Impeachment Hearings

[SunsetBengal]

(01-27-2020, 07:39 PM)Dill Wrote: I can answer your question, Sunset.

EVERYONE on both sides of the aisle approves of the US government using aid to accomplish official US foreign policy ends.  Aid is rarely dispersed as a handout, but conditioned to the US national interest.  Aid is the carrot just as sanctions are the stick. So of course it can be paused or withdrawn if US conditions are met.  SOP as you say.

And such was Obama's pausing of aid to Egypt.  And aid to Egypt under Trump was also slashed. https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2017-09-07/senate-panel-slashes-military-aid-to-egypt.  No complaint from the Democrats.

So why is Trump's Ukraine action different?

Until September of 2019, both sides ALSO agreed that using officially sanctioned aid to accomplish private, political ends would be an abuse of power, especially if done by a president.

Trump stopping desperately needed aid to the Ukraine to force a pre-US election announcement that they were investigating Trump's primary opponent in the upcoming election--though the Ukraine had no grounds for such an investigation--would be an example of pausing aid for a private, political end at odds with official US foreign policy, and possibly risking the effectiveness of that policy.  Not to mention the irony of making corruption a condition of aid to a country we have always lectured about corruption. 

So what Trump did is not SOP.  The complaint is not that he just "paused aid" pending certain conditions be met; the complaint is that the "conditions" were for private gain and working against US foreign policy, without Congressional knowledge and approval, not to mention encouraged by foreign (Russian) intelligence services.  It was a way of using presidential power of the office--a power none of Trump's opponents has--to cheat on elections, to sow disinformation.  Followed by obstruction of witnesses and documents.

I see your point, and would like to counter with "What aid did they not receive?"  As far as I understand, the "pause" of the aid was withdrawn, and the Ukrainians received their aid, prior to the predetermined date.  So, "Where's the beef?"