The Department of Defense said on Thursday that its officials, including Defense Secretary Mark Esper, were not present during President Donald Trump’s call with the Ukrainian president.
“To my knowledge, no one from the Department of Defense was on that call,” Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman told reporters, per the Hill. “I specifically asked the secretary of Defense that question, and he was not on that call.”
“The secretary has an incredibly busy schedule and is working on a number of different issues at any one time,” the spokesman added. “He doesn’t spend most of his days sitting in on other people’s phone calls.”
According to the White House’s version of Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump pressed the Ukrainian leader to dig up fabricated dirt on his political rival Joe Biden. When the Ukrainian president mentioned missile defense, Trump responded that he wanted the foreign leader to do him a “favor.”
The DOD spokesman also said the department’s general counsel has ordered Pentagon staffers to provide the Office of General Counsel all documents on Trump’s decision to withhold military aid to Ukraine around the time of the call.
“To me, it seems to be a fairly routine but proactive measure we’re taking,” he said.
The Pentagon had already cleared the aid, so a Pentagon officer on the call would have wondered why the aid had not been sent, which would have raised some uncomfortable questions for the administration. It may be that military officials aren’t on calls like this normally, but this case you would think someone would be there since Ukraine is having some issues with Russia.
It’s interesting that the Pentagon put this out too, it sounds like they want to make it clear they had no part it whatever shenanigans that Trump and his people pulled.
I would think that someone in the Pentagon would have received the readout of the call in the normal course of events and the issue brought to someone close to the secretary. Well, we know the normal procedure was not followed and I am not surprised they were caught not knowing. Was Trump not able to find a Pompeo or Barr for defense. Perhaps he had one in that guy who was not approved a while back.
How long until there is evidence to the contrary?
I would say tomorrow if it follows the usual pattern. It does seem that each pronouncement brings a liar, liar fact drop by the next day. However, if that was the case, wouldn’t the Secretary of DOD be out on The Great Scavenger Hunt with Bill and Mike?
Such a civilized and refined way of saying that they had NO involvement, and that this was entirely an end run around them.