Rep. Steve Scalise spun two keys facts about Ukrainian

Some more fact checking, courtesy of factcheck.org:


Rep. Steve Scalise spun two keys facts about Ukrainian aid to defend President Donald Trump against accusations that Trump withheld that aid to pressure Ukraine to investigate the alleged Ukraine interference in the 2016 U.S. election, as well as former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.

• Scalise claimed, “The law required that before any taxpayer money go to Ukraine, the president had to ensure that they are rooting out corruption, which ultimately they did.” Actually, the law required the Defense Department to certify that substantial progress had been made toward fighting corruption before releasing some of the money. That was done in May.
• Scalise argued that Trump did nothing wrong because “Ukraine got the money.” It’s true that the aid was released, but only after diplomats privately and the media publicly had begun to raise questions with Trump officials about the aid being tied to investigations, after the House intelligence committee officially learned about the existence of a whistleblower complaint, and after three House committees announced investigations into whether Trump and his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, tried to pressure Ukraine into conducting “politically-motivated investigations.”

While the republican response to defend Trump has centered around the fact that the funds were release and therefore there was no qui pro quo an examination of the timeline clearly shows that it was NOT released until it became public that the funds were being withheld. It is kind of like bank robbers that attempt to rob a bank and get caught in the act. Because they were unable to complete their task of robbing the bank, because they got caught before they could take the money, they didn't rob the bank, and should be let free.