Freedom of information act lawsuits and news reporting, you may assume the documents that are being withheld would probably incriminate the president. Otherwise, why wouldnt he have provided them . If he had a legitimate executive privilege claim he could follow the rules and make each claim. Instead he just said no, no to everything. By midjuly, the president had put a hold on all the money. Jennifer williams, special adviser to Vice President pence for europe learned about the hold on july 3. She said it came out of the blue and had previously been discussed by omb or the National Security council. The hold was never discussed with any policy experts in any of the relevant agencies. Thats remarkable. President trump ordered a hold on congressionally appropriated funds without the benefit of any interagency deliberation, consultation or advise. The evidence shows the president s hold was an impulsive decision unrelated to any american policy. On july 12th, Robert Blaire emailed duffy at omb saying the president is directing a hold on military support funding for ukraine. This is according to sandy, the career officer at omb who got a copy of the email. Now, we dont have a copy of the email because of the president s obstruction. But here is what we do know from mr. Sandys description of the email as well as testimony from other witnesses. The hold was not part of a larger review of foreign aid. We do know it was not the result of a policy debate about what was best for america since it came out of the blue. We now know why it was done, to turn the screws on ukraine to provide political help for the president. The hold was immediately suspect simply because of its timing. Duffy later asked blaire about the reasons for the hold. He gave no explanation. Instead he said, quote, we need to let the hold take place and then revisit the issue with the president. Blair either didnt know the reason or wouldnt share the reason because it was corrupt. It would be nice to know what blair knew and what duffy knew. We could ask them the question if you authorize a subpoena. Now, we had hoped, as we said, that the senate would authorize subpoenas before our arguments were made. We thought it would have been helpful. But we know that you will have another opportunity to call witnesses to require documents and we hope that your decision will be informed by the arguments were making to you over these days and that you will, in fact, get the full story. Well, we do know actually the reason why the president did what he did. We know the president held the money. It wasnt because of any policy reason to benefit america or any concern about corruption in ukraine or any desire for more burden sharing from other countries. It was because the president was upset that ukraine was not announcing the investigations that he wanted, because he wanted to ramp up the pressure to force them to do it. From the very beginning, it was clear the hold was not in Americas National interest. Those within the u. S. Government responsible for Ukraine Security and for shaping and implementing u. S. Foreign policy were caught off guard by the president s decision. Support for the aid and against the hold was unanimous, forceful and unwavering. The president can call ukraine policy experts, unelected bureaucrats all he wants, but those are officers charged with implementing his official policy developed by the president himself which was also a product of congressional action. Anyway, it wasnt just the career officers. President trumps own politically appointed senior officials, his cabinet members also opposed the hold. Why . Because it was against our national interest. But the president wasnt persuaded by arguments about national interest. Why . Because the hold had nothing to do with the national interest. It had to do with the interest of just one person, donald j. Trump. The demand for ukraine to announce these investigations was not a policy decision, but a personal decision by the president to benefit his own personal interests. At an nsc meeting, President Trump directed a hold on Ukraine Security assistance. Ambassador taylor testified that he and others on the call sat in astonishment when they learned about the hold. He immediately realized what one of the key pillars of our strong support for ukraine was threatened. David holmes, political counselor, said he was shocked and thought the hold was extremely significant because it undermined what he understood to be longstanding u. S. Policy in ukraine. And Catherine Kroft testified that the announcement blew up the meeting. Deputy assistant secretary of state george kent said there was great confusion among the rest of us because we didnt understand why that had happened. He explained since there wit war national interest, it just surprised all of us. The policy consensus at this and later meetings was clear. With the exception of omb, which was following the direction of the president , everyone supported lifting the hold. All the way up to number two officials at the agencies, the political appointees of President Trump. There was unanimous agreement that the hold was illadvised and the aid should be released. Tim morrison National Security adviser to john bolton understood that the most senior appointed officials were all supportive of the continued dispersement of the aid. On august 15th at the president s golf club in bed minister, new jersey, members of the president s cabinet all represented to ambassador bolton that they were prepared to tell the president they endorsed the swift release and disbursement of the funding. The president ignored his advisers recommendation to lift the hold. He provided no credibility explanation for it, not from the day the hold was made until the day it was lifted. Witness after witness including hail, vindman, kroft, holmes, cooper, sandy testified they werent given any reason for the hold while it was in place. Kroft