Nov. 22, 2019, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement in response to a Nov. 18 letter from Sen. Ron Johnson detailing a conversation he had with President Donald Trump on Aug. 31 when the President said there was no quid pro quo on military assistance, long before the anonymous CIA so-called whistleblower complaint ever became public:

“According to Senate Homeland Security Chairman Ron Johnson, he directly asked President Trump on Aug. 31 if there was a quid pro quo for Ukrainian military assistance to be released. The President told Johnson, ‘No way. I would never do that. Who told you that?’ This was the day before Vice President Pence met with Ukrainian President Zelensky, after which out-of-the-loop U.S. Ambassador Sondland ‘presumed’ and suggested a quid pro quo to a Ukrainian presidential aide that became ground zero for the whole quid pro quo confusion.

“The simple fact that President Trump told Chairman Johnson on Aug. 31 long before the so-called whistleblower complaint was ever made public that there was no quid pro quo and alluded to the probable release of the aid, stating ‘We’re reviewing it now, and you’ll probably like my final decision,’ indicating he would support it, which he did on Sept. 11, effectively ends every conspiracy theory laden timeline that Adam Schiff has concocted. Every person who testified to Schiff’s committee was asked about a quid pro quo, and every witness who thought there was one, and Senator Johnson too received their second-hand information from Sondland, who was demonstrably wrong. The idea that the President craftily shifted his position when the political heat rose, is blown away by the fact that he told Johnson our policy position was no quid pro quo, demonstrating that the hold on the aid was truly an evaluation of whether Ukraine’s corruption made the aid ill-advised and what Europe could to provide more on its end. The impeachment egg that Schiff and Pelosi find on their face can be directly traced to patient zero Ambassador Gordon Sondland, fueled by their partisan desire to impeach Trump at all costs making them willing to believe anything without verifying the facts.

“The impeachment inquiry is damaging our nation, and this clear exoneration of President Trump should be used by Speaker Nancy Pelosi to stop this partisan sham and get back to work.”

Attachments:

“Sondland: ‘No one told me directly that the aid [to Ukraine] was tied to anything. I was presuming it was.’” By Robert Romano, Nov. 22, 2019 at http://dailytorch.com/2019/11/sondland-no-one-told-me-directly-that-the-aid-to-ukraine-was-tied-to-anything-i-was-presuming-it-was/

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 1 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview.

###

Nov. 22, 2019, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement in support of Katharine MacGregor to be confirmed as the next Deputy Secretary of Interior:

“Americans for Limited Government urges the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources to move the nomination of Katharine MacGregor forward with a positive recommendation.  Her career has been dedicated to sound and balanced resource management policies, and she will be an incredible asset to meeting the vision of the Interior Department to promote energy security and critical minerals development, increase access to outdoor recreation opportunities for all Americans, enhance conservation stewardship, improve management of species and their habitats and to uphold trust in the Department of Interior. The Department of Interior manages approximately one-fifth of all land in the United States, and the American public will be well served through Ms. MacGregor’s leadership in this important stewardship mission.”

Attachments:

Letter to Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Nov. 22, 2019 at https://getliberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/KatharineMacGregorLetter11-22-19.pdf

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 1 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview.

###

 

 

Nov. 21, 2019, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement in response to former National Security Council official Fiona Hill’s characterization of Ambassador Gordon Sondland’s activity as a “domestic political errand”:

“Fiona Hill’s description of Ambassador Gordon Sondland’s activity as a ‘domestic political errand’ should remind everyone that it is time for Speaker Nancy Pelosi to begin doing a few domestic political errands of her own. She can start by passing USMCA as negotiated. She can then follow up by cutting the monstrously large federal spending bill by 10 percent in order to keep the budget deficit under $1 trillion. If she really gets ambitious, she could pass the MERIT Act, which would allow the federal government to fire lazy, incompetent or recalcitrant employees. It’s time for Pelosi and the House Democrats to start tending to the domestic political errands that the voters elected them to do.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 1 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview.

