According to newly released testimony from House Democrats’ ongoing impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, two White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) officials chose to resign at least in part due to Trump’s alleged decision to temporarily withhold military aid to Ukraine, The Hill reported Tuesday.
The news comes by way of transcripts of Mark Sandy’s private testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, which were released Tuesday. Sandy is an OMB staffer who testified about the resignation of two colleagues, one of whom was reportedly in the office’s legal division.
“Someone else’s motivations”
According to Sandy, one of the individuals “expressed some frustrations about not understanding the reason for the hold” on aid to Ukraine. However, Sandy stressed that he was “reluctant to speak to someone else’s motivations.”
Regarding the legal division employee’s departure, Sandy was asked whether it was “at least in part because of their concerns on frustrations about the hold on Ukraine security assistance.”
“Yes,” Sandy replied, “in terms of that process, in part.”
Still, The Hill reportedly received an email from an unnamed senior administration official who “categorized the assertion that the two officials resigned in part over the aid freeze as false.”
For their part, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, Reform Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, and Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel issued a joint statement Tuesday trumpeting the testimony from Sandy and U.S. Ambassador Philip Reeker.
“The testimonies from Ambassador Reeker and Mr. Sandy continue to paint a portrait of hand-picked political appointees corrupting the official levers of U.S. government power, including by withholding taxpayer-funded military assistance to Ukraine, to further the President’s own personal political agenda,” the statement read in part.
“No one on this planet”
Defenders of the president have denied that Trump acted improperly, with some pointing to public testimony by U.S. Ambassador to the European Union (EU) Gordon Sondland as proof. While appearing before the House Intelligence panel, Sondland recalled Trump telling him he wanted “nothing” from Ukraine, emphasizing, “I don’t want a quid pro quo.”
Sondland also had to concede that it was only his presumption that the president was allowing making aid to Ukraine available in return for an investigation into possible corruption by former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, according to the Daily Mail.
“No one on this planet told you that this aid was tied to investigations. Yes or no?” Republican Rep. Mike Turner (OH) asked Sondland, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.
“Yes,” the ambassador admitted. And yet, the Dems still aren’t giving up.
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