increasing accountability and sustaining improvements of combat capability unquote meriting obligation of the entire 250000000 in usa i funds this brings me to the topic of today's proceedings i would like to recap my recollection of the timeline in which these events played out i testified about all of this at length in my deposition in july i became aware of a hold being placed on obligation of the state department's foreign military financing or f.m.s. and d.o.d.'s usa i funds in a series of interagency meetings i heard that the president had directed the office of management and budget to hold the funds because of his concerns about corruption in ukraine let me say at the outset that i have never discussed this or any other matter with the president and never heard directly from him about this matter at a senior level meeting i attended on july 26th chaired by national security council

leadership as at all other interagency meetings on this topic of which i was aware the national security community expressed unanimous support for resuming the funding as in the u.s. national security interest at the july 26th meeting there was also a discussion of how ukrainian anti-corruption efforts were making progress do you do you reiterated what we had said and our earlier certification to congress stating that sufficient progress in defense reform including anti-corruption had occurred to justify the usa i spending. i and others at the interagency meetings felt that the matter was particularly urgent because it takes time to obligate that amount of money and my understanding was that the money was legally required to be obligated by september 30th the end of the fiscal year in the ensuing weeks until the hold was released on september 11th i pursued 3 tracks 1st starting on july

31st and an interagency meeting i made clear to the interagency leadership my understanding that once do you deal reaches the point at which it does not have sufficient time to obligate all the funding by the end of the fiscal year there were only 2 ways to discontinue obligation of us a i a president directed rescission or a d o d directed reprogramming action either of which would need to be notified to congress i never heard that either was being pursued 2nd i was in communication with the d.o.d. security assistance implementing community to try to understand exactly when they would reach the point at which they would be unable to obligate all the funds by the end of the fiscal year i received a series of updates and in a september 5th update i and other senior defense department leaders were informed that over 100000000 could not be obligated by september 30th and 3rd i was

advocating for a meeting of the cabinet level principals with the president to explain why the assistance should go forward although i heard of attempts to discuss the issue with the president i never received details about any conversations other than a status update that the hold had not been lifted. after the decision to release the funds on september 11th of this year my colleagues across the do you do you secure the assistance enterprise work tirelessly to be able to ultimately obligate about 86 percent of the funding by the end of the fiscal year more than they had originally estimated they would be able to do to a provision in september's continuing resolution appropriating an amount equal to the an obligated funds from fiscal year 2019 we ultimately will be able to obligate all of the usa funds given how critical these funds are for bolstering ukraine

security and deterring russia i appreciate this congressional action. that concludes my opening statement but before answering your questions there is one other matter i would like to address i testified in a deposition before this committee and other committees on october 23rd 2019 at that time i was asked questions about what i knew about when the ukrainian government may have learned about any hold on security assistance funds i answered those questions based on my knowledge at that time since my deposition i have again reviewed my calendar and the only meeting where i recall a ukrainian official raising the issue with me is on september 5th at the ukrainian independence day celebration i have however since learned some additional information about this subject from my staff prior to my deposition testimony i

avoided discussing my testimony with members of my staff or anyone other than my attorney to ensure that my deposition testimony was based only on my personal knowledge my deposition testimony was publicly released on of amber alert and 2019 members of my staff read the testimony and it's come to me since then and provided additional information. specifically on the issue of ukraine's knowledge of the hold or of ukraine asking questions about possible issues with the flow of assistance my staff showed me 2 unclassified emails that they received from the state department one was received on july 25th at 2 31 pm that e-mail said that the ukrainian embassy and house foreign affairs committee are asking about security assistance the 2nd e-mail was received underly 25th at 4 25 pm that e-mail said that the hill knows about the f m f situation to an extent and so does

the ukrainian embassy i did not receive either of these e-mails my staff does not recall informing me about them and i do not recall being made aware of their content at the time i do not have any additional information about precisely what the ukrainians may have said what may have been their source of information about a holder any possible issues with the flow of assistance or what the state department officials may have told them my staff also advised me in the last few days of the following additional facts that may be relevant to this inquiry again my staff does not recall informing me about them and i do not recall being made aware of this on july 3rd at 4 23 pm they received an e-mail from the state department stating that they had heard that the c.n.n. is currently being blocked by o.m.b. this apparently refers to the congressional notification state would send for ukraine f.m. after i have no further information on this on july 25th

