President Trump told his acting Chief of staff, Mik Mulvani, to delay nearly $ 400 million of military assistance to Ukraine at least a week before the phone call, where Trump is said to have put pressure on the Ukrainian President to investigate the son of the former Vice president Joe Biden, according to information got from three senior administration officials.
Office and budget officials passed Trump’s orders to the Department of State and Pentagon during an interagency meeting in mid-July, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity on internal discussions. They explained that the President had “fears”, and wanted to analyze whether money should be spent.
Administration officials were instructed to inform lawmakers that the delays were part of the “interagency process”, but not to provide them with any additional information is a scheme that lasted for almost two months until the White House released funds on the night of September 11th.
Republican senators said on September 12 that military aid to Ukraine had been suspended, while the Trump administration found out whether Zelenskiy, the country’s new President, was pro-Russian or pro-Western. They said the White House had decided to release the aid after the Senator Richard J. Durbin threatened to freeze Pentagon funding by $ 5 billion next year if money was not allocated for 2019.
According to representatives of the administration, discussions about Ukrainian assistance began in June.
“It’s very important to talk about corruption”, – Trump told the reporters.
“If you are not talking about corruption, why are you giving money to a country that you think is corrupt?”