In her opening statement deputy assistant defense secretary Laura Cooper announced that, following her earlier testimony, her staff had located two emails indicating that not just officials in the United States, but officials at the Ukrainian Embassy, expressed concern about the military assistance hold on July 25. That’s the same day that Donald Trump placed his call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Meaning that Zelensky could very well have been fully aware that Trump had placed a hold on that assistance at the time of the call.
Though testimony in much of the inquiry, including in the hearing with Gordon Sondland on Wednesday morning, there was a pretense that Ukrainians were unaware of the hold on assistance until it became public knowledge at the end of August. Previous witnesses had indicated that the Ukrainians were actually aware of the hold weeks earlier, but were reluctant to raise the issue in diplomatic channels because Ukraine did not want to reveal anything of its intelligence sources in the United States.
But Cooper is the first to indicate that the Ukrainians were already aware of the hold at the time Trump talked with Zelensky. That means that when Trump was asking for investigations into Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, he was not only doing so while withholding defense funding from Ukraine, they knew it.
Cooper’s testimony, and that of other witnesses, completely takes the “Ukraine didn’t even know” claim off the table.
Video and transcript below the fold.
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 23, 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 5, at the Ukrainian Independence Day celebration. I have, however, since learned some additional information on 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 insure my deposition testimony was based only on my personal knowledge. My deposition testimony was publicly released November 11, 2019. Members of my staff read the testimony and have come to me since then and provided additional information. Specifically, on the issue of Ukraine's knowledge of the hold or Ukraine asking questions about possible issues with the flow of assistance, my staff showed me two unclassified emails that they received from the State Department. One was received on July 25, at 2:31PM. That e-mail said that the Ukrainian embassy and House Foreign Affairs committee are asking about security assistance. The second email was received July 25, at 4:25 PM. That email said the Hill knows about the FMF situation to an extent, and so does the Ukrainian embassy. I did not receive either of these emails, 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 hold, or possible issues with a 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 fact 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. July 3, 4:23 PM, they received an email from the State Department saying the CM is currently being blocked by OMB, currently referring to the state investigation the state would send for MFF. On November 25, a member of my staff got a question about what was going on with Ukraine security assistance. At that time, we did not know what the guidance was on USAI. The apportionment arrived that day, but this staff member did not find out about it until later. I was informed the staff member told the Ukrainian official we were moving forward on USAI, but recommended that the Ukraine embassy check in with State regarding the FMS.
Sometime during the week actuate 6-10, a Ukraine officer told a member of my staff a Ukrainian official might raise concerns about security assistance in an upcoming meeting. My understanding was that the issue was in fact not raised. Again, i have no further information about what concerns about the security assistance Ukraine may have had at that time. My staff also recalls thinking 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're aware of additional meetings where they saw officials from the Ukrainian embassy in August, and they believe the question of the hold came up at some point but they told me they did not find any correspondence or record of those meetings, consequently neither they nor I know precisely when what additional discussion mays have occurred with Ukrainians in the month of August. if I had more details on these matters, I would offer them to the committee. 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.