Pentagon official testifies Trump directed freeze on aid to Ukraine – NBC News, NBC News

Laura Cooper, the top Pentagon official overseeing U.S. policy regarding Ukraine,told House impeachment investigatorslast month that President Donald Trump directed the relevant agencies to freeze aid to Ukraine over the summer,according to a transcript of her testimony released Monday.

Cooper,during Oct. 23 testimony before the three House committeesleading the impeachment inquiry into Trump’s Ukraine dealings, testified that she and other Pentagon officials had answered questions about the Ukraine assistance in the middle of June – so she was surprised when one of her subordinates told her that a hold had been placed on the funds after an interagency

“I got, you know, I got a readout from the meeting – there was discussion in that session about the – about OMB [Office of Management and Budget] saying that they were holding the Congressional Notification related to ”Ukraine, Cooper testified, according to the transcript.

Cooper, according to the transcript of her testimony, described the hold as” unusual. “

Cooper said that she attended a meeting on July 23, where “this issue” of Trump’s “concerns about Ukraine and Ukraine security assistance” came up. She said the president’s concerns were conveyed by acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney.

Days later, on July 26, she testified that she found out that both military and humanitarian aid had been impacted.

Asked if the president was authorized to order that type of hold, Cooper said there were concerns that he wasn’t.

“Well, I’m not an expert on the law, but in that meeting immediately deputies began to raise concerns about how this could be done in a legal fashion because there was broad understanding in the meeting that the funding – the State Department funding related to an earmark for Ukraine and that the DOD funding was specific to Ukraine security assistance. So the comments in the room at the deputies’ level reflected a sense that there was not an understanding of how this could legally play out. And at that meeting the deputies agreed to look into the legalities and to loo k at what was possible, “she said, according to the transcript.

At the next meeting with national security personnel, she said she told attendees “there were two legally available mechanisms should the President want to stop assistance” – a presidential rescission notice to Congress or for the Defense Department to do “a reprogramming action.”

“But I mentioned that either way, there would need to be a notification to Congress,” she said, according to the transcript.

Asked if that happened, Cooper said , “That did not occur.”

Investigators have zeroed in on the testimony of several key figures in the Ukraine affair – including Bill Taylor, the top US diplomat in Ukraine, and George Kent, a deputy assistant secretary of state who worked on Ukraine and five other countries – to support the allegation that the Trump administration froze aid intended for Ukraine as part of an attempt to pressure the country to open probes that would

The freeze on military aid to Ukraine – which Cooper’s testimony corroborates – is a crucial part of the narrative that Democrats have woven together in attempting to prove that the president Seeking a quid pro quo with Ukraine.

Top Republicans,including Trump himself, have saidthere couldn’t have been a quid pro quo because, they claim, the Ukrainians were not aware that military aid was being withheld in the first place.

However, Cooper testified that she had concluded from conversations she’d had with Kurt Volker, the then-US special envoy to Ukraine, and Taylor, that that couldn’t possibly be true.

“I knew from my Kurt Volker conversation and also from sort of the alarm bells that were coming from Ambassador Taylor and his team that there were Ukrainians who knew about this, “she said, according to the transcript.

Cooper also testified that there was a concerted effort within the executive branch to try to get the president to lift the hold.

“My sense is that all of the senior leaders of the US national security departments and agencies were all unified in their – in their view that this assistance was essential, that we could work with the government of Ukraine to tackle corruption, and they were trying to find ways to engage the President on this, ”Cooper said .

She said she discussed the frozen aid with Volker on Aug. 20.

“So in that meeting he did mention something to me that, you know, was the first about somehow an effort that he was engaged in to see if there was a statement that the government of Ukraine would make that would somehow disavow any interference in US elections and would commit to the prosecution of any individuals involved in election interference. And that was about as specific as it got, “she said.

The transcript of Cooper’s closed -door testimony was just the latest document made public as the probe moves to a new phase. House Democrats last week released transcripts of testimony from Taylor, Kent, Volker, U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland and ousted U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.

The testimony of those key figures have largely established a narrative that suggests the Trump administration sought to tie the nearly $ 400 million in military and security aid to Ukraine as well as the prospect of a coveted White House meeting to demands that Volodymyr Zelenskiy announce probes into former Vice President President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden and a conspiracy related to the 2016 election.

In a statement, the chairs of the three committees leading the inquiry – House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff, D-Calif .; House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Eliot Engel, D-N.Y .; and House Oversight Committee acting Chair Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y. – said Cooper testified that Trump “through the Office of Management and Budget, directed the freeze on hundreds of millions of dollars of critical military aid for Ukraine, against the judgment of career officials in the Department of Defense, Department of State, and other relevant agencies. “

They also said that she had” raised concerns, as did others on several occasions, to senior US government officials about the legality of withholding the congressionally-authorized money, and the challenges that White House delays would put on spending it. “

Cooper’s testimonywas delayed by five hours after a group of House Republicanswho don’t sit on the committees that questioned her stormed the secure room where her deposition was taking place.