Well, well, well.
Looks like there WAS a cover-up. You know, of that "perfect" phone call. Of the "nothing wrong" stuff that Trump did.
Those of us who have synapses that fire already knew this in our bones, but mixed metaphors aside, focus on the fact that The Washington Post is reporting an internal investigation has turned up hundreds of emails between Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and various Office of Management and Budget employees attempting to justify the hold Trump placed on Congressionally approved military aid to Ukraine.
In the early August email exchanges, Mulvaney asked acting Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought for an update on the legal rationale for withholding the aid and how much longer it could be delayed. Trump had made the decision the prior month without an assessment of the reasoning or legal justification, according to two White House officials. Emails show Vought and OMB staffers arguing that withholding aid was legal, while officials at the National Security Council and State Department protested. OMB lawyers said that it was legal to withhold the aid, as long as they deemed it a “temporary” hold, according to people familiar with the review.
A senior budget lawyer crafted a memo on July 25 that defended the hold for at least a short period of time, an administration official said.
Mulvaney’s request for information came days after the White House Counsel’s Office was put on notice that an anonymous CIA official had made a complaint to the agency’s general counsel about Trump’s July 25 call to Zelensky during which he requested Ukraine investigate former vice president Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, as well as an unfounded theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