a member of my staff got a question from the ukraine embassy contact asking what was going on with ukraine security assistance. because at that time we did not know what the guidance was on usa i the o.m.b. notice of apportionment arrived that day but this staff member did not find out about it until later i was informed that the staff member told the ukrainian official that we were moving forward on us ai but recommended that the ukraine embassy check in with state regarding the aftermath sometime during the week of august 6 to 10 a ukraine embassy officer told a member of my staff that a ukrainian official might raise concerns about security assistance in an upcoming meeting my understanding is that the issue was not in fact raised again i have no further information about what concerns about the security assistance ukraine may have had at that time my staff also recall thinking that ukrainians were aware of

the hold on security assistance during august but they cannot pinpoint any specific conversations where it came up my staff told me they are aware of additional meetings where they saw officials from the ukrainian embassy in august and they believe that the question of the hold came up at some point but they told me they did not find any corresponding e-mail or other records of those meetings consequently neither they nor i know precisely when or what additional discussions may have occurred with the ukrainians in the month of august if i had more details on these matters i would offer them to the committee but this is the extent of additional information i have received since my deposition mr chairman i welcome your questions i will answer them to the best of my ability thank you. thank you just want to. for this hearing we will forego the 1st round of questions by committee counsel and immediately proceed to member questions under the 5 minute

rule i do want to respond to the comments of my ranking member however that i think suggested that this was a surprise to the minority we informed the minority of last night. after our hearing that we would because of the nature of testimony today we did not believe that a staff member around was necessary. and the message we got back from the minority was ok got it thanks for the heads up so the minority was on notice it raised no objection about going directly to member around i also want to point out that. the minority is represented that we have not called any minority witnesses that is not accurate mr hale appears tonight as a minority witness and no that's not how you characterize yourself mr hill but your testimony was crafted by the minority likewise 2 of the witnesses yesterday. as well as mr morrison were both minority requested witnesses now mr bowker

testified that he didn't believe any of the allegations against joe biden and in retrospect that he should have understood that investigation into barisan it was really an investigation into biden which he acknowledged would be inappropriate and mr marson gave testimony as to conversations that he had with ambassador sonnen. about the conversations that he had relayed to the ukrainians about the hold and secure assistance being a result of the failure to secure the investigation so i can understand why the minority does not want to now characterize them as minority requests to witnesses but nonetheless they were minority requested witnesses i now recognize myself for 5 minutes and i want to begin by asking you. it's cooper about what you just informed us of to make sure that i understand the import of what you're saying as early as july 25th this same day

president trump spoke with president saleh on the phone and. asked for this favor the same day that presents a linsky thank the united states for its military support and signaled it was ready to purchase more javelins on that date. you got inquiries your staff got inquiries from someone at the ukrainian embassy who was concerned about the status of the military assistance is that correct sir that's correct i would say that specifically the ukrainian embassy staff asked what is going on with ukrainian security assistance and did that connote to you that they were concerned that something was in fact going on with it. yes or. and you received i guess your staff received more than one inquiry on that day what was the other the nature of the other inquiry in july 25th. that was the one inquiry to my staff but the

other points that i had raised were e-mails reflecting outreach to the state department so the ukraine embassy was also concert contact in the state department to find out about its portion of military assistance yes there and was that similarly a concern about what's going on with our military and it was similarly a question about what what's going on with security assistance and your staff or one of the other department staff also heard in august additional inquiries from the ukraine embassy about a potential hold up in the military assistance. so i want to be careful about how i phrase this my staff recall having had meetings with ukrainian embassy representatives chairing the month of august and they believe that the topic came

up at some point during those meetings but they don't recall the precise date or specifically what that the nature of the discussion was but your staff at least gleaned from those conversations that ukrainian embassy was aware that there was some kind of a hold on the assistance. through the way i would phrase that is that there was some kind of an issue yes. you are now it was cooper the 3rd witness. before our committee has testified that the ukrainians found out about the problem or a hole in the security systems prior to it becoming public but you're the 1st to indicate that that may go back as early as the date of the president's call the president's olinsky let me move to a related issue in august you testified your deposition that you met with kurt volker i believe was an august 20th the hold on security assistance was still in place you testified that ambassador volcker told you that if you could get zelinsky

to make a public statement quote that would somehow disavow any interference in u.s. elections and would commit to the prosecution of any individuals involved in election interference it might lift the hold on security assistance is that current or i believe that i testified that it was my inference that that would lift the hold on ukraine security assistance and that was your inference because at the time you were talking about the hold on security assistance that's correct the 1st part of our conversation was about the hold on security assistance and it was during that portion of the conversation that he brought up the effort to. get this public statement. it was during that conversation i'm not sure i would say it's during that part of the conversation what else did you discuss in the conversation the only 2 topics that i recall are the urgency of lifting the hold on security

