Todays proceedings. I would like to recap my recognition of the timeline in which these events played out. I testified about all of this at length in my deposition. In july, i became aware of a hold being an obligation of the State Departments Foreign Military financing and dods usai funds. In a series of interagency meetings, i heard that the president had directed the office of of management and budget to hold the funds becausf his concerns about corruption in ukraine. Let me say at the outset that i have never discussed this or any other matter with the president and never heard directly from him about this matter. At a senior level meeting i attended on july 26, chaired by National Security council leadership, as at all other interagency meetings on this topic of which i was aware, the National Security community
expressed unanimous support for resuming the funding as in the u. S. National security interest. At the july 26 meeting, there was a discussion of how ukrainian anticorrup
you re starting the process. contracts will be fulfilled fourth-quarter perhaps. sir, i have to say i am a policy official. i m not contracting expert. my understanding is we will be able to make up for lost time in the contracting process. fantastic. the three or four steps that you went through because you disagreed with the holes being placed on the assistance and i certainly agree with that. did you get any kind of criticism from the folks that you deal with because you were going against the omb s direction to put a hold? did you get criticized for that? absolutely not. my entire chain of command was supportive of advocating for removing the hold on the funds. you weren t restricted on the full throated advocating on behalf of getting a hold lifted. no, sir, i face no restrictions. thank you for that.