Page 242 - Dod News Today

This in your opening statement, the government of ukraine has taken substantial actions to make defense institutional reforms for the purposes of decreasing corruption, increasing accountability and sustaining improvements of combat capability enabled by u.s. assistance. so, by the time president trump froze the aid, the department of defense had spent weeks, if not months, determining that the ukrainian government met every requirement in the law, and made significant strides in combatting corr...

>> yes, sir. >> you understand president trump has been skeptical generally of foreign agents for the money that weve given. is that fair? speak i think so. >> i think thats fairly consistent. hes done that since before he was elected. others in the process of testified that ukraine has a long history of corruption. thats not going to surprise do you think it was right that the president would test, is a word he used previously, that he would test president zelensky prior to providing some of th...

State department that could help us shed light on what the ukrainians knew and when they knew it? >> sir, i have shared with the committee all that i recollect, but i have not done an exhaustive investigation. i really cannot speculate on what else might be available by combing through all of the defense department records, which are substantial. >> did the state department or the department of defense ask you for your information? or did they coordinate with you to get information that you had?...

>> miss cooper, you talked about emails that were drawn to your attention, that they were sent to your staff, is that correct? >> the emails that i discussed this evening were email sent to my staff, that is correct. >> okay, i think, first of all it is important to point this out that it is not something you were aware of. it points to a larger issue that the defense department and the state department have refused to comply with a duly issued subpoena to provide this committee with documents t...

Defense works with the state department and other agencies to establish anticorruption benchmarks and determine whether ukraine has met them. correct? >> thats correct. that provision pertains to ukraine security assistance. >> that is a legally specified process. its not the president in the oval office manifesting a general skepticism of foreign need, right? thats a process. >> its a congressionally mandated process. >> to the process take place for the dod funding that was held up in july? >>...

Requested of them and congress had appropriated the funds. is that not the case? >> maam, i and my dod colleagues advocated strenuously for the release of these funds because of the national security importance. >> so basically the entire interests of the department of defense and state department were consistently supportive or releasing the funds. everyone was mystified as to why the funds have been withheld and everyones running around trying to get an answer and youre getting kind of obtuse ...

Opening statement, the government of ukraine has taken substantial actions to make defense institutiona institutios for the purpose of decreasing corruption, increasing tolerability and sustaining improvements in com combat capability. by the time president trump froze the aid, the department of defense had spent weeks if not months determining that the ukraine government met every requirement in the law and made significant strides in combating corruption. is that correct? >> that is correct. w...

Wrong but its illegal. ms. cooper, help us walk through this. since the impoundment control act of 1974, the president has not have the authority to on a whim or out of prudence or as republicans say because of general skepticism of foreign aid, to stop foreign aid. this cooper, under the constitution, it is congress not the president that controls the power of the purse. correct? >> yes, sir. >> the security assistance authorized to ukraine was authorized and appropriated by the congress, corre...

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 anticorruption efforts were making progress. dod reiterated what we had said in our earlier certification to congress, stating that sufficient progress in defense reform including anticorruption had occurred to justify the usai spending. i and others at the interagency meetings felt the matter was particularly urgent because it takes time...

Directed the office of management and budget to withhold funds because of concerns about corruption in ukraine. you are coming from the dod side. i served a year in iraq and it was important and i think its something that the army always does, as i have seen, that we dont want to deliver aid or assistance if its going to some corrupt, or being delivered in a corrupt way. if we are going to build a medical treatment facility for the iraqis, we want to make sure we are not getting charged ten time...