said the only reason given was that the order came at the direction of the president. Mr. Holmes confirmed the order had come from the president without further explanation. Kent testified, too, i dont recall any coherent explanation. Ambassador sondland agreed. I was never given an explanation. Dr. Hill explained, no, there was no reason given. Even senator mcconnell said, i was not given an explanation for the hold. Even as omb was implementing the hold, officers in omb were saying it should be lifted. Mr. Sandy testified that his team drafted a memo on august 7th to omb acting director russ vogt that recommended lifting the hold because, one, the assistance was consistent with National Security to support a stable, peaceful europe. Two, the aid counters russian aggression. Three, there was bipartisan support for the program. Michael duffy, the senior political appointee approved the memorandum. He agreed with its policy recommendations, and it wasnt just omb. Senior advisers in the administration tried over and over again to convince President Trump to lift the hold over the summer. Some time prior to august 16th, ambassador bolton had a oneonone meeting with President Trump about the aid. But the president didnt budge. Then, at the end of august, when the hold on the aid became public, ambassador taylor expressed to multiple officials his concerns about withholding the aid from ukraine at a time when it was fighting russia. Ambassador taylor stressed the importance of the hold, not just as a message to ukraine, but importantly to russia as well. Withholding the aid on vital military assistance while ukraine was in the midst of a hot war with russia sent a message to russia about u. S. Support of ukraine. Ambassador taylor felt so strongly about the harm withholding the security existence that for the First Time Ever in this decades of service at the state department, he sent a first person cable with his concerns to secretary mike pompeo. In the cable, he described directly the following that taylor saw in withholding the aid. Here is his testimony. Have you ever sent a cable like that . How many times in your career, 40, 50 careers have you sent a cable to the secretary of the state . Once. In 50 years . Yes, sir. Ambassador taylor never received an answer to the cable, but he was told that secretary mike pompeo carried it with him to the white house meeting about Security Assistance to ukraine. It seemed this meeting about the aid may have occurred on august 30th. There is press reports where they discussed the hold with President Trump. Keep this in mind, this was two days after the hold was publically reported and after the president was briefed on the whistleblower complaint. Yet, even then, President Trump refused to release the aid. On august 30th, Michael Duffy sent an email to the dod comptroller. It said clear direction from potus to continue the hold. President trump has refused to produce this or any other email to congress. When the administration was forced to produce it in a freedom of information case in response to a court order, this critical passage was actually blacked out. Whats the reason for blacking out this direction from the president about an issue so simple to this case . No reason has been given to us. So you should ask yourself this. What is the president hiding . The president finally released the hold on september 11th. But, again, there was no credible reason given for the release. Mark sandy received that he could not recall another instance for a significant amount of assistance was being held up and he didnt have a rational for as long as i didnt have a rational on this case. On the day it was released omb still didnt know why President Trump ordered the hold. On september 11th, the day the president finally released the aid, the dod reportedly sent an email to duffy asking, what happened . Michael duffy answered not clear exactly, but president made the decision to go. Well fill you in when i get details. So lets take a step back for a minute. Why was no reason given to anyone for the president deciding to hold up hundreds of millions of dollars in military asis taps to our allies . Because there was no supportable reason for withholding the aid. No one agreed with it. According to the 17 witnesses, President Trump insisted on holding the aid and provided no reason, despite unanimous support for lifting the hold throughout his administration, including his hand picked top advisers. It also wasnt consistent with top american policy. The aid had the clear support of career officers and political appointees in President Trumps administration as important for National Security. There was no National Security or Foreign Policy reason provided. No one could think of un. Dod already certified to congress, as the law required, that ukraine had met the anticorruption conditions for the aid and it planned to begin implementing the expenditures. So why did the president do this . I think we know why. The president ordered the hold for an improper purpose, to pressure ukraine to announce investigations that would personally benefit President Trump. And that brings us to a key point. It wasnt just that the president ordered a hold on the aid without any explanation against the unanimous advice of his advisers and even after weeks as his administration, both career and political appointees continued to try to get him to release the hold. What the president was trying to hide was worse. What the president did was not just wrong, it was illegal. In ordering the hold, President Trump not only took a position contrary to his senior advisers, he countered to congressional intent and adverse to National Security interests and he also violated the law. Now, this issue was not a surprise. From the start of the hold in july, compliance with the impoundment control act was a significant concern for omb and dod officials. Mark sandy raised concerns with his