cooper clearly overseeing a lot of this. thanks very much for that, lauren fox. let s go to sara murray now. sarah, we have this new testimony, the transcripts just released as democrats and republicans are clearly gearing up for public impeachment hearings on wednesday. that is right, wolf. and obviously we re getting new details while all of the the broader planning is playing out and i think when you look at this new testimony from laura cooper it does give us more sense of what was happening behind the scenes in terms of concerns about this money and whether it was possible to get this aid for ukraine out the door. she talked in her testimony about the discussions going on in the defense department about whether it was legal for omb and for the president to be holding this money back when it already had been allocated by congress. and she even tells lawmakers at one point they were concerned in the defense department that $100 million in aid could be at risk and potentially t
stuff. absolutely. it is further corroboration. there were a couple of witnesses who hedged a little bit more on whether these things were directly connected. but i think for the most part we ve heard again and again from the career officials, this concern that military aid for ukraine was being withheld in a way they did not feel was appropriate. perhaps it wasn t legal and it certainly wasn t being done in the way you normally conduct diplomacy. it was not formal to withhold money for another nation allotted by congress, allocated by congress to get political investigations out of another country and you continue to see from these testimonies people raising red flags along the way, documenting their red flags along the way and expressing to lawmakers that they are laura cooper s testimony, in - concerned about their own jobs and doing the right thing and you subpoenaed me and i m telling you what i saw in my position as irregularities in the process.
using this foreign assistance and ol kating it to deterred russia in ukraine s face. mark, laura cooper, the secretary of defense is the only pentagon witness who testified so far. so you ve gone through it. what stands out to you from her testimony? well she puts the importance of the ukraine aid in context. why did the united states find the aid to ukraine so important and she said that ukraine is on the front line to deter russian aggression. ukraine and the republic of georgia. so it was kind of a no-brainer for several years that in the american policy-making world that ukraine should get this aid. and of course this is yet another example of someone who is working in the trenches on ukraine policy puzzled about this decision that is coming from above. she has limited visibility and why this decision is being made and she asks her superiors and asked her colleagues about what is happening and so the question
has been identified but it s nature remains unclear. the whistleblower insist the complaint was not politically motivated but gop ranking members have sent a letter to adam schiff calling on the whistleblower to testify writing this. you earlier committed the employee would provide testimony very soon only to reverse course on revelations the employee had a bias against donald trump and you had received a secret early account of the allegations. it was quite a show at the closed-door deposition, pentagon official laura cooper, dozens of gop members storming the secure hearing blocking 2% for hours holding up with 17 pieces with chick-fil-a. steve scalise had this to say afterwards. as we got in there, adam schiff got up and left with the
eventually turned. they argue that and this would be devastating for the republic. laura: both parties always have to remember that what they re doing when they re not mpower is going to be both sides always. be mindful. good to see you. critics are calling it the unethical stunt, asking the sergeant and arms of the house to investigate those who joined the effort. bolted his controversial move actually change anything about the way the democrats are carrying out their current impeachment strategy? let s walk a man who walked into that door today. mark walker, good to have you with us tonight. we know you had some pizza and chick-fil-a. this is what democrat congressman had to say about that. it s a bunch of freedom caucus members having pizza around a conference table pretending to be brave. your response? i respect the freedom caucus, but i m not the freedom caucus, on the ranking member on the intelligence and counterterrorism and it s my