assistance and then him relaying this separate diplomatic effort that i had previously been unaware of so you don't have any discussion about any white house meeting there i don't recall specifically talking about the white house meeting but we have had many conversations about the desire for the white house meeting so it's likely that that was a part of the conversation but the 2 things you do recall are the you talked about the hold on security assistance and then he brought up this public statement that they wanted selenski to get that he thought. might be useful that is correct. mr newness. you know there is mr reckless thank you gentleman for yielding ambassador hailed as cooper thank you both for being here. in his opening ranking member noone is reference president

trumps general skepticism of providing aid and the amount of foreign aid being provided to foreign countries would you agree with that characterization vaster how . we've all often heard of the state department that the president noted states wants to make sure that foreign assistance is reviewed scrupulously to make sure that it's in trillion u.s. national interests and that we evaluate it continuously to meet certain criteria that the president established and since his election is a fair to say the president trump is look to overhaul how foreign aid is distributed. yes the n.s.a. launched a foreign assistance review process sometime i think it was late august early september 28th and throughout both his campaign is ministration president trump has repeatedly sought to reframe reframe american foreign policy in economic terms and as he described america 1st policy inconsistent with that well before there was

a whistleblower talking about a pause on aid to the ukraine the president had expressed genuine concern about providing us foreign assistance to that point is it fair to say that the president has wanted to ensure the american taxpayer money was being effectively and efficiently spent outside of the united states yes that is the broad intent of the foreign assistance or view among other goals and has the president expressed that he expects our allies to give their fair share of foreign aid as evidence by a point that he raised during the july 25th phone call with president zelinsky to that effect the principle of greater burden sharing by allies and other like minded states is an important element of the foreign assistance review is it fair to say that in the trumpet ministration us aid is withheld from foreign countries for a number of factors correct and you've testified in your prior testimony that it is normal to have delays on 8. i may have said it that

way it is certainly an occurrence it does occur in the past year ukraine was not the only country to have aid withheld from it is that correct correct in the past year was 8 held withheld from pakistan yes or why was aid withheld from pakistan because of unhappiness over the policies and behavior of the pakistani government toward certain proxy groups that were involved in conflicts the united states and in the past year was aid also with help from honduras aid was withheld from the 3 states and central northern central america yes the past year was aid withheld from lebanon. yes sir and when aid was 1st held with help. from lebannon were you given a reason why it was withheld no so having no explanation for why aid is being withheld is not uncommon i would say it is not the normal way that we function

but does happen it does happen and it's true that when a was being withheld from lebanon that was at the same time aid was being withheld from ukraine for xor and. you've testified that the aid to lebanon still hasn't been released is that right that is correct all right but the aid to ukraine was released on september 11th correct. yes so it's fair to say that aid has been withheld from several countries across the globe for various reasons and in some cases for reasons that are still unknown just in the past year carex or so the surgeons been made that president trump ukraine policy changed when there was a pause in the the aid or the aid was withheld. is that accurate statement that was not the way i understood things to be happening at the time we were not given an explanation and in terms of our policy in terms of aid to

ukraine you have described is very robust our aid to ukraine yes yes. as evidenced by president trumps policy decision to provide lethal defensive weapons javelin missiles it was very robust yes sir. and that was a decision the president made that president the prior administration president obama had not done lethal weapons had not been provided to ukraine in the obama administration correct i was done volves in ukrainian affairs during the obama administration so i don't feel competent to address them. and when aid to ukraine was put on pause i believe you've testified that there may have been concern by secretary kant and by ambassador taylor that it was contributing to a potentially negative effect on u.s. ukraine relations do you agree with that or with the state department position was to advocate for the continuation of that assistance as an important element in fact

a key element of our strategy to support russia support ukraine against russia my time's expired and you'll back those times thank you mr chairman thank you darwin this is for testifying tonight i'm delighted to follow mr radcliffe because he just perfectly summarized the defense that my republican colleagues are mounting of this behavior and the defense goes like this the president is acting on some deep historical concern apparently invisible concern about corruption and that because he's so concerned about corruption in ukraine he's holding up aid and being prudent in judicious the 1st part of that is pretty easy to dispose of because president trump wasn't worried about corruption in ukraine in fact in the 2 conversations he had with the president of ukraine on april 21st and july 25th not once does the present

a united states use the word that were mentioned corruption to the president the 2nd part of that is a little bit more interesting that he's just being prudent and holding up aid that's not just wrong it's illegal because miss cooper and i want you to help us walk through this since the empowerment control act of 1984 the president has not had the authority to on a whim or out of prudence or as my republican say because of a general skepticism of foreign aid to stop foreign aid is covered under our constitution it's the congress not the president that controls the power of the purse correct. yes there and this a curity assistant that with the assistance that was authorized to ukraine was authorized and appropriated by the congress correct. there so congress is also concerned about corruption it wants to ensure that american foreign assistance is spent wisely and does not worsen corruption and so when congress authorized this money it built in conditioned just as mr radcliffe suggested by law ukraine

