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New Report: Trump Violated US Funding Law at Center of Impeachment Trial

Ken Bredemeier

   WASHINGTON - U.S. President Donald Trump violated the country's
   spending law last year when he temporarily withheld $391 million in
   congressionally approved military aid to Ukraine while at the same
   pressing Kyiv to launch investigations to benefit himself politically,
   a government watchdog agency concluded Thursday in a decision that is
   at the heart of the impeachment case against the U.S. leader.

   Trump released the assistance that Ukraine wanted to help fight
   pro-Russian separatists in the eastern part of the country in September
   after a 55-day delay without Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
   opening an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden, one of
   Trump's top 2020 Democratic challengers, and his son Hunter Biden's
   lucrative work for a Ukrainian natural gas company.

   But after an investigation, [1]the Government Accountability Office
   ruled that "Faithful execution of the law does not permit the president
   to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has
   enacted into law." It said that the Trump-controlled U.S. budget agency
   blocked release of the money "for a policy reason," which is not
   allowable under U.S. law.

   The ruling by the GAO came less than two hours before the formal start
   of Trump's Senate trial on two articles of impeachment, that Trump
   abused the office of the presidency by trying to get Zelenskiy to open
   the Biden investigations while withholding the military aid and then
   obstructing congressional efforts to investigate Trump's
   Ukraine-related actions.

   With Republicans holding a 53-47 majority in the Senate, Trump remains
   all but certain to be acquitted and remain in office since conviction
   on either of the impeachment articles and Trump's ouster requires a
   two-thirds majority vote. Some Republicans have criticized Trump's bid
   for the Biden investigations, but no Republican has called his
   conviction and removal from office less than a year before he faces
   voters again in the November national election as he tries to win a
   second term in the White House.

References

   1. https://www.gao.gov/assets/710/703909.pdf

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