and senior ad-
ministration officials now insist
was the basis for the sudden hold-
up after years of steady security
aid.
European nations have far out-
paced the United States in
Ukraine, spending $18.3 billion
since russia annexed Crimea in
2014 and launched an ongoing
separatist war in the eastern part
of the country that has left at least
13,000 people dead. The bulk of
the money — $16.8 billion — came
from the European Union, the Eu-
ropean Investment Bank and the
European Bank for reconstruc-
tion and Development. The rest,
$1.5 billion, came bilaterally from
the 28 E.U. c ountries.
Aid has paid for everything
from t ents a nd food for refugees t o
helping train firefighters and para-
medics, to more esoteric projects
such as identifying and protecting
old-growth forests in western
Ukraine’s C arpathian m ountains.
The biggest individual Europe-
an donors were Germany, S weden,
Poland and france, according to
E.U. figures. outside Europe, Can-
ada has also been a major channel
of aid and military training and
assistance and has led operation
Unifier, an international effort to
train troops in western Ukraine.
By contrast, combined military
and nonmilitary assistance from
the United States has totaled about
$4 billion over the same period, in
addition to humanitarian relief
and several tranches of billion-dol-
lar loan guarantees for budget sta-
bilization.
Economic and anti-corruptionIt wasn’t perfect. There were
some worrisome holdovers from
the previous government, and
Ukrainian oligarchs remained a
powerful force.
But “things were moving in the
right direction,” Lt. Col. Alexander
Vindman, in charge of Ukraine for
the National Security Council at
the White House, testified when
republicans suggested that
Trump was right to hold up the aid.
The impeachment inquiry,
which moves this week to public
hearings, centers on whether
Trump abused the power of his
office for personal political gain,
and has obstructed efforts to con-
ceal it.
Government witnesses have tes-
tified that the security assistance,
and a promised Zelensky visit to
the White House, were held hos-
tage to a demand for a public
pledge by Zelensky that Ukraine
would investigate 2020 Democrat-
ic presidential challenger Joe
Biden and his son Hunter — a paid
board member of a Ukrainian gas
company accused of corruption
during Biden’s vice presidency.
Trump also wanted the authorities
in Kyiv to investigate what was
alleged to be Ukrainian involve-
ment in Democratic efforts to un-
dermine his 2016 campaign, a con-
spiracy theory for which no evi-
dence has surfaced.
The president, in his defense,
asserts that he was concerned
about corruption writ large in
Ukraine, not in securing some
202 0 election advantage. In addi-
tion, he says he was angered that
European allies were not doing
enough financially to help the be-
leaguered country, leaving the
United States to carry the can.
“Corruption is incredible in
Ukraine, which bothered me a lot,”
Trump told reporters early this
month. “A nd it also bothered me
very, very much that Germany,
france and all of these other coun-
tries aren’t putting up money, but
we’re always the sucker that does
it.”
Neither claim holds up under
ukraine from a
Trump’s Ukraine claims
don’t square with record
BY SPENCER S. HSU
Acting White House chief of
staff mick mulvaney late mon-
day withdrew a last-minute ef-
fort to join a lawsuit filed by
former national security adviser
John Bolton’s top deputy,
Charles Kupperman.
mulvaney said he will file his
own lawsuit focused on the same
question: must senior Trump
administration officials testify
in Congress’s impeachment in-
quiry?
Kupperman, in a filing earlier
monday, opposed mulvaney’s re-
quest to join the case, under-
scoring internal divisions
among President Trump’s advis-
ers in the probe. Kupperman
attorney Charles J. Cooper, who
also represents Bolton, had sug-
gested that the same judge
weigh mulvaney’s claims “in
tandem” as a separate, related
case.
The two former Trump na-
tional security aides are said by
people close to them to consider
mulvaney a key participant in
President Trump’s alleged effort
to pressure the Ukrainian gov-
ernment to pursue investiga-
tions into his political oppo-
nents.
mulvaney’s attempt to join
the lawsuit flabbergasted Bolton
and Kupperman, people close to
them said, with Bolton aides
having testified that he derisive-
ly referred to the Ukrainian
proposal as “a drug deal,” and
White House officials saying
Bolton and mulvaney were bare-
ly on speaking terms when Bol-
ton left his post in September.
Kupperman late last month
asked U.S. District Judge rich-
ard J. Leon of Washington to
rule on whether Congress’s con-
stitutional impeachment power
takes precedence over the White
House’s claim that current and
former top executive branch
aides are “absolutely immune”
from being compelled to testify,
as part of the president’s p owers.
Bolton and Kupperman have
said they are willing to testify if
the judge rules in favor of the
House, The Washington Post
previously reported.
Cooper cited four reasons for
keeping the cases separate. He
argued that while Kupperman
“is and will remain neutral” on
whether Congress or the presi-
dent is correct, “mulvaney has
made it clear that he supports
the Executive” and mulvaney is a
current Trump adviser while
Kupperman has left his post.