supervisor Michael Duffy that it might violate the act. Laura cooper from dod described the discussion at a july 26th meeting with number two officials at all of the relevant agencies about the hold stating, quote, immediately deputies began to raise concerns about how this could be done in a legal fashion. She further testified that there was no Legal Mechanism to use to implement the hold after congress had been notified after the release of the funding. At a july 31st meeting with more junior officials, laura cooper put all aten dees on notice, including represents of the white house that because, quote, there were only two legally available options and we do not have direction to pursue either, close quote, dod would have to start spending the funds on or about august 6th. In other words, the president had a choice. He could release the aid or he could break the law. He chose to break the law. He was so determined to turn up the pressure on ukraine that he kept the hold for no legitimate purpose and without any congressional notification for long enough to violate the law. The concerns from omb and dod were ultimately acted. As has been mentioned just last week, the Nonpartisan Government Accountability Office found that President Trump broke the law by implementing the hold and in failing to notify congress about it. Because of the president s hold, dod was ultimately unable to spend all the 250 million in Security Assistance before the end of the fiscal year as congress, as we ended. Now, as gao explained, the constitution grants the president no unilateral authority to withhold funds from obligation. And they further explained faithful execution of the law does not permit the president to substitute his own policy priorities that congress has enacted into law. Omb held funds for a policy reason which is not permitted under the impound control act, end quote. Bottom line, President Trump froze the aid to increase the pressure on ukraine to announce the investigations he wanted. He violated the law. He violated his constitutional duty to take care that the laws will faithfully executed. But the president didnt just violate the impound control act while pressuring ukraine to announce the investigations he wanted. He was dishonest about it. This is really telling because hes still not telling the truth about it even now. The budget documents that implemented the hold, until september 11th, asserted that it was being imposed to, quote, allow for a process to determine the best use of such funds. But that wasnt true. There was no ongoing interagency process after july 31st after it became clear that the entire interagency, including cabinet officers agreed the aid should be released. The truth is there simply was no debate or review in the inner agency regarding the best use of such funds. So the reason given by the president was not only illegal, it was false, too. The dishonesty in the budget documents werent the only steps that the president s men at omb took to cover up his misconduct and enable his scheme. Omb went so far as to remove the authority to approve the budget documents from mark sandy, a career officer and gave it to Michael Duffy, a political appointee without experience in managing these documents. That change was unusual. It occurred less than two weeks after sandy raised concerns that the hold violated the law. Sandy was not aware of any prior instance when a political appointee assumed this kind of funding approval authority. Duffys explanation that he simply wanted to learn more about the accounts, that doesnt make sense to sandy, really. This odd change in responsibility was just another way to keep the president s illegal hold within a tight knit unit of loyal soldiers within the omb. Michael duff fi y denied the president s subpoena. The house did not assert any privileges or immunities when it directed duffy to defy congresss subpoena. It wasnt a real exercise of executive privilege. They told him not to appear, and they had no reason why. If mr. Duffy knew about any legitimate reason for the hold, ill bet he would not have been blocked from testifying. The fact that he was blocked might lead you to infer that his testimony would be damaging to the president and would be consistent with the testimony of the other witnesses that the hold was solely used to ratchet up pressure on ukraine. But the warnings from dod werent just about how the hold was illegal. There were also practical consequences. By august 12th, the department of defense told omb it could no longer guarantee it would be able to spend all 250 million that congress had directed before the end of the fiscal year. Not longer not long after this august 12th email, dod determined that time had run out. Ms. Cooper testified that dod estimated as much as 100 million of aid might go unspent even if the hold was immediately lifted. As a result, dod refused to certify that it would be able to spend the funds by september 30th. On august 20th, omb issued the first of six budget documents and removed the language providing legal cover for the hold. From that point on, the white house knew that dod would not be able to spend all the funds, which was what the law required before september 30th. And, yet, even though he knew the hold would violate the impoundment control act, President Trump continued the hold for another 23 days without telling us, without telling the congress. This had the exact outcome that dod feared. After the president lifted the hold on the evening of september 11th, dod had only 18 days to spend the remaining 223 million, which is about 89 of the total. Dod scrambled and they spent all but approximately 35 million, about 14 of the appropriated funds were left. That 35 million would have expired and would have been forever lost to ukraine had congress not stepped in to pass a law to roll the money over to the next year. But even as of today, more than 18 million of that money ha