Trump officials say aid to Puerto Rico was knowingly stalled after Hurricane Maria

[Julian Englis]

Source: The Hill

Two officials with the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) acknowledged during a hearing this week that the agency knowingly stalled sending hurricane relief funding to Puerto Rico after missing a legally required deadline to do so.

HUD’s chief financial officer, Irv Dennis, and David Woll, the department's principal deputy assistant secretary for community planning and development, appeared before a House Appropriations subcommittee for a hearing on Thursday.

The officials said that the agency missed a deadline issued by Congress to start a process to help Puerto Rico receive billions in federal housing funds that Congress had allocated after Hurricane Maria hit the island in 2017.

“All of us at HUD stand shoulder to shoulder with the people of Puerto Rico,” Woll said during the hearing. “At HUD we are committed to the recovery of all Americans whose homes and communities were devastated by natural disasters, and we are steadfast in our stewardship of the funding and trust in us by you in your colleagues in Congress.”

Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/466552-top-trump-admin-officials-say-aid-to-puerto-rico-was-knowingly

[Yavin4]

1. Maybe Puerto Rico should have offered dirt on Joe Biden.

Give Trump dirt on Biden and you get a check.

[dewsgirl]

2. You beat me to it.

[FarPoint]

4. Hahahahahahahaha.....

Yeap...you nailed that one!

[lagomorph777]

27. Same deal, different location.

[PSPS]

3. "committed to the recovery of all Americans"

The trouble here is that these trump nazis don't consider Puerto Ricans to be american. They're the wrong color and can speak another language.

[Dustlawyer]

17. They haven't done much here after Harvey and Imelda either.

He could give a crap about federal disaster recovery unless one of his properties were involved.

[tblue37]

22. Actually, 76% of Puerto Rican are of European descent (mostly Spanish), but because they

speak Spanish, they are assumed not to be white.

[rurallib]

5. I love the sound of whistles blowing on Capitol Hill

[abqtommy]

6. One more impeachable offense and I'm gonna have to get a new hard drive for my computer list!

[Nitram]

7. Why aren't more people reporting this? This should be the biggest story of the year.

Last edited Sat Oct 19, 2019, 10:06 AM - Edit history (1)

Knowingly denying aid to a hurricane-stricken US territory for racist reasons.

[Stuart G]

9. Give this one time...It very well could be the biggest story of the year. This is the major scandal.

This is a horrific story. Needs time to get around. If Trump was behind this, if he made the decision to withhold aid, then this could be the total proof that is needed to bring him down.

This is simple, easy to understand, vicious, without any reason to know of, and the ...

The smoking gun..

Trump didn't look to good throwing that roll of paper towels,
Trump didn't look too good with the way he treated our neighbors and fellow citizens
Trump didn't look too good before this one was released.

..As has been said by others: It gets worse, and worse, and worse.

And it is worse now, than it was before this was made public for all to see...

[Hermit-The-Prog]

13. also robbed Puerto Rico aid money to build the wall

[blm]

8. Horrific

[Stuart G]

10. Why did it miss they deadline? What does "knowingly stalled" mean?

The officials said that the agency missed a deadline issued by Congress to start a process to help Puerto Rico receive billions in federal housing funds that Congress had allocated after Hurricane Maria hit the island in 2017.

If Trump ordered the slowdown of the payments, then it is all over. Everyone understands this, and to treat fellow citizens this way because of..???????

????? could be the biggest scandal of all.. WHY ??????????

just two words,..."knowingly stalled"...

By whom?
And why?

[Igel]

21. The part quoted is confusing.

People write sometime how don't to know.

They missed the deadline. 9/4/19 was the deadline. The deadline wasn't giving them aid ,but notifying them

HUD was supposed to deliver funding notices to 18 states hit by natural disasters by Sept. 4. It successfully published all the notices except for the one for Puerto Rico. The notice’s publication would have allowed the territory to begin crafting a plan to help manage the disaster relief funds.

They held up the process because, they say, of concerns over corruption and such. Not that anybody would ever begin to think that maybe, just maybe, some of the funds previously disbursed were somehow misused or mishandled.

Oh, wait. That was part of the scandal over the summer, a freaking huge part, with billions of dollars in Maria aid both misused and mishandled. New governor was in place less than a month before, and part of what she said she'd be doing is reviewing every single contract.

When she was tapped to be the appointed replacement governor, there were allegations that she, too, had been corrupt.

Moreover, HUD said that they would be missing the deadline weeks before the deadline, precisely because of the corruption scandal, the need to review, and the need to make sure that the funds would be properly handled. In other words, it was public knowledge. Nobody objected, because, well, everybody remembered the corruption scandal from 4 weeks before. They don't remember the corruption scandal now that it's been 13-15 weeks. So we have evidence for how the collective memory decays around here. If we're reminded about it in the last 3 weeks or so, we still remember it. Don't remind us for 12 weeks, and it's like it never happened.

It also affected the USVI. Not that anybody cares about them. It's almost like they're not American citizens or part of the US.

[slumcamper]

11. So, with Perry resigning, today I got to wondering WHO on the "original team" was left.

It occurred to me that dopey Ben has kept his head pretty low and mouth quiet--as in not a peep or an appearance.

Alas, now this...sounds like he has some 'splainin' to do!

[patphil]

15. Maybe someone should reach over and give Ben a nudge to wake him up.

Hey, maybe he died and nobody noticed.

[BadgerMom]

16. Mnuchin, Ross and DeVos

All are greedy crooks.

[catbyte]

12. That's the most unsurprising revelation yet.

Of course that petty, mean-spirited, vindictive, bullying vulgarian would order that. A woman--and a minority woman at that--had the temerity to criticize Dear Leader and for that Puerto Rico must be punished.

I really do hate that narcissistic sociopath with every fiber of my being.

[patphil]

14. In Mick Mulvaney's disasterous (no pun intended) news conference

he stated that aid was withheld from Puerto Rico because there was so much corruption there. And he looked very self satisfied when he claimed it turned out to be true.
He made it sound like Puerto Rico was not part of the United States.
Maybe they aren't a state, but they are US citizens.
Deliberately holding back on aid after the devastation they received from Hurricane Maria looks like a criminal act to me.
It is certainly consistent with the moral depravity and callous disregard for human suffering that is the hallmark of the Trump administration.

Patrick Phillips

[Kid Berwyn]

18. Another Impeachment Article

Abuse of Office

(5)Employees shall put forth honest effort in the performance of their duties.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/5/2635.101

[ck4829]

25. Ooh, good to know

[Delmette2.0]

19. This seems to be another version of stiffing contractors.

Pay someone a little to get started, then refuse to pay the balance.

This is just his mentally on a grander scale.

[Marthe48]

20. How many dead?

How many suffering unimaginable losses? Because trump and his henchmen hate all others. I imagine that they grinning as they are toting up the death tolls on their inhuman war on humans.

[ck4829]

24. Good question

[ck4829]

23. K&R

[Midnight Writer]

26. Mulvaney: "We do it all the time".

[ehrnst]

28. Just tell the administration that Hunter Biden has several love children in PR, and if PR got

aid, that would flush out the mothers.