WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal government's watchdog agency said Thursday a White House office violated federal law in withholding security assistance to Ukraine.
The Government Accountability Office said in a report that the Office of Management and Budget violated the law in holding up the aid. The freeze is at the center of the impeachment of President Donald Trump.
The independent agency, which reports to Congress, said OMB violated the Impoundment Control Act in delaying the security assistance Congress authorized for Ukraine for “policy reasons,” rather than technical budgetary needs.
“Faithful execution of the law does not permit the President to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law,” wrote the agency's general counsel, Thomas Armstrong, in the report.
OMB has argued the hold was appropriate and necessary.
“We disagree with GAO's opinion. OMB uses its apportionment authority to ensure taxpayer dollars are properly spent consistent with the President's priorities and with the law," said OMB spokeswoman Rachel Semmel.
Trump was impeached last month on charges of abusing his power for pressuring Ukraine to investigate Democratic rivals, as he was withholding the aid, and for obstructing Congress' ensuing probe. The Senate is set to begin its trial on Thursday.
Political spectators are readying themselves for a midterm fight to the finish, but Gov. John Carney of Delaware thinks they would do well to focus on the issues ー not just winning the race. "It seems like we get bogged down in the politics of our own teams," Carney said of the divisive state of politics during an interview with Cheddar Monday. "It gets in the way of improving things that are important."
Amazon, Alphabet, Twiter, and other big tech companies are set to report quarterly earnings this week. Elon Musk says The Boring Company's high-speed transit tunnel will be open to the public on December 10. And Zane Holtz, star of the upcoming film 'Hunter Killer,' joins Cheddar to discuss what it's like working with big-name talent such as Gary Oldman and Gerard Butler in this new movie.
Valerie Plame Wilson says a movie about the George W. Bush White House's exposure of her covert role as a CIA agent is more relevant than ever in the Trump era of "lies and deception." Plame spoke to Cheddar Monday alongside director Doug Liman on the occasion of the re-release of Liman's 2010 film "Fair Game."
The Massachusetts Senator has urged the Fed once again to put pressure on Wells Fargo for its fake bank account scandal. Pete Schroeder, a financial correspondent at Reuters, said this rhetoric is in line with Warren's politics and does not necessarily signal a 2020 presidential run.
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Arianna Huffington, the CEO of Thrive, is one of many business execs to pull out of the "Davos in the Desert" business summit in Saudi Arabia after the controversy surrounding a missing and presumed-dead Washington Post journalist. Huffington said she was "surprised" by the Trump administration's handling of the situation.
Deepa Seetharaman, tech reporter for the Wall Street Journal, said the company is still unsure of who's responsible for the most recent hack, in which 30 million user accounts were compromised. And perhaps more importantly, it still doesn't know where all the data went.
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Cannabis may have just been made legal in Canada, but Canopy Growth has been getting ready for this moment for years. Cheddar's Baker Machado went to the company's headquarters in eastern Ontario to talk to the company's execs about the budding cannabis market.
Derek Riedle, the CEO of cannabis culture publisher Civilized, spoke with Cheddar about what is next in the changing landscape of pot in Canada and what breaking down the stigma surrounding marijuana could do for the industry and country as a whole.
