Impeachment updates: White House emails show debate over Ukraine aid

FAN Editor
Emails reveal effort to find justification for Ukraine military aid freeze

Latest updates on the impeachment inquiry

  • An internal White House review has uncovered emails showing deliberations over the delay in nearly $400 million in aid to Ukraine over the summer.
  • Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney is still refusing to testify in the impeachment probe.
  • On Sunday, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said the White House is preparing to “go on offense” in a potential Senate impeachment trial.

Washington — An internal White House review has uncovered emails between administration officials attempting to justify the decision to withhold military aid to Ukraine and debating the legality of the hold, which is now at the center of the impeachment inquiry.

The review, conducted by the White House counsel’s office, was first reported by The Washington Post on Sunday. The Post, citing three people familiar with the records, said the documents discovered include “early August email exchanges between acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and White House budget officials seeking to provide an explanation for withholding the funds.”

Two senior administration officials confirmed the emails’ existence to CBS News. Those close to Mulvaney see the revelation of the review as the latest salvo in an internal struggle between Mulvaney and White House counsel Pat Cipollone, who has been angling to replace Mulvaney as chief of staff.

The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) ordered the hold on the funds in the weeks before President Trump’s July 25 call with the Ukrainian president, in which Mr. Trump urged him to open investigations into the Bidens and events in the 2016 campaign.

A spokeswoman for OMB said the office followed standard protocol in ordering the delay.

“To be clear, there was a legal consensus at every step of the way that the money could be withheld in order to conduct the policy review,” said Rachel Semmel. “OMB works closely with agencies on executing the budget. Routine practices and procedures were followed.”

A source familiar with Mulvaney’s legal strategy tells CBS News that Mulvaney will not testify in the impeachment inquiry, regardless of the outcome of litigation over testimony by former White House officials. Mulvaney had attempted to join one such lawsuit but eventually dropped that effort and said he would comply with a White House order not to cooperate.

The source said Mulvaney’s legal team believes that if executive privilege extends to just one person beyond the president, it’s the acting chief of staff, a position they are willing to defend in court.– Major Garrett and Paula Reid.

Kellyanne Conway says White House ready to “go on offense” in Senate impeachment trial

Kellyanne Conway says White House preparing for Senate impeachment trial

6:00 a.m.: White House counselor Kellyanne Conway says the administration is prepared to mount a robust legal and political defense of President Trump if House Democrats vote to impeach him and the Republican-controlled Senate holds a trial to decide whether to remove him from office.

“Defense will go on offense if there is a Senate trial,” Conway said on “Face the Nation” Sunday. “We’ll be able to call witnesses, we’ll be able to challenge their witnesses, produce other evidence and those witnesses may include the whistleblower and I would say his attorney.”

Public hearings by the House Intelligence Committee concluded last week. Several current and former administration officials detailed a campaign by Mr. Trump and his allies to pressure the Ukrainian government for political favors. The efforts included the abrupt ouster of the former ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, a 30-year career diplomat who said she was smeared by the president’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani.

Read more here.


How Russian intelligence officers interfered in the 2016 election

The case against Russian agents accused of interfering in the 2016 election

5:30 a.m.: There was a lot of testimony during this past week’s impeachment inquiry about foreign interference in our 2016 election, including the president’s assertion that Ukraine was involved. But the president’s own intelligence agencies say it was the Russians who “hacked” the 2016 elections. Special counsel Robert Mueller spelled it out in his report.

Now the Justice Department has at least two open cases against Russian citizens for interfering with our presidential and congressional races. “60 Minutes” decided to take a closer look at one of them: the case against 12 Russian military officers accused of breaking into the Democratic Party’s computers, stealing compromising information, and selectively releasing it to undermine Democratic candidates. There’s no evidence of similar operations against Republicans in 2016.

With the 2020 election approaching, the story of “The Russian Hack.”


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