Defense Official Says Pentagon Learned Late of Ukraine Aid Hold
Defense Official Says Pentagon Learned Late of Ukraine Aid Hold
(Bloomberg) -- A Pentagon official told House impeachment investigators that she and other Defense officials were told that President Donald Trump had “concerns” about nearly $400 million in U.S. military aid to Ukraine a week after a hold was placed on the funds.
Laura Cooper, deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia, said in her Oct. 23 testimony that a White House Office of Management and Budget official explained during a July 23 meeting, “the White House chief of staff has conveyed that the president has concerns about Ukraine and Ukraine security assistance.”
Cooper said there was confusion, including questions about how this could legally play out, according to a transcript of her testimony released Monday.
Two days later, on July 25, President Donald Trump would ask Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to “do us a favor” and investigate allegations of Ukrainian involvement in the 2016 election. The telephone call didn’t become public until after a whistle-blower’s complaint was released two months later.
In the transcript of Cooper’s testimony, she said she believed Ukraine officials were well aware of what the U.S. wanted them to do to unlock frozen military assistance before it became publicly known in late August that the aid had been blocked.
Cooper told the impeachment panels that then-U.S. special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker advised her on Aug. 20 that the withheld funds might be resolved if Ukraine officials made a public statement about investigations.
She testified that Volker told her the statement sought from the Ukrainian government would “disavow any interference in U.S. elections” and “commit to the prosecution of any individuals involved in election interference.”
The House Intelligence, Oversight and Reform, and Foreign Affairs committees also released on Monday the transcripts of the Oct. 30 closed-door testimonies of two other witnesses, both former advisers to Volker.
Christopher Anderson was a career foreign service officer who was a special adviser for Ukraine negotiations until July, and Catherine Croft, is the current special adviser for Ukraine negotiations at the State Department.
Croft said she was involved in a July 18 teleconference in which Deputy Assistant Secretary George Kent asked about a possible hold on the security assistance and that the question, “blew up the meeting.” She said a OMB officer “reported that the White House acting Chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney, had placed an informal hold on security assistance to Ukraine. The only reason given was that it came at the direction of the president,” she said.
Anderson told lawmakers that then-national security adviser John Bolton cautioned him and Volker at a meeting on June 13 over the influence that Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, was having on Trump’s U.S.-Ukraine policy.
Anderson said Bolton warned “that Mr. Giuliani was a key voice with the president on Ukraine, which could be an obstacle to increased White House engagement.” He also recalled that Bolton “made a joke about every time Ukraine is mentioned, Giuliani pops up and that the president was listening to Giuliani about Ukraine.”
On Wednesday and Friday, the Intelligence Committee will begin public hearings as a continuing part of the investigative phase of the impeachment inquiry against Trump.
To contact the reporter on this story: Billy House in Washington at bhouse5@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Laurie Asséo, John Harney
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