Page 34 - Combating Corruption News Today

The president say that he was exchanging -- basically building an arms for host ages, not arms for hostages, but that trade. >> for dirt. >> because he hadnt heard it directly from the president, they seized on that and went after him and after him. to me, it was watching in a very the same way that sondland laid bear the breadth and depth of the corruption of the united states government under donald trump in this moment just made it very clear that was the seminal moment on that side. on the r...

>> yes, sir. >> you understand president trump has been skeptical generally of foreign agents for the money that weve given. is that fair? speak i think so. >> i think thats fairly consistent. hes done that since before he was elected. others in the process of testified that ukraine has a long history of corruption. thats not going to surprise do you think it was right that the president would test, is a word he used previously, that he would test president zelensky prior to providing some of th...

Hold on the aid in july it appears. back in may, ms. cooper, i believe you said that there was aid to that was conditioned but you certified in may that the conditions have been met. they included progress on command-and-control reform, commitment to pursue defense industry reform, and pass laws to enable government procurement. is that correct? for going us maam, thats correct. >> and you find out in july they are concerned about corruption, you are scratching your head, right? >> yes, maam, we...

>> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you to our witnesses. i am delighted to follow is to radcliffe because he perfectly summarize the defense by republican colleagues are mounting. the defense goes like this. the president is acting on some deep, historical concern apparently invisible concern about corruption and that because hes so concerned about corruption in ukraine, hes holding up aid in being prudent and judicious. the first part of that is pretty easy to dispose of because president trump ...

And then we have the press conference of october 17 when mick mulvaney left the cat fully out of the bag. he revealed president trump talk to him, "the corruption related to the dnc server" and admitted "thats why we held up the money. any other explanation for the hold is a farce. in my remaining 30 seconds, so people understand what i referred to, in the 1970s, richard nixon arbitrarily decided, i dont know if it was because he had a general skepticism of foreign aid but richard nixon decided ...

Defense industry, and it did reference the importance of civilian control of the military which relates more broadly. >> none of us would argue that that fixes corruption throughout the rest of the country. ms. cooper, maybe you can shed light on the details. the security assistance program. 250 million. someone argued that because the pause, that people died in august because of the pause. can you help us understand exactly what obligated, and was there things there were about to be delivered, ...

Requested of them and congress had appropriated the funds. is that not the case? >> maam, i and my dod colleagues advocated strenuously for the release of these funds because of the national security importance. >> so basically the entire interests of the department of defense and state department were consistently supportive or releasing the funds. everyone was mystified as to why the funds have been withheld and everyones running around trying to get an answer and youre getting kind of obtuse ...

Opening statement, the government of ukraine has taken substantial actions to make defense institutiona institutios for the purpose of decreasing corruption, increasing tolerability and sustaining improvements in com combat capability. by the time president trump froze the aid, the department of defense had spent weeks if not months determining that the ukraine government met every requirement in the law and made significant strides in combating corruption. is that correct? >> that is correct. w...

Wrong but its illegal. ms. cooper, help us walk through this. since the impoundment control act of 1974, the president has not have the authority to on a whim or out of prudence or as republicans say because of general skepticism of foreign aid, to stop foreign aid. this cooper, under the constitution, it is congress not the president that controls the power of the purse. correct? >> yes, sir. >> the security assistance authorized to ukraine was authorized and appropriated by the congress, corre...

Reason why that hold was on? did you ever get a reason? >> no, maam, the only thing that i heard about it, this is again, second, third hand, was that the president was concerned about corruption. but that was all i ever heard. >> were you ever provided any additional information about the reason for the hold? >> no, maam. >> i think -- i think you mr. hale, we asked, is it common to have hold on military aid and you said it would be unusual. would you agree would be unusual to place a hold on m...