The Washington Post - 12.11.2019

tuesday, november 12 , 2019. the washington post EZ SU A

BY KAROUN DEMIRJIAN,

ELISE VIEBECK AND

ROSALIND S. HELDERMAN

Two senior U.S. officials told
House impeachment investiga-
tors that Ukrainian leaders were
aware nearly $400 million in con-
gressionally approved security
assistance had been frozen well
before that information became
public, undercutting a key point
of President Trump’s “ no quid pro
quo” defense.
Trump’s d efenders have argued
that the administration could not
have leveraged the security assis-
tance to procure a pledge from
Kyiv to investigate his political
rivals because, they say, Ukraini-
an officials did not know the
money was being withheld before
late August, when that informa-
tion first surfaced in U.S. media
reports.
But according to Catherine
Croft, a Ukraine specialist at the
State Department, the Ukraini-
ans “found out very early on” t hat
the funds had been frozen — a
decision the Office of Manage-
ment and Budget made at
Trump’s behest and circulated to
other government officials on
July 18.
A transcript of Croft’s closed-
door testimony in October was
released by the House Intelli-
gence Committee on Monday,
along with those for the testimo-
ny of Laura Cooper, a Ukraine
expert at t he Pentagon, and Chris-
topher Anderson of the State De-
partment.
Cooper, the deputy assistant
secretary of defense for Russia,
Ukraine and Eurasia, told im-
peachment investigators that
Croft’s boss at the time, Kurt
Volker, had led Cooper to make a
“very strong inference” that the
Ukrainians knew there was a hold
on the military aid long before
that information was made pub-
lic.
Volker, who resigned in Sep-
tember as Trump’s special envoy
to Ukraine, also told Cooper dur-
ing a meeting on or around
Aug. 2 0 that he was working
through a “nontraditional” diplo-
matic channel to get the Ukraini-
an government to commit to
prosecuting people involved in
U.S. election interference — and
that the aid could be released if he
was successful, according to her
sworn testimony to impeachment
investigators.
Cooper did not know many
details about Volker’s effort, but
Anderson noted in his testimony
that Trump’s p ersonal lawyer, Ru-
dolph W. Giuliani, and Gordon
Sondland, U.S. ambassador to the
European Union, were involved
in what many impeachment in-
quiry witnesses have said ap-
peared to be a shadow effort to
shape Ukraine policy.
Sondland, a Trump donor
turned diplomat, was “taken
more seriously” t han career State
Department officials, Anderson
testified, and appeared to have a
“connection to the White House.”
Anderson also recalled hearing
then-national security adviser
John Bolton note that “every time
Ukraine is mentioned, Giuliani
pops up and that the President
was listening to Giuliani about
Ukraine,” according to the tran-
script of his deposition.
Cooper testified that Ukraini-
an leaders would not have enter-
tained the request Volker told her
he was making — for a public
statement denouncing election
interference and promising to
prosecute anyone implicated —
unless they were doing so in ex-
change for “something valuable.”
“There were two specific things
that the Government of Ukraine
wanted during this time frame,”
Cooper told impeachment inves-
tigators. “One was... a hosted
visit at the White House. And the
other was Ukraine security assis-
tance.”
Cooper noted that the acting
ambassador to Ukraine, William
B. Ta ylor Jr., also was sounding
“alarm bells... that there were
Ukrainians who knew” about the
freeze in aid, though she did not
specify exactly when.
To gether, the three transcripts
released Monday depict how
Trump, acting chief of staff Mick
Mulvaney and the Office of Man-
agement and Budget — the agen-
cy Mulvaney led before his cur-
rent White House posting —
worked against the advice, exper-
tise and counsel of every other
U.S. governmental agency in-
volved in Ukraine policy when it
came to delivering the congres-
sionally approved money.
Croft and Cooper testified they
learned on July 18 that Ukraine’s
funds had been frozen, but “the
only reason given was that it
came at the direction of the Presi-
dent,” Croft recalled.
Croft testified that OMB inter-
vened once before to temporarily
block Ukraine security assistance
over the objections of other U.S.
agencies. At the time, in late 2017,
OMB objected to interagency
plans to provide the government
in Kyiv with lethal aid in the form

of Javelin antitank missiles.

That hold, while “highly un-

usual,” came up during a regular

review process and was lifted

after just “a week or two” — after

she and a senior National Securi-

ty Council official met with Mul-

vaney, Croft recalled.

The “unanimous view” then

among senior officials from the

State Department, the Pentagon

and the National Security Council

was “that Javelins would help

Ukraine in its defense against

Russia and would, therefore, be in

the U.S. national security inter-

est,” Croft testified.

Cooper used similar language

to describe how OMB officials

appeared to be working out of

step from the rest of the govern-

ment when it came to freezing aid

for Ukraine this year. The Penta-

gon gave its final approval for

dispensing the security assis-

tance in May, Cooper testified,

adding that the vested U.S. de-

partments were unified in their

view that this financial assistance

was “essential.”

Officials at those agencies also

were united in “trying to find

ways to engage the president”

and encourage him to let the

money flow, Cooper said, noting

that her counterparts at other

agencies were concerned about

“how this could legally play out.”

Officials, she said, were con-

cerned about running afoul of the

law if the funds were not released,

and that if they delayed the fund-

ing too long, it could handicap

efforts to provide Ukraine all the

approved funds.

Cooper testified that U.S. offi-

cials outside of OMB also resisted

efforts to reexamine Ukraine’s

performance on anti-corruption

activities — a reason Mulvaney

cited publicly last month as part

of the administration’s rationale

for withholding the military aid.

The Pentagon never performed

any additional anti-

corruption reviews in July, Au-

gust or September, Cooper said,

because officials “affirmed that

we believed sufficient progress

has been made” i n those areas.

The positive impression of

Ukraine’s anti-corruption work

was “unanimous” among the

o ther agencies involved with

Ukraine funding, Cooper added,

“with the exception of the state-

ments by OMB representatives.”

Mike DeBonis and Rachael Bade

contributed to this report.

State, Pentagon officials contradict Trump on when Ukraine knew of aid hold

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