US control agency: Withholding Ukraine aid was illegal

While impeachment proceedings against Trump begin in the US Senate, a supervisory authority comes to the end: the government has illegally withheld funds for Ukraine – new ammunition for the Democrats.

An independent U.S. regulatory agency has stated that the White House’s decision to withhold funds for Ukraine was unlawful. The Government Accountability Office, which has functions similar to those of an audit office, said the government should not hold back expenditures already approved by Congress because of political considerations. The White House budget office had thus violated federal laws.

Freezing military aid is at the heart of the Ukraine affair and impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump. The reason given by the government budget office for the reluctance of funds has no legal basis, it said. The control agency also criticized the government’s “reluctance” to provide the relevant documents and information.

$ 214 million worth of funds stopped

Specifically, it is about holding back $ 214 million of military aid to Ukraine last summer. The government withheld Trump’s instructions to pay aid approved by Congress for several months. When examining the temporary blockade of another $ 141 million tranche of aid, there were still unanswered questions, the Court said.

The household office violated the Impoundment Control Act because it delayed military aid to Ukraine for political reasons and not due to budgetary constraints.

“The faithful implementation of the law does not allow the President to exchange his own political priorities for those that Congress passed as law,” the control agency legal director Thomas Armstrong wrote in a report. The Impoundment Control Act is a federal law that obliges the executive to spend money approved by Congress.

Impeachment process begins

Democrats accuse Trump of blocking aid to move Ukraine to investigate, which would harm its political rival Joe Biden. The House of Representatives, Democrat Nancy Pelosi, said the Court’s view supports the need to request new documents and hear more witnesses from the Senate process.

The impeachment process has now officially started. The leading prosecutor, the democrat Adam Schiff, read the charges against the president in the Senate. It is about the allegation of abuse of power and the hindrance of the House of Representatives investigation. In terms of content, the impeachment process should then start on Tuesday.

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