Ukraine Aid Delay Didn’t Harm U.S. National Security, U.S. Defense Secretary Says

(Bloomberg) -- U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said the Pentagon is preparing to respond to the House impeachment inquiry, but that the delay in hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Ukraine didn’t harm national security.

Esper said on Sunday that the Defense Department’s focus since he took over has been on the importance of the aid to Ukraine, whether the former Soviet republic had been making progress on corruption, and whether other NATO allies are also assisting Ukraine.

“The key point is this, we got most of the money out on time, as required, and at no point in time was U.S. national security harmed,” he said in an interview on “Fox News Sunday.”

Esper said key officials in the Pentagon have been told to retain documents for the impeachment inquiry, but didn’t commit to a timeline for turning them over.

“I don’t know the status of what that document preparation is, I don’t know what restrictions we may have internally with regard to releasing them. The White House has a say on the release of documents as well,” Esper said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Steven T. Dennis in Washington at sdennis17@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kevin Whitelaw at kwhitelaw@bloomberg.net, Ros Krasny, Tony Czuczka

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.