wouldn't get all the money until it demonstrated that it on undertaken substantial anti-corruption reforms is cooper under the law the department of defense works with the state department and other agencies to establish anti-corruption benchmarks and determine whether ukraine has officially met those benchmarks correct that's correct that provision pertains to the ukraine security assistance initiative and that's not that's a legally specified process that's not the president in the oval office manifesting a general skepticism of foreign aid right it's a process it is it is a congressionally mandated process yes there so did that process take place for the dio defunding that was help held up in july or that process that took place or the certification place prior to the may certification to the u.s. congress so right not only did it take place before as required by law but months

before president trump froze the money the department of defense in consultation with state sent a letter to congress certifying and you've said this in your opening statement the government of ukraine has taken substantial actions to make defense institutional reforms for the purposes of decreasing corruption increasing accountability and sustaining of improvements of combat capability enabled by u.s. assistance. so by the time president trump froze the the department of defense had spent weeks if not months determining that the ukrainian government met every requirement in the law and made significant strides in combating corruption is that correct as correctly made that determination in may so this wasn't about corruption at the time line proves it and in fact if there was any doubt about what was going

on here the chairman referred to your inference from the conversation with ambassador volcker that if the ukraine made a statement committing to the investigations the aid would be lifted you covered that with the chairman and then of course we have the press conference of october 17th when mick mulvaney. let the cat fully out of the bag he revealed that president trump talked to him about and i quote mick mulvaney here the corruption related to the d.n.c. server and admitted that quote that's why we held up the money and the other explanation for the hold is a farce now in my remaining 30 seconds just so that people understand what i referred to in the 1970 s. richard nixon just arbitrarily decided i don't know it was because he had a general skepticism of foreign aid or what his motives were but richard nixon decided to hold up congressionally mandated aid and as a result congress went to work and passed the impoundment control act of 1904 which

prohibits the president from withholding congressionally appropriated funds without the approval of congress for any reason is that correct is cooper. so i'm not a lawyer but that approximates my understanding of the provision of the in the comic ok i'll go with that approximates thank you very much and you'll like the balance of my time this conaway. as paul harvey said is the rest of the story and my colleague failed to put the right to fastest on certain issues with respect to certification the decertification was not corruption writ large throughout the entire country of ukraine it was narrowly focused on defenses to 2 short forms and combat capability is that curtness cope that's correct sir 1st i was covert thank you for being yourself you know projected but my colleagues seem to leave that out it's original he didn't read it when we read your statement but he left off the corrected emphasis so sort of occasion it may didn't really speak to the broader

concept of corruption throughout the rest of ukraine that the president would be familiar with the rest of us would be for me with. her the main certification was specific to the defense sector thank you fence industry and it did reference the importance of civilian control of the military relates which relates more broadly to robert i think i think all of us what are your numbers of the would argue that that fix is corruption throughout the rest of the country. maybe you could shed some light on the specific details we talk about this you just security assistance program 250000000. some would argue that because the pause that people died and august because of the pause can you help us understand exactly what obligated and was there things that were about to be delivered to your crane was ukraine out of ammunition with out of out of javelins without all the stuff of that because of this pause they didn't get certain lethal equipment that they needed in order to protect their folks during the month of august. so there we will deliver all of the

i'm still trying to get a time and i'm still in it if there was no shortfall in equipment delivery is that were expected within that timeframe obligate means that you're putting the funding on contract ok and that's contract starting the process of how those contracts will be full fulfilled 4th quarter perhaps or whatever it was i have to say i'm a policy official i am not a contracting experts but my understanding is that we will be able to make up for lost time in their contract in process if you go through 3 or 4 steps that you went to because you disagreed with the whole being placed on the on the on the assistance and i certainly agree with that but did you get any kind of criticism from the folks that you deal with because you were going against the would be direction to put a hold on that did you get criticized at all for that absolutely not my entire town of command was supportive of advocating for removing the hold on the funds and you

were restricted on the full throated advocate advocating on behalf of getting this whole lift where you know so i face no restrictions ok. well thank you for that thought you might be more in touch with actual for civics of the accounting process and so i will up for ready for the questions and again thanks for being our night your back this will thank you mr chairman ambassador hell i when did you actually find out about the hold on the ukraine is this it was a july 21st. yes in the deposition that i did the closed hearing i misspoke i was confused i confused june 21st which was once when state 1st sent the c.n. up to disks aggression out of cation o.m.b. for clearance it was only after about july 18th i think the 21st is when i heard that there was a potential hold thank you for that clarification now did you attend the july 26th

