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Exclusive: White House Ignored Pentagon Warning on Ukraine Funding
https://www.justsecurity.org/66767/exclusive-white-house-ignored-pentagon-warning-on-ukraine-funding/
by Kate Brannen
October 30, 2019
As the summer wore on, and President Donald Trump would not budge on his decision to withhold almost $400 million in military aid for Ukraine, the Pentagon warned the White House: If its portion of the money wasn’t released quickly, the Defense Department would not be able to spend it before the fiscal year ended on September 30.
The Pentagon even gave the White House a deadline. In late July, as panic spread within the administration over the president’s worrisome decision, the National Security Council led a series of interagency meetings to discuss what to do about the military assistance to Ukraine. At one of these meetings, Defense Department officials told the White House that if the $250 million in security assistance was not released by August 6, it would not be able to spend it all by the end of the fiscal year, according to two sources familiar with the deliberations.
The Defense Department’s message was clear: If the White House didn’t act, the Pentagon would be left with unobligated funds — money that would return to the U.S. Treasury and never make its way to Ukraine. And the Pentagon was also clear that providing Ukraine the security assistance was in the national security interests of the United States, on that point Trump’s Cabinet agreed.
“At every meeting, the unanimous conclusion was that the security assistance should be resumed, the hold lifted,” Bill Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, said in his opening statement to House investigators last week.
As for corruption, the pretext being given for why the funding was being withheld, the Pentagon had certified in May that the “Government of Ukraine has taken substantial actions to make defense institutional reforms for the purposes of decreasing corruption [and] increasing accountability.” When asked over the summer to perform an analysis of the effectiveness of the military aid, the Defense Department took one day to conclude the assistance was effective and should be resumed, Taylor testified.
In late July, the Pentagon also alerted the White House that if the funding wasn’t released in time, the Pentagon would be at risk of violating the Impoundment Control Act, which punishes the executive branch when it doesn’t spend money that Congress has appropriated, the sources said.
But, the White House did not heed the Pentagon’s warnings. It continued to withhold the money through August and into September.
</snip>
by Kate Brannen
October 30, 2019
As the summer wore on, and President Donald Trump would not budge on his decision to withhold almost $400 million in military aid for Ukraine, the Pentagon warned the White House: If its portion of the money wasn’t released quickly, the Defense Department would not be able to spend it before the fiscal year ended on September 30.
The Pentagon even gave the White House a deadline. In late July, as panic spread within the administration over the president’s worrisome decision, the National Security Council led a series of interagency meetings to discuss what to do about the military assistance to Ukraine. At one of these meetings, Defense Department officials told the White House that if the $250 million in security assistance was not released by August 6, it would not be able to spend it all by the end of the fiscal year, according to two sources familiar with the deliberations.
The Defense Department’s message was clear: If the White House didn’t act, the Pentagon would be left with unobligated funds — money that would return to the U.S. Treasury and never make its way to Ukraine. And the Pentagon was also clear that providing Ukraine the security assistance was in the national security interests of the United States, on that point Trump’s Cabinet agreed.
“At every meeting, the unanimous conclusion was that the security assistance should be resumed, the hold lifted,” Bill Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, said in his opening statement to House investigators last week.
As for corruption, the pretext being given for why the funding was being withheld, the Pentagon had certified in May that the “Government of Ukraine has taken substantial actions to make defense institutional reforms for the purposes of decreasing corruption [and] increasing accountability.” When asked over the summer to perform an analysis of the effectiveness of the military aid, the Defense Department took one day to conclude the assistance was effective and should be resumed, Taylor testified.
In late July, the Pentagon also alerted the White House that if the funding wasn’t released in time, the Pentagon would be at risk of violating the Impoundment Control Act, which punishes the executive branch when it doesn’t spend money that Congress has appropriated, the sources said.
But, the White House did not heed the Pentagon’s warnings. It continued to withhold the money through August and into September.
</snip>
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