OMB Releases New Ukraine-Related Emails to American Oversight

On Wednesday, the Office of Management and Budget released 170 pages of records in response to one of American Oversight’s Ukraine-related FOIA lawsuits.

The document contains emails from the summer of 2019 that discuss aid to Ukraine — aid that President Donald Trump directed OMB to withhold while his Rudy Giuliani-headed shadow-diplomacy operation worked to get Ukraine’s leaders to announce an investigation into Joe Biden.

Many of the emails are heavily redacted, but they do include a message from OMB General Counsel Mark Paoletta, who was a central figure in the administration’s aid freeze and who was himself reviewing redactions on released documents, regarding a memo “on Ukraine funds” for “Russ” — presumably, acting OMB Director Russell Vought.

Another email, from June 26, 2019, references the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) aid that is administered by the State Department. While the impeachment inquiry centered on the illegal hold-up of congressionally approved Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative funds, administered by the Defense Department, the FMF funds were also held up last summer before being released by the State Department.