foreign minister told the media november following news of ambassador sondland's written supplemental testimony that he never linked security assistance to investigations. he said "i have never seen a direct relationship between investigations and security assistance. although there is some testimony that ukrainian officials from the embassy in washington made informal inquiries to the state department and defense department about these issues with security assistance in july and august, the evidence does not show president zelensky or senior advisors were aware of the pause until it was publicly reported by politico on august august 28th. of subsequent news article explained the conflicting testimony that embassy officials in washington had made informal inquiries about issues with the aid of senior officials denied awareness of the pause.