1/ Ukraine knew that Trump had frozen $391 million in security assistance by early August. Trump and his allies have repeatedly claimed there could not have been any quid pro quo because the Ukrainians didn't know the assistance had been blocked. The Ukrainians, however, were advised by the first week of August to address it with Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff. At the same time, Rudy Giuliani, Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, and Kurt Volker, then the State Department's special envoy to Ukraine, were pressing President Volodymyr Zelensky to make a public commitment to the investigations for Trump's political benefit. (New York Times)
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/2019/10/23/day-1007/