President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the military’s top weapons buyer was the official who directed the Pentagon to withhold aid from Ukraine in 2019.

Michael Duffey, OMB's associate director for national security programs and a Trump political appointee, signed at least some of the documents delaying aid to Ukraine, two sources told CNN. If directed to freeze aid to Ukraine, OMB staffers may have been concerned they were running afoul of the law by not spending the money as appropriated. At a staff briefing in mid-September, State Department officials confirmed that they no objection to the Ukraine funding going forward. The circumstances surrounding the Ukraine funding were also bizarre because the Trump administration provided such a wide variety of reasons to explain the delay. The one explanation the Trump administration rejects: That Trump may have halted money to Ukraine to pressure Ukrainian officials to investigate the Biden family.