Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin told the Wall Street Journal that U.S. diplomats informed him that the release of military aid to Ukraine was "tied" to the insistence by Donald Trump and his allies that the country initiate investigations of the 2016 elections.
Johnson, who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, got the explanation for why $400 million in aid had been held up from U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland. But when Johnson asked Trump directly about the assertion during an Aug. 31 phone call, Trump vehemently denied it. “He said—expletive deleted—‘No way. I would never do that. Who told you that?'” Johnson recalled.
Of course, we now have the tranche of texts between Sondland and two other U.S. envoys in the region confirming that the military aid was withheld over the probes that Trump and his fixer Rudy Giuliani wanted. Here’s the smoking gun text from Bill Taylor, the U.S. interim chargé d'affaires in Ukraine: "As I said on the phone, I think it's crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign."
Johnson appears to be walking a political line here. He was obviously informed by the U.S. diplomats the investigations were the reason for the hold up in aid, and figured that would eventually come out. Now he can say that he approached Trump about it and Trump denied it. Isn’t that convenient. Sounds like a Republican senator trying to limit his liabilities without getting on the bad side of Dear Leader.