Well, This Seems Fishy

President Trump’s still sort of denying trying to pressure the president of Ukraine into investigating the Bidens (Rudy isn’t, to be clear), but mounting evidence is not in his favor. The latest: Trump reportedly ordered Mick Mulvaney to withhold nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine just a few days before he was scheduled to speak with President Volodymyr Zelensky.

As the Washington Post reported Monday night, Republican senators on the Senate Appropriations Committee had earlier said the aid was slow-walked while gauging whether the new Ukrainian president was “pro-Russian or pro-Western.” Trump, meanwhile, has been telling reporters he thought Ukraine was “corrupt.” Zelensky reportedly told Sen. Chris Murphy that he sensed the funds would be withheld until he authorized an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, who served on the board of a Ukrainian natural gas company.

Murphy told the Washington Post:

“I don’t think it really matters . . . whether the president explicitly told the Ukrainians that they wouldn’t get their security aid if they didn’t interfere in the 2020 elections,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.). “There is an implicit threat in every demand that a United States president makes of a foreign power. . . . That foreign country knows that if they don’t do it, there are likely to be consequences.”

The State Department was reportedly told to freeze the aid on July 18. On July 25, Trump had his call with Zelensky. The funds were not unfrozen until September 11. Trump won’t release the transcript of that July 25 call, but he insists he “didn’t do it,” which sure sounds like sufficient proof for the nation to rest its case on!