Day 1,092: On same day his impeachment trial began in the Senate, top federal watchdog says Trump broke the law
It was an eventful day for Donald Trump.
His impeachment trial began in the Senate on Thursday.
Meanwhile, Lev Parnas, an associate of Rudy Giuliani, continued to spill the beans about Trump’s direct involvement in the scheme to extort Ukraine into starting a political investigation into Joe Biden and his family in exchange for military aide.
Trump swore he doesn’t know Parnas, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, including Trump signing off on Parnas’ choice for an attorney.
All the while, Trump is pretending the entire impeachment saga is over a phone call, when the past few months have revealed a coordinated scheme from and by many senior aides in the White House, coordinated by Trump himself.
The Government Accountability Office, the top federal watchdog, acknowledged Trump & Co.’s criminal activity in a bombshell report the dropped on Thursday.
The Office of Management and Budget told the GAO it “withheld the funds to ensure that they were not spent ‘in a manner that could conflict with the President’s foreign policy,’” said Thomas Armstrong, the GAO’s general counsel. But the GAO rejected that argument.
“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 GAO wrote. “OMB withheld funds for a policy reason, which is not permitted under the Impoundment Control Act. The withholding was not a programmatic delay. Therefore, we conclude that OMB violated the ICA.”
While there are no criminal penalties associated with the GAO’s findings, combined with Parnas’ continuing acknowledgement of Trump’s direct knowledge of Parnas’ activities — with evidence — Trump has been implicated by virtually everyone around him who has been allowed to speak up and everyone who has looked into his conduct that has been allowed to investigate.
No one — apparently except Trump and his cronies — thinks Trump is innocent.
1,092 days in, 370 to go
Follow us on Twitter at @TrumpTimer