deputies meeting deputies committee meeting that occurred yes i did was it also going to standing that the president directed the whole. we were told in that meeting by the o.m.b. representative that they were objecting to proceeding with the assistance because the president had so directed through the chief of staff acting chief of staff what was the state department's position regarding the whole state department advocated as i did in that meeting for proceeding with all of the assistance consistent with our policies and interests in ukraine you believed what you said you believed in the release of the whole yes i did did anyone at the inner agency meeting at the end of july support the whole did anybody want to hold remain and if so who what agency only agency the only agency represented in the meeting that indicated that they supported the hold was o.m.b. . miss cooper did you understand similarly that there was an overwhelming

interagency concern a consensus to lift the hold and that o.m.b. at the direction of the president was the only roadblock. yes ma'am how is the security assistance in the national security interests of the united states what is our interests explain that to my constituents in alabama who are wondering why we should care about the security the whole that's on the security assistance yes ma'am this specific assistance helps build the capacity of the ukrainian armed forces and some porton to understand that these are forces that are fighting to defend themselves against russian aggression every day it's an ongoing war so they do need this equipment to support their ability to defend themselves and i would say there's a larger issue here that relates to u.s. policy on russia we believe it's very important to strengthen the capacity of

ukraine in order to deter russian aggression elsewhere around the world exactly were you ever able to get a reason why that hold was on if you ever get a reason. the only thing that i heard about it but this is again you know 2nd 3rd hand i was that the president was concerned about corruption but that was all i ever heard. so would you were you ever provided any additional information about the reason for the whole you know ma'am i thank you i yield the balance of my time to the chairman to thank the gentleman my colleague the minority. trail was a calm and holds on military aid and i thank you so they're not unusual would you agree though that it would be very unusual to place all the military aid in order to leverage a foreign country to get them to investigate

a political opponent yes and i take it you would agree that that would be completely inappropriate. inconsistent with the conduct of our foreign policy in general and would also be wrong wouldn't. so i know what i would do. is to turn or cause or be interesting if any were just ever testified that that was the case the old my time to mr jordan. thank the gentleman for yielding personal i just wanted to go where the chairman started he said that vassar hale was one of our witnesses they're all your witnesses you've called 17 witnesses you subpoenaed 15 of them they're all your witnesses we didn't get a subpoena anyone reading the call anyone you gave us an opportunity to get a list to you a couple weeks ago where we made suggestions on who you might allow us to have so we did put 3 people of those 17 on that list so that they could provide at least

some semblance of of context and framework for this entire thing so once again trying to misleading the folks watching this hearing is is not not helpful thank you both for being here and for your service to our country and bastard i read through yours. basser pakistan lebanon special envoy the middle east and bash to jordan served in tunisia bahrain saudi arabia been about every hotspot on the planet thank you for those hardship assignments we we appreciate your your service let me go up 1st to earlier this today mr sandlin ambassador silence accused me said that he was denied access to some of his records in the state department out a statement they said this ambassador son unlike every current department of state employee called before congress in this matter retained at all times and continues to retain full access to his state department document terry records and his state

department e-mail account which he has always been fully free to access and review at will that's an accurate statement from the state department as an investor hail i had not seen it until shortly before entering this hearing room but it sounds actor and yes for shape that. ambassador you're aware of no connection between the pozen aid. in exchange for any kind of investigation is that correct i'm sorry mr key word can you repeat the question you're not aware of any connection between the pause in aid and in exchange for some kind of investigation being announced or done by ukraine as a right and you're not aware of secretary palm pale having any knowledge direct knowledge of the connection between investigations and security a 2nd i think i'm not aware that he did not speak to me about that you're not aware of any nefarious motive to withhold aid to ukraine is that correct correct sir in fact you testified that what you knew was that president trump was one skeptical of

foreign assistance generally mr radcliffe highlighted that in his round of questioning and to skeptical of the corruption environment in ukraine is that accurate. well we had heard that there was a general impression at the state department correct and the aid was actually eventually released to ukraine is that correct as well yes i read that sir and there was just a 55 day or less than 2 months pause in the actual hold on the 8 is that right investors seem so yes correct and to your knowledge as a top principal at the state department and investigation into the bidens charisma of the 2016 election never happened by the ukrainians is that correct i don't know that i have the ability to answer that question having taken this job in august of 2018. 0 well since you've taken the job how about that to my knowledge that's correct thank you i yield back

