gleaned from those conversations the ukrainian embassy learned there was some kind of hold on the assistance? the way i would phrase it is there was some kind of an issue. yes. you are now, miss cooper, the third witness before our committee, who has testified that the ukrainians found out about the problem or hold on the security assistance prior to it becoming public but you re the first to indicate that may go back as early as the date of the president s call to president zelensky. let me move to a related issue. in august, you testified at your deposition you met with kurt volker, i believe, it was on august 21th. the hold on security assistance was still in place. you testified ambassador volker told you if he could get president zelensky to make a public statement that would disallow the elections and
people like secretary of state mike pompeo, it is the president himself that are preventing them from testifying. we did see denials from the offices today. but it is very different to see them mick mulvaney in that awkward news conference in the white house briefing room a couple of weeks or so ago, he basically confirmed that quid pro quo. although a few hours later he tried to deny it. yeah, he did. and one of the things that gordon sondland had trouble with today was telling lawmakers who else could come forth and provide some of the answers to their remaining questions. because the reality is the white house is preventing those folks from coming forth. and did he eventually say that mick mulvaney would be one of those people who would be able to give a definitive answer. he believed as if president trump saw a direct connection between the assistance and the investigations that were being asked for. you cover the state department for us, kylie, how much of a setback is thi
to say? yes, sir. you understand that president trump has been skeptical of foreign aid and some of the money as well, is that so? i think so. that s been fairly consistent. he s done that since before he was elected. ukraine has a long history, and we ve talked about that about a thousand times. do you think president trump, i think that was the word, that he would test president trump zelensky prior to providing some of the security assistance. president zelensky was new. yes. i d met him in february. i was impressed by him, but it was understandable for the administration as a new president of ukraine was coming to office to understand better what that president s policies were and the attitude toward the united states. we ve had it referred to and the dod completed their review about the same time. this was someone that was elected and we knew nothing
providing foreign assistance. is it fair to say the president wanted to make sure the american taxpayer money was being fairly and efficiently spent outside the united states. that is the broad intent of the foreign assistance along with other goals. and he suspects our allies to give their share of aid as he referenced during the july phone call with president zelensky. the burden of sharing for allies and other like-minded states is an important part of the assistance. is it true to say the foreign assistance aid is withheld from foreign countries for a number of factors? correct. you testified in your prior testimony it is normal to have delays on aid? i may have said it that way, but it s certainly an occurrence and does occur. in the past year ukraine was not the only country to have aid withheld from it, correct. correct. in the past year, was aid
there. she witnessed no wrongdoing, knew nothing about what we are discussing. no direct evidence of any misconduct whatsoever. no contact with the president, no contact with his chief of staff, no contact with anybody that really knew the president, no knowledge of anything being alleged by the democrats. you cannot make this up. this is how sick washington has become. were you involved in the july 25th trump-zelensky phone call or preparations for the call? no, i was not. were you involved in the deliberations about the pause in military sales to ukraine as the trump administration reviewed newly-elected president zelensky s commitment to corruption reforms? for the delay. for the pause? the pause? no, i was not. were you involved in the proposed trump-zelensky, later pence-zelensky meetings in