Senate impeachment trial: Fact-checking opening arguments of Trump’s defense team
Saturday, the defense of President Donald Trump began in his impeachment trial in the Senate. Here’s a look at claims and issues raised by the president’s lawyers as they lay out their response to the case made by the Democratic House managers prosecuting the articles of impeachment – for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress – against Trump.
Sekulow: It was Trump – not Obama – that provided Ukraine with lethal military aid
As the president’s legal team made its opening arguments Saturday, Jay Sekulow, one of the private attorneys on Trump’s team, said that it was Trump — not his predecessor Barack Obama — who provided Ukraine with lethal military aid, including anti-tank Javelin missiles.
Indeed, Sekulow said that U.S. policy toward Ukraine policy under Trump got stronger, stronger than it had been under former President Obama.
While Sekulow is correct about the provision of lethal aid, the charge in the impeachment trial against Trump for abuse of power turns on his decision to delay aid to Ukraine that had been appropriated by Congress and his motivations for doing so. House Democrats allege Trump delayed the aid in order to pressure Ukraine’s newly elected president into investigating former Vice President Joe Biden, a top Trump political rival, and into entertaining a debunked theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
“The Obama administration refused to provide lethal weapons in 2014,” PolitiFact writes, after Russia invaded Crimea. “But the United States under Obama did provide extensive military and security aid but not lethal weapons,” PolitiFact adds.
The Obama administration rejected a request from Ukraine for lethal aid in 2014, even after its then-president visited Washington and reportedly said “Blankets and night vision goggles are important, but one cannot win a war with a blanket.”
“U.S. officials were concerned that providing the Javelins to Ukraine would escalate their conflict with Russia,” PolitiFact writes, adding “key allies, including Germany, were not keen on sending weapons into the conflict zone.”
In 2014, the Obama administration approved $53 million in aid “that included vehicles, patrol boats, body armor and night-vision goggles, as well as humanitarian assistance,” according to PolitiFact. And, between 2014 and 2016, the U.S. committed more than $600 million in security assistance to Ukraine.
While the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act had called for lethal assistance, “the equipment ultimately provided during Obama’s tenure was non-lethal aid,” PolitiFact writes.
“’The first lethal deliveries came from Trump,’” Jim Townsend, deputy assistant secretary of defense for European and NATO Policy during the Obama administration, told PolitiFact. Townsend also explained that the aid provided by Obama was what had been “recommended by European command and others who went in to see what [the Ukrainians] needed.”
But Trump has been impeached and is facing trial in the Senate over the delay in congressionally approved aid to the U.S. ally as it fights Russian aggression.
On that issue, a government watchdog agency recently concluded that the Trump administration violated federal law when it withheld the funds intended to help Ukraine.
“Faithful execution of the law does not permit the president to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law,” the report by the Government Accountability Office says. “OMB withheld funds for a policy reason, which is not permitted” under the law.
A spokesperson for the Office of Management and Budget disagreed with the GAO’s conclusion.
Watchdog:White House budget office violated federal law by withholding Ukraine security funds
And speaking Saturday, Deputy White House Counsel Mike Purpura told senators “the president did absolutely nothing wrong.”
He added: “The president was at all times acting in our national interest and pursuant to his oath of office.”
–Martina Stewart
Trump’s defense focuses on his concern with burden-sharing in helping Ukraine
In laying out their defense of President Trump, his legal team touched Saturday on his concerns about whether European allies were doing enough to help Ukraine.
“The president rightly had real concerns about whether European and other countries were contributing their fair share to ensuring Ukraine’s security,” Deputy White House Counsel Mike Purpura told senators.
Earlier this week, during an interview with Fox Business Network, the president expressed those concerns again. “There’s something else I’m always stressing,” the president said during the cable TV interview. “Why isn’t Germany and France and U.K. and all these other countries in Europe that are much more affected than us, why aren’t they paying something?”
“They are paying plenty.“ the Associated Press wrote in assessing Trump’s assertion.
While the AP observed that “the U.S. is a heavy source of military assistance” to Ukraine, it also pointed out that “Since 2014, the EU and European financial institutions have mobilized more than $16 billion to help Ukraine’s economy, counter corruption, build institutions and strengthen its sovereignty against further incursions by Russia after its annexation of Crimea.”
FactCheck.org reached a similar conclusion: “In fact, the European Union and European financial institutions have contributed more than $16.4 billion in grants and loans to Ukraine since 2014.”
And, “the U.S. isn’t even the majority contributor of total official development assistance” to Ukraine, according to FactCheck.org.
One analyst has concluded that on average the EU has given almost twice as much per year to Ukraine since 2014 than the U.S. has averaged.
With regard to just military aid, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine told The Washington Post’s Fact Checker that “‘The United States is the largest provider of military aid to Ukraine.” This is because of “‘skittishness’ among many European countries that ‘don’t want to provoke Russia,’” former Ambassador John Herbst said. Furthermore, the Post explained: “This is how the aid burden is usually divided between the United States and the Europeans, with the United States providing the muscle and Europe providing the ‘soft power’ to stabilize troubled nations.”
–Martina Stewart
More:Fact-checking the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump