White House Budget Aide Testifies on Aid Withheld From Ukraine
Saturday Impeachment Hearing to Feature White House Budget Aide
(Bloomberg) -- A White House budget official testified to the House impeachment inquiry about whether a hold placed on military aid to Ukraine was part of a political deal to aid President Donald Trump.
Mark Sandy, responsible for national security at the Office of Management and Budget, appeared at a rare Saturday session of the House Intelligence Committee to face questions about why the Trump administration withheld almost $400 million that Congress designated to help Ukraine defend its borders and fend off Russian aggression.
“Mr. Sandy’s testimony broadly relates to the hold that the administration placed on security assistance to Ukraine,” said Representative Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat. “What is remarkable about this investigation is that it is almost entirely driven by witness accounts.”
Representative Mark Meadows, a North Carolina Republican, said he heard nothing to back up suggestions about reasons for the aid being delayed.
“We heard today behind closed doors, in general terms, that the assumptions that Democrats have made and certainly the allegations that they have made have not been supported by the witnesses testimony here today,” Meadows said.
Previous witnesses have described how Trump’s allies said that aid wouldn’t be released until Ukraine’s president announced an investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden. Swalwell and Representative Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, didn’t discuss the substance of Sandy’s testimony.
Republicans have complained that these witnesses, including two who appeared in public hearings this week, didn’t have firsthand knowledge about Trump’s motivation for delaying this assistance for Ukraine. Sandy’s testimony potentially offered direct knowledge about the holdup on the aid, which was eventually released under bipartisan scrutiny from Congress. They also said the committee should release Sandy’s testimony before public hearings resume Tuesday.
Other OMB officials, including Acting Director Russell Vought, said they planned to follow the White House directive to not comply with the impeachment inquiry.
The House Committees on Intelligence, Oversight and Foreign Affairs have issued subpoenas for witnesses, including those still employed by the executive branch, to give them legal cover to participate in the inquiry.
The Intelligence Committee called the three witnesses back to Capitol Hill to testify in public this week, following their previous depositions behind closed doors.
The two State Department officials who testified Wednesday, William Taylor and George Kent, detailed how they became aware of requests from Trump allies outside normal diplomatic channels that affected the aid for Ukraine.
Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, testified on Friday how U.S. foreign policy was compromised by people like Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, leading their own shadow diplomacy. She described how Giuliani and his associates spread rumors about her that led to her being recalled from Ukraine in May.
Also on Friday, David Holmes, the political counselor in the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, described a telephone call he overheard between Trump and one of his top diplomats. Speaking to the committees behind closed doors, Holmes said he heard Trump ask Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, about “the investigations” -- a reference to probes about Joe Biden and the 2016 election.
Sondland told Trump that the Ukrainian president “loves your ass” and would do “anything you ask him to,” according to Holmes’s opening statement, which was obtained by CNN.
Swalwell said on Saturday panel members are evaluating whether to call Holmes to testify in public.
To contact the reporter on this story: Daniel Flatley in Washington at dflatley1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Steve Geimann, Matthew G. Miller
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