mr carson thank you chairman mr cooper ukraine is the 1st line of defense against russia's aggression and expansion into europe numerous witnesses testified that ukraine is in fact vulnerable to russian influence and control. your deposition sir you testified that providing security assistance is quote vital to helping the ukrainians be able to defend themselves in quote what do you mean by that sir that we have a long standing policy of helping ukraine become a resilient state in order to be able to defend itself we want to reliable and resilient and self-reliant secure an economic partner in ukraine that can stand up to russian intimidation and aggression you testified at the time of russia's 2014 attack that the ukrainian armed forces were quote significantly less capable than

it is today in quote would you say sir that ukrainian forces were outmatched by russia's military in important ways. that i did not so testify i think you. i mean that's trail of course miss cope or maybe some group or would you like to comment and so i do believe that was my deposition but could you just repeat the question briefly so during the time of russia's 2014 attack the ukrainian armed forces were called significantly less capable than it is today would you say that ukrainian forces were outmatched by russia's military in critical ways absolutely are you creating forces now completely self-sufficient in your mind essentially in their ability to deter russian aggression no sir they say they have a long way to go. would you say that the ukrainian armed forces now kampar now completely self-sufficient or how much of an impaired do as the us need to have

in terms of that deterrence and how critical is the relationship between wealthy crain in the us. so the ukrainians are on the right path to be able to provide for their own security but they will still need u.s. and allied support for quite some time and they need that support in the form of no tangible assistance as well as political and diplomatic support so this question is to both of you why was russia's illegal entered station of crimea so significant in your mind on cooper russia violated the sovereignty of ukraine's territory illegally annexed territory that belong to ukraine they also denied ukraine access to its naval fleet at the time and to this day russia is building

a capability on crimea designed to expand russian military power projection far beyond the immediate region in 24 chain were there are concerns in washington here in washington and european capitals that russia might not stop in ukraine i was not in my current position in 2014 but it is my understanding that there was significant fear about where russian aggression would stop so what would what about today if if the u.s. were to withdraw its military support of ukraine what would effectively happen it is my belief that if we were to withdraw our support it would embolden russia it would also validate russia's file ation of international law and which country stands to benefit the most would still a bit at the most from such

a withdrawal russia ambassador taylor testified about the importance of the us upholding the international system. and it is under written peace in europe since the end of world war 2 a critical aspect of defending that system is ensuring that russia cannot change its borders by military force that is why there is strong bipartisan support for providing ukraine with security assistance that is why it is so incredibly destructive of the president of the united states to withhold this assistance as part of a scheme to pressure ukraine to investigated the bunk conspiracy theory and attack former vice president biden mr chairman are you about to start one stroke thank you mr chairman thank you both for being here the army reserve surgeon i can say is both of you had that i served proudly for 2 republicans and 2 democrat

presidents myself. when i go to her. campaign 3 heard the president had directed the office of management and budget to hold funds because of his concerns about corruption in in ukraine and you know you're in the dio deeside here you know i served a year in iraq and it was important and i think it's something that the army always does as i have seen that we don't want to deliver aid or assistance if there if it's going to some corrupt or being delivered in some corrupt way in other words if we're going to build a medical treatment facility for the iraqis we want to make sure we're not getting charged 10 times as much i mean we we could be concerned about corruption in general when we're delivering funds. through the deity is that correct. yes or no. so i think that that that's a normal thing to do want to be concerned about and we would do that and interact

and especially if we're providing payment for something so i just want to go through a few things with the because multiple witnesses have testified that the action to provide javelins to ukraine by the trumpet ministration demonstrated strong u.s. support to ukraine and vasser yavanna bitch in her deposition said president trumps decision to provide lethal weapons to the brain that our policy actually got stronger over the last 3 years she also said in terms of lethal assistance we all felt it was very significant with this it minister that the that this administration made the decision to provide lethal weapons to ukraine yes or taylor said it was a substantial improvement in that this administration provided javelin anti-tank weapons very strong political messages said the americans are willing to provide more than blankets bass or volker testified that providing lethal defensive arms to ukraine has been extremely helpful mr volcker also stated and more reason lank it's

an all that's fine but if you're being attacked with mortars and artillery and tanks in need to be able to fight back secretary george can't stated javelins are incredibly effective weapons at stopping armed advance and the russians are scared of them special advisor catherine crop stated javelins help ukraine defend themselves the decision to provide javelins we believe is counter to russian interest do you do you dispute what these witnesses have testified to and including ambassador yavanna village taylor valcke or another. i absolutely agree that the javelin system is an important capability and that this was a very important decision to support ukraine with this capability thank you knew already testified you were personally proud of the trumpet administration's decision to arm ukraine with javelins correct that is correct sir so one of the

