People can nitpick the legality of this or that all they want when it comes to Trump, but why on earth does everything he does reek of a Consciousness of Guilt?
The highlighted bit is news to me. What’s the source? The closest I could find was a headline from ABC News a couple weeks ago which says pretty much the opposite: “Trump admin approves new sale of anti-tank weapons to Ukraine” (admittedly, that’s a dubious source).
Yes, we now know, as of a couple of weeks ago, the dollar amount for the Javelin purchase that Zeleskyy was talking about on the phone call. The purchase that he wanted to make but couldn’t.
Well, we know that the call requesting the javelins was in July. And this approval - which still must go through the bureaucratic process- didn’t come until October, after the demand for Biden info has come to light.
Some might view that as confirming the fact that they had been withholding the approval. YMMV.
To be precise, Zelensky wasn’t “requesting the javelins” on the call. He said “I would also like to thank you for your great support in the area of defense. We are ready to continue to cooperate for the next steps specifically we are almost ready to buy more Javelins from the United States for defense purposes.”
I’d emphasize the “almost ready” bit. And less than 10 weeks later that request was approved by the White House. That sounds pretty reasonable for the normal bureaucratic mess that is foreign military sales. For comparison, Turkey joined the F-35 program in 2002. It took them 16 years to get their first jet, and even now, over a year later, we won’t let them take it (or any of the other F-35s they ostensibly own) home to Turkey.
I don’t have a cite, but does your asking for one mean that we agree that “the withholding of funds authorized by Congress by itself” is not really a problem? That withholding / delaying some spending authorized by Congress is a fairly routine function of the executive branch?
Withholding the spending of funds during the Nixon Administration resulted in the Impoundment Control Act which makes it illegal to fail to faithfully execute budgetary laws.
So what you’re implying here is wrong (that it isn’t a big deal).
How do you Teeming Millions explain this interesting thing?
Support for the impeachment inquiry continues to grow, now over 50%, with rises not just among Ds but among Independents and even within those who identify as R.
But Trump’s net approvalis within statistical noise flat, staying within a short margin of his long term averaging roughly 12 under (today -11.5).
He’s NOT becoming more unpopular as support for the impeachment inquiry grows, even as much of his own party is angry over his actions in Syria with Turkey. Why not and what does that portend, if anything?
Do you have a cite that shows that the 16-year delay was due to waiting for White House approval? No? Then it’s not really a valid comparison, is it? In fact, there’s very little similarity between these two transactions.
It suggests to me at least as far as the impeachment inquiry that some people want to hear the charges first and perhaps see a trial before making a decision on whether to change their minds about Trump. Suggests, mind you. I have no idea if this is the case.
His approval rating probably won’t go much below that. If they haven’t been persuaded yet, they’re probably never going to be. The increase in support for impeachment is coming from the people who were apathetic or uninformed before. The ceiling of support for impeachment is about 60% then. Which probably isnt enough to get enough Republican senators on board to remove him.