"As
Politico broke the news about the hold in late August, lawmakers concerned about Ukraine’s ability to defend its sovereignty against Russia and the mixed signals sent by the delay stepped up the pressure on the administration with floor speeches, letters and personal phone calls.
South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, an ally of Trump’s but an advocate for the Ukraine aid, told reporters on Sept. 24 that he sought and got an explanation about the delay. He spelled out concerns he said Pentagon officials shared with him about Zelenkskiy, though they don’t line up with either of the above Pentagon communications.
“The Pentagon was concerned about the new [Ukrainian] administration, can we trust them to have the weapons, and Trump’s always tried to get others to pay more by withholding aid,” Graham said, adding: “[Pentagon officials] wanted to find out if the new [Ukrainian] administration was reliable.”"
"Senate Europe and Regional Security Cooperation Subcommittee Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., did get an explanation in a call with Trump ahead of a trip to meet with Zelenskiy in Kyiv. Johnson had hoped in vain to convince Trump to “let the money flow.”
“He’s concerned about corruption, when you’re putting hundreds of millions of dollars into a country,” Johnson said of Trump last week. “Secondly, the same complaint President Trump has had in terms of the level of support of European partners for a country in their backyard, not ours.”
Johnson’s explanation tracked with what Vice President Mike Pence said after he attended a meeting with Zelenskiy in Warsaw, Poland, on Sept. 1. Pence also told reporters that he and Zelenskiy had discussed the White House’s decision to halt the aid.
“As President Trump had me make clear, we have great concerns about issues of corruption,” Pence said, adding that to invest additional taxpayer money in Ukraine, “the president wants to be assured that those resources are truly making their way to the kind of investments that will contribute to security and stability in Ukraine. And that’s an expectation the American people have and the president has expressed very clearly.”
Johnson was one of a select few lawmakers who said they knew the president’s rationale. The administration, on the other hand, did not clue in Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who traveled with Johnson.
“The process of holding the aid? I don’t have a window into their process,” Murphy said last week. “It caught all of us by surprise, Republicans and Democrats. There didn’t seem to be much, if any, consultations with Congress.”