things on page 3 tonight you would term about meeting july 26th and if they use. i was aware of the national security community express unanimous support for resuming the funding as in the u.s. national security interests that's correct he said that tonight cracks or so i guess i take a little question with resuming because we don't want to resume as is would that be correct because as is would not include javelin sir i'm i'm not sure i'm following what i was you saying the previous administration javelins were not provided even though they could have been. president obama stopped javelins he could have delivered javelins let's put that sort of i think i should clarify what i meant by that statement resuming was just referring to the fact that o.m.b. had placed a hold on the assistance that we weren't spending ok and i wanted to resume the

spending ok was that we could maintain this policy and maintain the strain in telling the policy but i guess what i'm asking there is a difference and i think under secretary gale you might i thought i saw you nodding the difference being that as it's resumed in this case now it included javelins which the obama administration did not add is that correct. it is true that the trumpet ministration. approved the release of defensive lethal assistance to include javelin whereas the previous administration did not support that policy mr hill you have comment on that it seems correct i defer to miss cooper as the orchestra i think we can conclude more than blankets and m.r. reasons been helping the ukrainians and the lethal defensive weapons are something the trumpet ministration has approved and it's

a benefit to all of us thank you the spear thank you mr chairman thank you both for being here this evening you know there is this mystery surrounding the hold on the aid in. july it appears that back in may miss cooper i believe you said that there was a that was conditioned but you certified in may that the conditions had been met and they included included progress on command and control reform commitment to pursue defense industry reform and pass laws to enable government to government procurement is that correct yes ma'am that's correct so then when you find out in july that they're concerned about corruption you're scratching your head right so yes ma'am we didn't get it and and do you know of any effort that was undertaken then to assess the corruption in ukraine in june

july august. ma'am as i believe i said in my deposition the only specific discussions that i am aware of related to that series of interagency meetings p.c.c. as we called it the p.c.c. policy coronation committee and deputies small group and in those meetings participants did discuss the degree to which. corruption was a concern and the degree to which there was progress and my recollection of what the participants said in these meetings was that there was a very positive sense that progress was being made so you have these meetings progress is being made nothing really changes from may until september that would trigger the release of the money except

a whistleblower came forward. i do not know what triggered the release of the funding all right. the fact that there was reference made to money being withheld in or other countries was made by some of our colleagues but in those situations in countries like pakistan. lebannon there multi-year finding streams correct ma'am those accounts fall outside of my purview so i cannot answer that question well i've been told that that is indeed the case so that there is not the immediate. hit financially that would potentially accrue but the difference as i see it in ukraine as compared to these other countries is that ukraine is engaged in a hot war with russia right now and it seems that withholding that

money. was irresponsible considering that they had made all of this taken steps to meet all the conditions that we had requested of them and congress had appropriated the funds is that not the case. i and my duty colleagues advocated strenuously for the release of these funds because of their national security importance so basically the entire. interests of the department of defense and state department were consistently supportive of releasing those funds everyone was mystified as to why the phones had been withheld and everyone is running around trying to get an answer and you're getting kind of up to 6 responses saying it was the president because of corruption now what we see is that president selenski gets elected in april the expectation

is that vice president pence is going to attend the inauguration in september and then the president pulls the carpet out from under him in terms of him going and then he proceeds in june or july to withhold the funds there is a concerted effort by the president the united states to to act in a manner that is not consistent with our interests in wanting to protect ukraine and help them deal with the russian aggression at its border would you agree with that. i have advocated for the security assistance and i have advocated for high level engagement with the government of ukraine because i think both are in the national security interest. back. the sister and chairman under secretary sic assistant secretary thank you both for

being here. you're both recognizes experts dedicated public servants and i've got to tell you being the president and states is perhaps the most complicated endeavor in the history of the world no one could do it without people like you to provide that backbone that you do and thank you for doing that. i don't mean to repeat the same questions ad nauseum. but i think we reach a point of nauseum i don't know sometime yesterday or some time ago it's some repetitive here and you'll forgive me for doing that although i'm a scooper i do have some some questions based on some things you've said previously and i just want to add for clarification there's a question about these e-mails that. i think they claimed withholding described withholding the aid and they had come from capitol hill or from someone on the foreign affairs committee is that true. sir are you referring to my statement today or something i believe this is previous question we had previous are you aware of

