Former President Donald Trump called out the "fake news" media Tuesday, saying that he helped supply the Ukrainians with lethal aid during his administration, more than what former President Barack Obama sent during his eight years in office.
"The fake news media refuses to report that I was the one who, very early and strongly, gave the anti-tank busters (Javelins) to Ukraine, while Obama/Biden was giving blankets, to great and open complaints," Trump said in a statement Tuesday.
"Then [President Joe] Biden came in, and canceled the remaining military equipment that was packed, loaded, and ready to be shipped. Now the fake news media is trying to say that Trump gave Ukraine nothing, and it was Biden who is their great friend and gave them weaponry. The dishonesty is so unbelievable. All I can do is report it!"
On the Democrats.org website, a "fact check" said that Trump was "leaving out" military aid he withheld from Ukraine.
"Instead of owning up to his cozy relationship with Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump is leaving out that he withheld military aid in an attempt to extort Ukraine for political gain," the partisan website claims using three sources from The Washington Post, NBC News, and Politico.
The Post story from September 2019, said Trump ordered $400 million in aid held back over concerns he had and wanted to see if the money needed to be sent.
The story said the funds were held up a week before Trump called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on July 25, 2019, and asked him to "look into" the dealings of former Vice President Joe Biden and son Hunter's involvement with Ukrainian gas company Burisma.
The funds were released Sept. 11, 2019, according to the story.
House Democrats eventually impeached Trump with a party-line vote, citing abuse of power, claiming he used the aid in limbo as leverage to get Zelenskyy to investigate "a political rival."
The two other stories at the time followed along the same lines.
A video of then Vice President Biden relating a story about withholding a $1 billion U.S. loan guarantee to Ukraine unless they fired a prosecutor, who was looking into the dealings of Burisma, was dismissed by Politifact and others in the media as also being an abuse of power, or using leverage.
According to Defense News, a publication that covers the branches of the military, the Pentagon announced some $250 million for Ukraine to provide training, equipment and advisory efforts in June 2019, and the State Department separately approved another $141 million in aid, making up the amounts briefly held by Trump at the time.
"We put up a lot of money," Trump said during a joint press conference with Zelenskyy at the time.
According to the publication, the United States had provided more than $1.5 billion in security assistance between 2014-19.
"When Trump was elected, the first thing they did was send in the Javelin," U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO Policy Jim Townsend said at the time. "It wasn’t exactly high-end, but we were very happy, and they built on a very firm foundation."
As the missiles were being sent, Russia at the time withdrew troops from fighting in Eastern Ukraine.
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