White House froze aid to Ukraine shortly after phone call

WASHINGTON—Emails reveal that about 90 minutes after President Donald Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the White House budget office ordered the Pentagon to freeze aid Congress had allocated to Ukraine. The Pentagon released the emails to the Center for Public Integrity after a Freedom of Information Act request. Trump’s phone conversation with Zelensky became the subject of a whistleblower report that led to his impeachment last week.

Was the freeze related to the phone call? Rachel Semmel, a spokeswoman for the Office of Management and Budget said the two were not linked: “The hold was announced in an interagency meeting on July 18.” Trump administration officials who testified before Congress in its impeachment inquiry also confirmed that officials talked about the freeze earlier in July.

Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., still has not referred the articles of impeachment to the Senate, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., have not agreed on terms of the trial.

Dig deeper: Read the emails from Michael Duffey, who leads the OMB’s national security division.