such an amount i'm sorry i don't think i have enough information to make an assessment is that from a particular page in my deposition that no is just reporting that we've heard that there may have been communications good to you with someone on the foreign affairs committee on the hill is that is that not true that there may have been communications with me yes e-mail with you yes sir i am not i am not aware ok thank you. and for clarification as well someone may have ask you or career would you from the ukrainian embassy about the withholding of aid is that true did you hear from them. sir i testified earlier that the communication from the ukrainian embassy was to my staff and my staff mention this to me after my deposition the only specific communication that i recollect with the ukrainians about this specific issue was on i believe it was september 5th at

a reception at the ukrainian embassy and just to bore down on that to slow but was that just a query generally about the forthcoming aid or was it specific regarding them being aware that the aid was being withheld. sir just to be clear the september 5th conversation that i had was specific to the hold there there was an awareness of that and there was a question of concern ok thank you you know mr cooper well to both of you under secretary hell as well at the end of the day it really does and i've done this before it really does come down to this the transcript i'm holding up is a transcript of the phone call between president zelinsky and president trump that it iow would hope every american would take the opportunity to read it's only a few pages long and and much more information beyond that is maybe helpful to inform but it really comes down to those conversations those few sentences but. mr hill. going quickly through

a series of questions and i have your answers here so this won't take long and you've answered them generally anyway you greet the united states should evaluate whether country is worthy of our aid is that fair to say yes or and you understand as well the president trump has been skeptical generally of foreign aid and some of the money that we've given is that fair as well i think so and i think that's being fairly consistent he's done that since before he was elected i think others in the process of test tried the crane is a long history of corruption that's not going to surprise any one of us we've talked about that about a 1000 times do you think it was right the president tell would test is the word i think used previously that he would test prisons and ski prior to route to providing some of the security assistance. the presence of once he was knew i had met him in february i was impressed by him but i think it is understandable for the administration as a new president in ukraine was coming to office to understand better at what that president's policies would be an attitude toward the united states and see the new

secretary i think that's key because we've had referred to all the deal d. had completed their review about the same time but this was a person who was elected and we knew nothing about him he didn't have a history of governance in the ukraine he came really a little bit like present trump himself he did not come from a public background that we would have much information on him and it seems prudent as you said to kind of test him and see if he was serious about ukraine at some point i'm going to conclude i believe is about labor day the secretary was able to engage the president on the security assistance about the same time by the way that you had some others. sector vice president pants a bolton's and and bolton as well as well as a burden sharing review is completed and shortly thereafter the aide was released is that your understanding. i was never informed as to why the assistance was released i did read about it ok well those events did happen and it seemed like they were the reason the aid was released but thank you both and i will fact this

quickly thank you thank you both for being here and thank you for your service evolved and asked about the importance of this military assistance as it affects ukrainian sovereignty and. it's important because of both tensional greater ambitions by the russians try to put it in context and please get your reaction from from both of you from someone who had been there before. a renowned international policy expert on such things zygmunt of brzezinski his quote seems to strike column today he wrote russia can either be an empire or a democracy but it cannot be both without ukraine russia ceases to be an empire with ukraine suborn and then subordinated russia automatically becomes an empire your thoughts of how this puts this into context today please

sir i think that is a very powerful and accurate quote i would agree. the scooper you talked about e-mails that were drawn to your attention. that you were they were sent to your staff is that correct the emails that i discussed this evening were emails sent to my staff that is correct ok i think 1st of all it's important to point this out that it's not something you are aware of it points to a larger issue that the defense department the state department every few years to comply with a duly issued subpoena to provide this committee with documents that would further shed light on when precisely craniums knew about the hole so this isn't something you're aware of but there is untold information out there being blocked would draw

greater light and help us understand is there anything else out there that you're aware of or of possibilities that are out there with d.o.d. or the state department which could help us shed light on what the ukrainians knew and when they knew it. i have shared with the committee all that i recollect but i have not done an exhaustive investigation so i really can't speculate on what else might be available by combing through all of the defense department records which are substantial did the state department the department of fenced ask you for your information or did you did they coordinate with you to get information you had sir i was told not to not to destroy anything and r r r i t personnel have been collecting documents is my understanding so that that occurs

without without the individual having to what they were collecting it and passing it on to state or d.o.b. is act correct i'm sorry sir could you they were not you said your department was collecting it when they weren't passing that on to you they were passing it on to the to the state department. of defense this is what they reported to me i have not seen the documents that have been collected i only know those documents that i have producer that my staff has brought to my attention that i have received so no i do not know what has happened with the documents that have been collected same general question to you sir i requested and was granted access to documents that are either originated or that had been sent to me that were relevant to the pertinent matters of this investigation during a finite time period i don't have really information about what else is going on in terms of other documents that i did not produce or.