Kupperman’s duties also were
exclusively related to advising
on “highly sensitive matters of
national security and foreign
policy,” while mulvaney’s were
not, Cooper argued, writing, “If
any close personal advisor to the
President qualifies for testimo-
nial immunity, it surely must be
the President’s National Securi-
ty Advisor and his deputy.”
Kupperman’s filing also stat-
ed that while he “has never
publicly disclosed information
relating to any of his official
duties,” mulvaney has comment-
ed publicly, appearing to admit
and then deny a “quid pro quo”
relationship between Trump’s
decision to withhold U.S. securi-
ty aid to Ukraine and a request
that officials there investigate
former vice president Joe Biden
and his son, Hunter Biden.
“A ccordingly, there is a seri-
ous question as to whether mul-
vaney waived the absolute testi-
monial immunity claimed by the
President,” Cooper argued.
Attorneys for the Justice De-
partment, however, which is de-
fending the Trump White House
in Kupperman’s lawsuit, did not
oppose mulvaney’s request to
join the case.
In a three-page filing, mulva-
ney attorney William Pittard on
monday evening notified Leon
that he was withdrawing his
friday request to join Kupper-
man’s case, and that mulvaney’s
intent was to pursue “a separate
related case.”
In a separate filing monday,
House General Counsel Douglas
N. Letter also opposed mulva-
ney’s motion to join the lawsuit,
arguing that the case is moot
because the House has with-
drawn Kupperman’s october
su bpoena.
Leon previously set final ar-
guments for Kupperman for
Dec. 10. While the schedule and
a quick ruling could potentially
allow the case to be heard by a
federal appeals court and even
the Supreme Court next year,
neither is likely to be able to act
before the House’s goal of com-
pleting impeachment hearings
by year’s end.
[email protected]Mulvaney
drops bid
to join
lawsuit
BY RACHAEL BADE
Congressional republicans are
sticking with their party leader in
the face of thousands of pages of
evidence showing President
Trump leveraged foreign policy for
political favors, raising the possi-
bility that not a single House re-
publican will vote for his impeach-
ment.
As they prepare to hold the first
open impeachment hearings this
week, Democrats had hoped to
peel off republican support from a
key bloc — retiring lawmakers who
need not worry about internal
blowback or primary challenges.
Ye t many are refusing to break
with Trump. rep. Peter T. King of
New York made a point of stating
his intention to vote against im-
peaching Trump in his retirement
announcement monday, a trou-
bling sign for Democrats.
Another moderate republican,
rep. Will Hurd of Te xas, sounded
like a Trump ally on a Sunday
morning talk show as he called for
Hunter Biden, son of former vice
president Joe Biden, to testify in
the impeachment inquiry — an
idea being pushed by the White
House that concerns some conser-
vative Senate republicans. Hunter
Biden worked on the board of a
Ukrainian gas company.
In more than five weeks of testi-
mony, current and former Trump
administration officials allege that
the president tied foreign aid and a
White House meeting to Ukraine’s
willingness to announce investiga-
tions into the Bidens and a conspir-
acy theory surrounding the 2016
election. more than a dozen long-
time State Department diplomats
and National Security Council
aides have painted a largely consis-
tent picture of a president ada-
mant on strong-arming a U.S. ally
to do his political bidding.
on monday, Democrats re-
leased the transcript of Laura Coo-
per’s o ct. 23 closed-door testimony
in which the deputy assistant sec-
retary of defense for russia,
Ukraine and Eurasia testified that
Trump personally requested that
money for Ukraine be frozen. Dur-
ing a July 23 meeting, she said, the
office of management and Budget
told agencies that “the White
House chief of staff has conveyed
that the president has concerns
about Ukraine and Ukraine securi-
ty a ssistance.”
Ye t republicans are rallying
around the president, including
longtime foreign policy hawks
such as retiring rep. mac Thorn-
berry of Te xas. The former House
Armed Services Committee chair-
man and steadfast critic of russia
on Sunday called Trump’s use of
foreign aid to elicit a political probe
from that nation “inappropriate”
but accused Democrats of running
a “tainted” a nd “one- s ided” probe.
“There’s a reason we let murder-
ers and robbers and rapists go free
when their due process rights have
been violated,” Thornberry said on
ABC’s “ This Week.”
GoP cohesion will test Demo-
crats’ impeachment strategy as
they moved their inquiry into the
public sphere Wednesday. Demo-
crats recognize that the onus is on
them to make the case to indepen-
dent voters who don’t have time to
sift through thousands of pages of
transcripts alleging presidential
misconduct.
If the headlines of the past few
weeks have not been enough to
move congressional republicans,
however, it’s unclear what — if
anything — will. Democrats are
unlikely to get Trump’s i nner circle,
including acting White House
chief of staff mick mulvaney, t o tell
their stories publicly before the
House votes on articles of im-
peachment. former national secu-
rity adviser John Bolton, who is
familiar with relevant meetings
and conversations about the pres-
sure on Ukraine, may never testify
as he looks to the courts to weigh in
on whether he must comply with
the investigation, which could take
months.
