discussion about any white house meeting? sir, i don t recall specifically talking about the white house meeting but i had many conversations about the desire for the white house meeting. it s likely that was part of the conversation. the two things you do recall are that you talked about hold on security assistance and he brought up this public statement they wanted president zelensky to get he thought might be useful? that is correct, sir. mr. nunes. thank you for yielding. mr. hale and miss cooper, thank you both for being here. in is opening, mr. nunes referenced the skepticism of foreign aid being provided to
on the aid in july, it appears, back in may, miss cooper, i believe you said there was aid that was conditioned, but you certified in may that the conditions had been met, and they included progress on command and control reform, commitment to pursue defense industry reform and past laws to enable government to procurement. is that correct? that s correct. then, when you find out in july they re concerned about corruption, you re scratching your head, were you not? yes, ma am. do you know of any effort that was undertaken then to assess the corruption in ukraine, in june, july, august? ma am, as i believe i said in my deposition, the only specific
impression at the state department. the aid was eventually released to ukraine, is that correct, as well? i read that, sir. it was just a 55 day or less than two month pause in the actual hold on the aid, is that right, ambassador? seems so, yes, correct. to your knowledge, as a top principal at the state department, an investigation into the bidens, burisma, of the 2016 election never happened by the ukrainians, is that correct? i don t know that i have the ability to answer that question, having taken this job in august of 2018. well, since you ve take then job, how about that? to my knowledge, that s correct. thank you. i yield back. mr. carson. thank you, chairman. mr. cooper, ukraine is the first line of defense against russia s aggression and expansion into
illegal. miss cooper, i want you to help wang through this, since the impound act of 1974, the president has not had the authority on a whim or out of prudence or general skepticism of foreign aid to stop foreign aid. under our constitution it s the congress, not the president that controls the pow over the purse, correct? yes, sir. the security assistance the assistance authorized to ukraine was authorized and appropriate rated by the congress, correct? so congress is also concerned about corruption. it wants to insure american foreign assistance is spent wisely and does not worsen corruption. so, when congress authorized this money, it built and conditioned, just as mr. ratcliffe suggested. by law, ukraine wouldn t get all the money until it demonstrated it had undertaken substantial anti-corruption reforms. under the law the department of
system. and it has underwritten peace in europe since the end of world war ii. a critical aspect of defending that system is ensuring russia cannot change its borders by military force. that is why there is strong bipartisan support providing ukraine with security assistance. that is why it is so incredibly destructive of the president of the united states to withhold this assistance as part of a scheme to pressure ukraine into investigating a debunked conspiracy theory and attack former vice president biden. mr. chairman, i yield back. thank you mr. chairman and you both for being here. as an army surgeon i served proudly for two democratic presidents myself. i want to go, miss cooper to page 3, i heard the president