Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

New 'Evidence' Fuels Accusations Against Trump


Mon 23 Dec 2019 | 06:00 PM
Yassmine Elsayed

An e-mail uncovered by an investigative reporting center revealed new evidence fueling suspicions that US President Donald Trump has already abused his position over his phone call to his Ukrainian counterpart last July.

According to the Center for Public Integrity, an email was sent to the Pentagon an hour and 31 minutes after the phone conversation between Trump and Volodymyr Zelinsky ended.

According to a rough transcript released by the White House, the July 25 call between Trump and Zelenskiy took place between 9:03 and 9:33 a.m.

At 11:04 a.m., an official with the White House's budget office, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Mike Duffey, sent an email to Deputy Secretary of Defense David Norquist, the chief of staff to Defense Secretary Mark Esper and the Pentagon's chief financial officer telling them to withhold the aid to Ukraine, the documents showed.

"Based on guidance I have received and in light of the Administration’s plan to review assistance to Ukraine, including the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, please hold off on any additional DoD obligations of these funds, pending direction from that process," the email from Duffey said, according to the documents.

"Given the sensitive nature of the request, I appreciate your keeping that information closely held to those who need to know to execute direction," Duffey's email stated.

Trump faces impeachment bid launched by the House of Representatives which voted to accuse him of abusing power because he conditioned $ 400 million military aid to Ukraine upon an investigation by Kiev be launched over former Vice President Joe Biden's son

Trump confirms his innocence, and says that he is facing an "attempted coup."

He will likely be tried from January in the Senate, where the Republican majority has confirmed that they consider him innocent and do not intend to impeach him.

Meanwhile, a senior administration official said that the White House does not want the trial procedures of the president in the Senate to be prolonged, indicating that the president is okay with appearing without witnesses to defend him. "The American people are tired of this plot," said Marc Short, director of the US vice president's office.

Trump is the third US president in history to face accountability. Democratic President Bill Clinton faced accountability in 1998 for lying about a sexual relationship he had with a female intern at the White House, but the Senate cleared him. Democratic President Andrew Johnson faced accountability in 1868, but the Senate did not condemn him either. Republican President Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 before being held accountable for his involvement in the Watergate scandal.