The Trump administration threatened to veto the massive spending bill passed this week, possibly leading to a government shutdown, if House Democrats didn’t drop a provision that would have required the quick release of $250 million in defense aid to Ukraine.
According to the Washington Post, the language was dropped and the White House said that President Donald Trump signed the bill into law on Friday, averting the Saturday deadline which would have triggered the shutdown.
Democrats were trying to ensure that Trump couldn’t leverage the military aid to Ukraine again, the way he did with the last payment, a pressure campaign at the heart of the impeachment proceedings. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House legislative affairs director Eric Ueland made it clear that the provision concerning the new aid payment was a dealbreaker.
However, Ueland reportedly insisted that their objection was not over Ukraine specifically, but to protect executive branch powers.
