A6
NATION
East Oregonian
Thursday, February 20, 2020
Trump ousts top defense offi cial who certifi ed Ukraine aid
By LOLITA C. BALDOR
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Pres-
ident Donald Trump has
ousted the Pentagon’s top pol-
icy offi cial who had certifi ed
last year that Ukraine had
made enough anti-corruption
progress to justify the Trump
administration’s
release
of congressionally autho-
rized aid to Kyiv in its con-
fl ict against Russian-backed
separatists.
John Rood resigned
Wednesday, saying he was
leaving at Trump’s request.
The Trump administra-
tion’s delay in releasing the
aid to Ukraine was central to
the president’s impeachment
by the House on charges of
abuse of power and obstruc-
tion of Congress. The Senate
voted to acquit the president.
But in the wake of the Senate
trial, an emboldened Trump
has gone after offi cials he has
perceived as being disloyal.
Rood is the latest offi cial
to be purged. His forced res-
ignation comes as Democrats
on the Hill express concerns
that Trump is on a vendetta
in the wake of his acquit-
tal. Just days after the Senate
vote, the White House reas-
signed an Army offi cer, Lt.
Col. Alex Vindman, a key
witness in the impeachment
inquiry, from the National
Security Council, and pushed
his twin brother, an NSC law-
yer, out with him. Gordon
Sondland, Trump’s ambas-
sador to the European Union
who also was a key witness
before House investigators,
was recalled from his post.
AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File
In this Feb. 2, 2018, fi le photo, Under Secretary of Defense for
Policy, John Rood, speaks during a news conference on the
2018 Nuclear Posture Review at the Pentagon.
Trump tweeted Wednes-
day that he wanted to “thank
John Rood for his service to
our Country, and wish him
well in his future endeavors!”
Rood, in his letter to
Trump, did not mention
Ukraine. ‘‘It’s my understand-
ing from Secretary (Mark)
Esper that you requested my
resignation,” Rood said. Rood
said he will step down as of
Feb. 28.
Rood wrote in a May 23
letter to Congress that the
Pentagon had made a thor-
ough assessment of Ukraine’s
anti-corruption actions and
other reforms. And he said
that, “I have certifi ed that
the government of Ukraine
has taken substantial actions
to make defense institutional
reforms for the purpose of
decreasing corruption” and
making other improvements.”
Rood wrote that his certifi -
cation, legally required before
the aid could be released,
was based on insights gained
in “persistent U.S. engage-
ment” with Ukraine, includ-
ing meetings between the
U.S. defense secretary and his
Ukrainian counterpart.
Asked about Rood’s res-
ignation, chief Pentagon
spokesman Jonathan Hoff-
man declined to speculate
on the reason for Trump’s
decision.
“The president has the
opportunity and the ability to
have the team that he wants
to have in policy positions,”
Hoffman said at news confer-
ence. He said Rood’s resigna-
tion letter spoke for itself.
Rood last year told report-
ers that, “In the weeks after
signing the certifi cation I did
become aware that the aid had
been held. I never received a
very clear explanation other
than there were concerns
about corruption in Ukraine.”
He also spoke in favor of
releasing the aid, suggesting
that withholding it would hurt
America’s defense priorities.
Bloomberg, Sanders under attack
at Democrats’ debate in Nevada
By STEVE PEOPLES,
ALEXANDRA JAFFE
AND MICHELLE L.
PRICE
Associated Press
AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast
Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, left, is joined by his
wife, Patti, and daughters Annie and Amy at a news con-
ference outside his home on Wednesday in Chicago.
2-year lobbying effort
pays off for Blagojevich
By DON BABWIN
Associated Press
CHICAGO — When
Patti Blagojevich made
repeated public pleas for
her husband’s release
from federal prison, there
was no mistaking her
intended audience: Presi-
dent Donald Trump.
For nearly two years,
the wife of disgraced
former Illinois Gov.
Rod Blagojevich made
Trump’s own travails,
including special coun-
sel Robert Mueller’s
long Russia investigation
and Trump’s impeach-
ment, the centerpiece of
the strategy to free her
husband.
Appearing on Fox
News — the one net-
work she knew Trump
watched religiously —
she was careful to say not
only that her husband was
being mistreated, but that
he was being mistreated
in the same way Trump
complained about being
treated, and by the same
cast of characters.
Those lobbying efforts
that began in 2018 came
to fruition Tuesday, when
Trump commuted her
husband’s 14-year prison
sentence, allowing him to
return home after serving
eight years behind bars.
“I see these same peo-
ple who did this to my
family, these same peo-
ple that secretly taped us
and twisted the facts and
perverted the law that
ended with my husband
in jail. These same people
are trying to do the same
thing ... just on a much
larger scale,” she said
during a May 2018 Fox
News broadcast. “They
were emboldened. They
took down a governor,
and now they’ve got their
sights much higher.”
Patti
Blagojevich’s
campaign began soon
after her husband lost a
string of legal appeals that
seemed to doom him to
remain behind bars until
his projected 2024 release
date. His wife, who comes
from an infl uential fam-
ily of Chicago Democrats,
soon went on a media blitz
to encourage Trump to
step in. She fl attered and
heaped praise on the pres-
ident and likened the case
against her husband to the
investigation into Rus-
sian meddling in the 2016
election — a probe Trump
long characterized as a
“witch hunt.”
Using many of the
same words that Trump
tweeted and said, she
threw out names, includ-
ing former FBI Director
James Comey and for-
mer U.S. Attorney Patrick
Fitzgerald, who oversaw
Blagojevich’s prosecution.
