Since news broke that a whistle-blower filed an “urgent” complaint against Donald Trump on the basis of a phone conversation in which he allegedly pressured the president of Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and his son, as well as “multiple” other acts, the administration has insisted that the call was “perfectly fine and respectful,” a stance that’s become less and less credible by the hour. But damn if Trump and his allies aren’t trying! On Tuesday that involved admitting to withholding aid from Ukraine ahead of the call with President Volodymyr Zelensky while simultaneously claiming it had nothing to do with the whole Biden thing.

After the Washington Post reported on Monday night that Trump ordered his chief of staff to hold back nearly $400 million in military aid—money that wasn’t released until September 11—“at least a week before a phone call in which [he] is said to have pressured the Ukrainian president to investigate the son of former vice president Joe Biden,” and that lawmakers were told the delay was due to an obscure “interagency process” and given no additional information, the president told reporters that, sure, that’s exactly what happened—but it’s not how it looks!

“As far as withholding funds, those funds were paid. They were fully paid. But my complaint has always been, and I’d withhold again and I’ll continue to withhold until such time as Europe and other nations contribute to Ukraine because they’re not doing it,” Trump said at the United Nations before his speech to the General Assembly.

Of course, when the president says his complaint “has always been” that he wanted other countries to pay their fare share, he means his complaint as of today. Yesterday, he claimed he withheld funding over concerns about corruption, telling reporters, “We want to make sure that country is honest. It’s very important to talk about corruption. If you don’t talk about corruption, why would you give money to a country that you think is corrupt?”

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