###

 

Nov. 20, 2019, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement in response to reports that Ukraine has expanded the criminal investigation of Burisma and that the investigation has been underway for almost two years:

“Ukraine’s confirmation that the Burisma investigation has been expanded has made three things abundantly clear. First, President Zelensky and others have unequivocally said they felt no pressure by the U.S. to investigate the corrupt natural gas firm Burisma or anyone associated with that firm. Second, Ukraine officials have made it clear they had no knowledge military assistance to Ukraine was under scrutiny until an Aug. 29 Politico report broke the news. Third, today’s report that Ukraine prosecutors are expanding their  investigation into Burisma, and that the investigation has been ongoing for almost two years, alleging millions of Ukrainian funds had been stolen by the company is proof that unless President Trump has a time machine, he did not initiate the probe.

“The Pelosi-Schiff impeachment sham rests on a charge of coercion or bribery for something we now know was already taking place, and which those who were purportedly coerced felt no pressure because they were aware that the Burisma investigation had been underway for more than a year. Pelosi and Schiff may go down in history as Congress’ equivalent of Abbott and Costello, with the exception that their confusion and misunderstanding doesn’t lead to hilarity, but rather calamity.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 1 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview.

###

Nov. 20, 2019, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement urging Congress to push the continuing resolution and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) reauthorization off until March 15, past the New Year:

“It is absurd that Congress would pass a continuing resolution into the heart of the Christmas season, setting up a vote on an omnibus bill right before the holiday. Congress should do the right thing and give federal workers peace of mind through the holidays, by extending government funding through March 15.

“A longer time window will also give Congress an opportunity to review the findings of the Justice Department on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuses that occurred in the 2016 elections, when the Trump campaign, the opposition party, was placed under surveillance by the Obama administration in an election year, and give time to put in place real reforms so that political spying never happens again. We have to make sure we get this right, and rushing to reauthorize FISA would be foolish when we’re still waiting on these findings.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 1 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview.

###

Nov. 20, 2019, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement in response to U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland’s testimony that “never received a clear answer” as to why the military aid to Ukraine was suspended:

“The Sondland testimony is nothing more than kicking over the same rocks that already been turned over in his prior testimony. The simple fact remains that Sondland mistakenly ‘presumed’ by his own testimony that the release of military aid to Ukraine was conditioned to a public statement by Ukraine on investigating corruption. He says, ‘No one told me directly that the aid was tied to anything.’ Sondland then acted as patient zero spreading this notion throughout the foreign service and to Ukraine even though he admits in his own testimony no one told him that any quid pro quo related to the aid existed.

“To sum up, Sondland’s presumption about military aid is the root of the entirety of the Democratic case, but nobody told him to condition the aid as he per his testimony ‘never received a clear answer’ as to why the military aid to Ukraine was suspended. The actual quid pro quo for a meeting which Sondland references had already been dismissed as the meeting which the Ukrainian government wanted on Sept. 1 (which Trump was going to attend until a hurricane hit the U.S.) was already happening without any public statement having ever been issued, as other diplomats have testified.”

 

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 1 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview.

###

Nov. 19, 2019, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement noting that Congress explicitly tied military assistance to Ukraine to Defense Department certifications that Ukraine is showing “improvement in transparency, accountability… for purposes of decreasing corruption”:

“The President is fully within his Article II foreign affairs to reconsider the U.S. relationship with Ukraine, including whether providing military assistance there is consistent with U.S. interests. Under law, the Ukrainian military assistance is explicitly linked to certifications that Ukraine is showing ‘improvement in transparency, accountability… for purposes of decreasing corruption.’ Given Congress’ specific requirements related to corruption, it is clear that even if President Trump had tied military assistance to action by Ukraine on corruption, and wished to roll back prior certifications made, it would have been more than consistent with the law. The fact that he did not exposes the Pelosi-Schiff impeachment as nothing more than a sham.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 1 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview.

###

 

Nov. 18, 2019, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement urging Congress and the Trump administration to reject any government rate setting proposal on surprise medical billing:

“The problem of surprise medical billing has become a hot topic in Washington, D.C. but government rate setting is an unacceptable solution. When there’s a dispute between doctors and insurance companies, patients should not have to resolve it, which is why Congress and the Trump administration should consider an approach that institutes an independent, neutral, third party system for billing dispute resolution that will put patient needs first. That way, families can focus on their care rather than completing bureaucratic tasks just to access benefits, or worse being stuck with a surprise billing that cannot be paid. When New York and Texas agree on something, then perhaps it might just be a common sense, bipartisan solution that can be used to address surprise medical billing.”

Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 1 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview.

###