That means Democrats will
have to make their case to republi-
cans on what they have now. The
party h opes its public hearings willmove Americans further in sup-
port of impeachment, putting
pressure on moderate republicans
to break with the president. So far,
however, the opinion poll numbers
favoring impeachment have not
convinced even a single republi-
can in Congress that Trump’s ac-
tions are impeachable.
on monday, Trump was greeted
at the New York City Veterans Day
Parade with signs of protest. Whis-
tles and chants of “Lock him up!”
could be heard from the west side
of madison Square Park on fifth
Avenue near the site of his speech.
reporters also noted that signs
spelling out the words “ImPEACH”
and “DUmP TrUmP” were posted
in the windows of a building over-
looking the park.
Trump, who was accompanied
by first lady melania Trump, made
no reference to impeachment dur-
ing his remarks about service
members. But he railed against his
critics on Twitter, even accusing
House Democrats of “doctoring”
transcripts of impeachment wit-
nesses without evidence to back up
his claim.
Trump has made several de-
mands for how he wants GoP law-
makers to defend him. over the
weekend, Trump insisted that re-
publicans characterize his July 25
call with Ukrainian President Vo-
lodymyr Zelensky as “perfect” —
even as many GoP lawmakers took
issue with his actions and say it’s
clearly a quid pro quo.
“The call to the Ukrainian Presi-
dent was PErfECT,” Trump wroteon Twitter. “read the Transcript!
There was NoTHING said that was
in any way wrong. republicans,
don’t be led into the fools trap of
saying it was not perfect, but is not
impeachable. No, it is much stron-
ger than that. NoTHING WAS
DoNE WroNG!”
The Democrats’ failure to move
GoP lawmakers on impeachment
comes despite 20 republicans an-
nouncing their retirement. only
one of those, rep. francis rooney
of florida, has floated the possibili-
ty of voting to impeach Trump —
but since that declaration, rooney
has voted against the impeach-
ment inquiry as a whole and has
gone quiet in his criticism.
The recent rhetoric from Hurd
perhaps best highlights the uphill
battle Democrats face in winning
over retiring GoP members. for
years, Hurd, who won in Demo-
cratic-leaning districts on the Te x-
as border, has been considered
among the most pragmatic mem-
bers — sometimes voting with
Democrats and calling some in his
party racist, misogynistic and ho-
mophobic.
But during a “fox N ews Sunday”
interview, Hurd parroted White
House talking points, a reflection
of how well House GoP leaders are
keeping their members in line.
Hurd was more critical of the Dem-
ocrats for their impeachment pro-
cess than Trump for his pressure
on Zelensky, and argued for Hunt-
er Biden’s testimony — a GoP re-
quest that Democrats are unlikely
to grant.“I would love to hear from Hunt-
er Biden. I would love to hear from
other Americans that served on the
board of Burisma,” Hurd said, re-
ferring to the natural gas company
that paid Biden $50,000 a month
to sit on its board while his father
was the vice president.
When host Chris Wallace asked
Hurd whether pressuring a foreign
government to investigate a politi-
cal rival was “an impeachable of-
fense,” Hurd borrowed from other
Trump allies’ playbook: He argued
that perhaps Trump was merely
going after corruption.
“Well, I don’t know if it was
necessarily investigate the Demo-
crats, right? I think it was investi-
gation of corruption,” he said.
In f act, nearly every witness who
has appeared before the impeach-
ment inquiry — including Trump
appointee and National Security
Council official Tim morrison —
has testified that Trump was not
looking at corruption generally,
something NSC official fiona Hill
called a “code” for going after the
Bidens, including the 2020 Demo-
cratic presidential candidate.
rather, the probe Trump wanted
centered on the Bidens, one that
could bolster his reelection bid.
on monday, former secretary of
state Condoleezza rice, who
served under republican Presi-
dent George W. Bush, said that
reports about the shadow policy
toward Ukraine were “deeply trou-
bling.”
“What I see right now troubles
me,” rice said at a conference in
Abu Dhabi. “I see a state of conflict
between the foreign policy profes-
sionals and someone who says he’s
acting on behalf of the president,
but frankly I don’t know if that is
the case.... It is troubling. It is
deeply troubling.”
But “troubling” i s not impeach-
able for some republicans. That
distinction was articulated by Nik-
ki Haley, the former U.S. ambassa-
dor to the United Nations, in a
Washington Post i nterview that co-
incided with the release of her new
memoir. Haley said that “it’s not
good practice to talk to foreign
governments about investigating
Americans.” But those actions, she
continued, were not impeachable.
“There was no heavy demand
insisting that something had to
happen. So it’s hard for me to un-
derstand where the whole im-
peachment situation is coming
from, because what everybody’s u p
in arms about didn’t happen,” Ha-
ley said, later adding: “Do I think
the president did something that
warrants impeachment? No, be-
cause the a id flowed.”
[email protected]In House, GOP solidifies its support for Trump
Brendan mcdermid/reuters
a man identifying himself as a World War ii veteran confronts demonstrators protesting President
Trump’s attendance at the Veterans Day Parade at Madison Square Park in new York City.