She also mentioned Muel-
ler, the former FBI direc-
tor who was appointed to
investigate the president,
and described the investi-
gation into her husband as
an attempt to to “undo an
election by the people.”
Comey was not FBI
director when Blagojevich
was prosecuted. Mueller
was. And Fitzgerald was
not involved in the Trump
probe. But as Fox viewers
were reminded, Fitzgerald
and Comey are close.
LAS VEGAS — From
the opening bell, Democrats
unleashed an aggressive ver-
bal assault on New York bil-
lionaire Mike Bloomberg and
raised new questions about
Bernie Sanders’ take-no-pris-
oners politics in a contentious
debate on Wednesday night
that threatened to scram-
ble even further the party’s
urgent quest to defeat Presi-
dent Donald Trump.
The former New York
City mayor was forced to
defend his divisive record on
race, gender and Wall Street
in his debate-stage debut,
while Sanders, appearing
in his ninth of the 2020 pri-
mary season, tried to beat
back pointed questions about
his health and his embrace of
democratic socialism.
Fierce exchanges through-
out the two-hour affair
marked the most aggressive
sustained period of infi ghting
in the Democrats’ yearlong
search for a presidential nom-
inee, refl ecting rising urgency
in a 2020 primary season that
is already deep into its voting
phase. Nevada votes Satur-
day. South Carolina the week
after. And more than a dozen
states host a series of Super
Tuesday contests in less than
two weeks.
In a fi ght for her politi-
cal life, Massachusetts Sen.
Elizabeth Warren was a
leading aggressor against
Bloomberg. She was on the
attack throughout the night
following a sharp slide in the
polls, calling Bloomberg “a
billionaire who calls people
fat broads and horse-faced
lesbians.”
She wasn’t alone.
Sanders lashed out at
Bloomberg’s policing poli-
cies as New York City mayor
that he said targeted “Afri-
can-American and Latinos in
an outrageous way.”
And former Vice Pres-
ident Joe Biden charged
that Bloomberg’s “stop-
and-frisk” policy ended up
“throwing fi ve million black
men up against the wall.”
Bloomberg defended him-
self on all counts and took
AP Photo/John Locher
From left, Democratic presidential candidates, former New York City Mayor Michael
Bloomberg, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.,former Vice President
Joe Biden, former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., stand on
stage before a Democratic presidential primary debate on Wednesday in Las Vegas.
a shot at Sanders’ electabil-
ity: “I don’t think there’s any
chance of the senator beating
Donald Trump.”
Bloomberg later seized on
Sanders’ rising wealth: “The
best known socialist in the
country happens to be a mil-
lionaire with three houses!”
Sanders defended own-
ing multiple houses, noting
he has one in Washington,
where he works, and two in
Vermont.
While Bloomberg was the
“I HEAR HE’S GETTING POUNDED
TONIGHT — YOU KNOW HE’S
IN A DEBATE”
— Donald Trump, President of the United States
shiny new object Wednes-
day, the debate also marked
a major test for Sanders, a
self-described
democratic
socialist who is emerging as
the front-runner in the Dem-
ocrats’ nomination fi ght,
whether his party’s establish-
ment likes it or not. A grow-
ing group of donors, elected
offi cials and political oper-
atives fear that Sanders’
uncompromising progressive
politics could be a disaster in
the general election against
Trump, yet they’ve struggled
to coalesce behind a single
moderate alternative.
Former
Midwestern
Mayor Pete Buttigieg went
after both Bloomberg and
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but the stakes were no less
dire for the other four candi-
dates on stage.
Longtime establishment
favorite Biden, Obama’s two-
term vice president, desper-
ately needed to breathe new
life into his fl ailing campaign,
which entered the night at the
bottom of a moderate muddle
behind former South Bend,
Indiana, Mayor Buttigieg and
Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobu-
char. And after a bad fi nish
last week in New Hampshire,
Massachusetts Sen. Warren
was fi ghting to resurrect her
stalled White House bid.
A Warren campaign aide
said on Twitter that her fi ery
fi rst debate hour was her best
hour of fundraising “to date.”
The other leading pro-
gressive in the race, Sand-
ers came under attack from
Biden and Bloomberg for
his embrace of democratic
socialism.
Sanders, as he has repeat-
edly over the last year,
defended the cost of his sig-
nature “Medicare for All”
health care plan, which
would eliminate the private
insurance industry in favor of
a government-backed health
care system that would cover
all Americans.
“When you asked Bernie
how much it cost last time
he said ... ‘We’ll fi nd out,’”
Biden quipped. “It costs over
$35 trillion, let’s get real.”
The debate was set at the
Paris Las Vegas hotel on the
heart of the Las Vegas Strip,
bringing the political cir-
cus alongside the showgirls,
slot machines and glitz that
Las Vegas is known for. The
casino, which sits directly
across the Strip from the
Bellagio’s famous foun-
tains, features a replica Eif-
fel Tower out front with legs
that extend inside into the
casino fl oor.
As Democrats were clus-
tered inside the casino, out-
side on the Las Vegas Strip,
Republicans hired a mobile
electronic billboard truck to
drive slowly in front of tour-
ists, fl ashing a message pro-
moting Trump’s re-election.
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Sanders, warning that one
threatened to “burn down”
the Democratic Party and the
other was trying to buy it.
He called them “the two
most polarizing fi gures on
this stage.”
Watching from afar,
Trump joined the Bloomberg
pile on.
“I hear he’s getting
pounded tonight — you know
he’s in a debate,” Trump said.
Bloomberg and Sanders
may have been prime targets,
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