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NYT: Trump Knew About Whistleblower Complaint Before He Released Ukraine Aid

   DailyWire.com
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a homecoming campaign rally at the BB&T Center on November 26, 2019 in Sunrise, Florida. President Trump continues to campaign for re-election in the 2020 presidential race. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Citing “two people familiar with the matter,” The New York Times reported Tuesday that President Trump was informed about the whistleblower’s complaint about his alleged “quid pro quo” with Ukraine before he decided to release U.S. security aid to the country.

“Lawyers from the White House counsel’s office told Mr. Trump in late August about the complaint, explaining that they were trying to determine whether they were legally required to give it to Congress, the people said,” the Times reported.

“The revelation could shed light on Mr. Trump’s thinking at two critical points under scrutiny by impeachment investigators: his decision in early September to release $391 million in security assistance to Ukraine and his denial to a key ambassador around the same time that there was a ‘quid pro quo’ with Kyiv. Mr. Trump used the phrase before it had entered the public lexicon in the Ukraine affair,” the Times continues.

The Times also notes that the Office of Legal Counsel concluded that the Trump administration “did not have to hand over the [whistleblower] complaint” due to executive privilege. Despite that ruling, Trump decided to release the full complaint along with the transcript of his call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, maintaining consistently that he has nothing to hide from the “perfect” call.

The Times report was published the same day that transcripts were released from the deposition of White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) official Mark Sandy which undermined the Democrats’ claim that Trump was withholding the aid as an attempt to “bribe” Ukraine into investigating alleged corruption involving former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.

In response to being asked what explanation the White House gave OMB official Michael Duffey for why the aid to Ukraine was being delayed, Sandy said Duffy told him it was “the President’s concern about other countries not contributing more to Ukraine.”

Trump made a similar statement in a series of tweets on Monday, stating that he “held back the money from Ukraine because it is considered a corrupt country, [and] I wanted to know why nearby European countries weren’t putting up money also.”

“The D.C. Wolves and Fake News Media are reading far too much into people being forced by Courts to testify before Congress,” Trump wrote in the posts Monday. “I am fighting for future Presidents and the Office of the President. Other than that, I would actually like people to testify. Don McGahn’s respected lawyer has already stated that I did nothing wrong. John Bolton is a patriot and may know that I held back the money from Ukraine because it is considered a corrupt country, & I wanted to know why nearby European countries weren’t putting up money also. Likewise, I would love to have Mike Pompeo, Rick Perry, Mick Mulvaney and many others testify about the phony Impeachment Hoax. It is a Democrat Scam that is going nowhere but, future Presidents should in no way be compromised. What has happened to me should never happen to another President!”

The Democrat-led impeachment inquiry was prompted by a whistleblower’s complaint alleging that Trump imposed a quid pro quo in an attempt to “pressure” Ukraine to investigate his political rival. However, Zelensky has repeatedly stated that there was no pressure, and the transcript of Trump’s famous July 25 call with Zelensky shows that while Trump did ask him to “look into” the Biden corruption allegations, no quid pro quo was issued.

“There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that,” Trump told Zelensky in the much-analyzed call. “So whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it … It sounds horrible to me.”

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