by They got the goods, but some editor made them semi bury them. By Mark Mazzetti, Eric Lipton* and Andrew E. Kramer note that the first shipment of Javelin missiles to Ukraine was mysteriously held up by the OMB until April 2018 when then prosecutor general Yurii Lutsenko froze the investigation of Paul Manafort. This isn’t a scoop. Both events were reported at the time. To me the odd thing is that the key evidence is reported in the second to last sentence of the article. The two references to April 2018 are separated by Ten (10) paragraphs. In any case, the facts are devastating for Trump Near the end of 2017, just as the government in Kiev was trying to get final approval from the Trump administration on the sale of the Javelin anti-tank weapons,
Topics:
Robert Waldmann considers the following as important: Journalism, politics
This could be interesting, too:
NewDealdemocrat writes Real GDP for Q3 nicely positive, but long leading components mediocre to negative for the second quarter in a row
Joel Eissenberg writes Healthcare and the 2024 presidential election
Angry Bear writes Title 8 Apprehensions, Office of Field Operations (OFO) Title 8 Inadmissible, and Title 42 Expulsions
Bill Haskell writes Trump’s Proposals Could Bankrupt a Vital and Popular Program Within Six Years
They got the goods, but some editor made them semi bury them.
By Mark Mazzetti, Eric Lipton* and Andrew E. Kramer note that the first shipment of Javelin missiles to Ukraine was mysteriously held up by the OMB until April 2018 when then prosecutor general Yurii Lutsenko froze the investigation of Paul Manafort. This isn’t a scoop. Both events were reported at the time.
To me the odd thing is that the key evidence is reported in the second to last sentence of the article. The two references to April 2018 are separated by Ten (10) paragraphs. In any case, the facts are devastating for Trump
Near the end of 2017, just as the government in Kiev was trying to get final approval from the Trump administration on the sale of the Javelin anti-tank weapons, Mr. Poroshenko’s prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko, had begun freezing cases in Ukraine relevant to the Mueller investigation, including an inquiry tracing millions of dollars that Ukrainian political figures paid to Mr. Manafort.
The other two involved the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, which wrote a report with Mr. Manafort’s help that came to be seen as whitewashing the arrest and imprisonment of a Ukrainian politician.
[skip]
No evidence has surfaced of an earlier quid pro quo of making the Javelin missile sale contingent on the halting of investigations relevant to the Mueller inquiry.
Except for the timing which makes it very clear what happened (it was clear at the time, but no one was interested)
Mr. Lutsenko took further steps to slow walk the Ukrainian cases related to the Mueller investigation in November and gave an official order to freeze them in April 2018.
One examined possible money laundering in a $750,000 payment to Mr. Manafort from a Ukrainian shell company. Another scrutinized a Ukrainian politician who signed entries designated for Mr. Manafort in a secret ledger of political payoffs uncovered after the 2014 revolution in Ukraine.
The other two involved the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, which wrote a report with Mr. Manafort’s help that came to be seen as whitewashing the arrest and imprisonment of a Ukrainian politician.
[skip]
the White House Office of Management and Budget briefly held up the weapons sale after the Pentagon and the State Department had both approved it. The reason for the holdup, first reported by The Daily Beast, is unclear.
The logjam eventually broke, and in April 2018 the first of 210 Javelins and 35 launching units were shipped to Ukraine.
The second “April 2018” is in the second to last sentence in the article.
*by the way Mr Lipton is one of two (2) people who have blocked me on twitter. The other is David Sirota (of course). I would congratulate him on a job well done, but I enjoy being blocked.