State for Political Affairs david hale. Order. Good afternoon, everyone. This is the sixth in a series of public hearings the committee will be holing as part of the house of representatives impeachment inquiry. Without objection the chair is authorized to declare a recess of the committee at any time. There is a quorum present. We will proceed today in the same fashion as our other hearings. I will make an Opening Statement and the Ranking Member nunes will have the opportunity to make a statement and we will turn to our witnesses for their Opening Statements if they should choose to make one. For audience member, we welcome you and respect your interest in being here. Rep. Schiff the committee will come to order. This is the sixth in a series of hearings. There is a quorum present. We will proceed in the same fashion as the other hearings. We welcome you and respect your interest in being here. Ordance with house rules and House Resolution 660. With that, i now recognize myself to give an Opening Statement in the impeachment inquiry into donald j. Trump, the 45th president of the United States. This afternoon the American People will hear from two witnesses who are both veteran National Security professionals, one at the department of state and the other at the Defense Department. David hale is the undersecretary of state for Political Affairs and the most Senior Foreign Service officer. Laura keeper serves as Deputy Assistant secretary of defense for russia, ukraine, youeurasid is responsible for the soviet union and the bal dkans. They have served both republican and democratic president s and as we have heard from other dedicated Public Servants like former ambassador to ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch and former Deputy Assistant secretary george kent, ambassador bill taylor, Lieutenant ColonelAlexander Vindman and hale was witness to the Smear Campaign against Marie Yovanovitch and the the efforts by some in the state department to help her. In late march yovanovitch reached out to hale telling him in an email that the tempo of social media any other criticisms of her were such shy could no longer function unless there was a strong statement of defense from the state department. She put out a full statement of defense and page and sadly to no avail. That silence continues to today. In late april we heard in riveting testimony last friday from ambassador yovanovitch. She was called to washington and informed she had lost the confidence of the president. He did not meet with her and his subordinates dealt with her, instead. With the departure of yovanovitch, heale watched thre, and they were led by Energy Secretary rick perry and it would be ambassador volker and sondland working with ambassador taylor who would be the ones doing the continual work here. In midsummer, trump ordered a suspension of military aid to ukraine. Despite the fact that the aid had been authorized and appropriated by congress and that the Defense Department in consultation with the state department had had certified ukraine met all of the necessary requirements to receive the aid including anticorruption reform. The aid was in the National Interests of the United States and critical to ukraines security, a country that had been invaded by russia. From her office in the pentagon, miss cooper oversaw a significant amount of Security Assistance flowing to the ukraine and was involved in efforts to understand and reverse the suspension of 400 million in u. S. Aid. Keeper, along with others learned about the freeze during a series of inner Agency Meetings in the last two weeks of july. At the first meeting on july 18th an omb representative relayed that, quote, the white house chief of staff has conveyed that the president has concerns about ukraine and ukraines Security Assistance, end quote and that a hold had been ordered by the president. No explanation was provided. All of the agencies responsible for ukraine policy supported Security Assistance and advocated for lifting of the hold. The only dissenting voice was the office of management and budget which was following the orders of President Trump and still no good explanation of the hold was provided. While the aid suspension had not been made public, word was getting out. Katherine kroft, special adviser for ukraine at a deposition received two separate calls in july or august from officials at the Ukrainian Embassy who, quote, approached me quietly and in confidence to ask me about an omb hold on ukraine Security Assistance. Kroft was, quote, very surprised at the effectiveness of my ukrainian counter parts trade craft. As if to say they found out very early on, much earlier than i expected them to. The ukrainians wanted answer, but kroft did not have a good response. But then in late August Cooper met with kurt volker with whom she had met many times in the past. During that meeting in which they were discussing the hold on Security Assistance, volker revealed that he was engaged in an effort to have the government to ukraine issue a statement that would, quote, commit to the prosecution of any individuals involved in election interference, end quote. Cooper understood that if volkers effort were successful the hold might be lifted. Unbeknownst to cooper, no such statement was forthcoming, but the aid was abruptly restored on september 11th, days after the three committees launched an investigation into the trumpukraine scheme. And with that, i now recognize the Ranking Member. Thank you. As we republicans have argued at these hearings, the American People are getting a skewed impression of these events. Thats because the democrats assume full authority to call witnesses and they promptly reject good new witnesses the republicans kwtd. Id like to take a few of the people whose testimony has been deemed unacceptable for the American People to hear. The whistleblower. The whistleblower is the key figure who started this entire impeachment charade by submitting a complaint against President Trump that relied on secondhand and thirdhand information and media reports. This began a bizarre series of events although the complaint had no intelligence component whatsoever. The Intelligence CommunityInspector General accepted it and even changed the guidance on the complaint forms to eliminate the requirement for firsthand information. Then his office back dated the forms to make them appear as if they were published a month before. Democrats then took the extremely rare step of pushing a whistleblower complaint into the public using it as the centerpiece of their impeachment crusade. We later learned that democratic staff had prior coordination with the whistleblower and the democrats themselves his denied the on national television. Following that revelation, democrats did a dramatic about face. They suddenly dropped their insistence that the whistleblower testified and rejected our request to hear from him. Then hearing yesterday, the democrats cut off our questions and accused us of trying to out the whistleblower even though they claim they dont even know who he is. Alexander chalupa. Chalupa is a former operative who worked with officials from the Ukrainian Embassy in washington, d. C. , in order to smear the Trump Campaign in 2016. She met directly about these matters with thenukrainian ambassador chalet who himself wrote an article criticizing trump during the 2016 campaign. Chalupas activities is one of several indicators of election meddling in 2016 all of which were aimed at the Trump Campaign. Once you understand that ukrainian officials were cooperating directly with President Trumps political opponents to undermine his candidacy, its easy to understand why the president would want to know the whole truth about the operations and why he would be schedulel and hunter biden, its theyre sparing an exam asian on the board of a company, burr mace highlights the corruption problem in ukraine that concerns not only President Trump, but all of the witnesses weve interviewed so far. What did he do to earn his lavish salary and salary, and what light could he shed on corruption at this notorious company . But biden would make an inconvenient witness for the democrats, so they have blocked his testimony. At these hearings we have heard a lot of secondhand and third hand information and speculation about President Trumps intentions, but in the end, the only direct order we have heard from the president is his order to our last witness, ambassador sondland, that he wanted nothing from ukraine. That is consistent with the testimony provided by senator johnson who said that President Trump angrily denied accounts that a quid pro quo existed. Aside from rejecting our witnesses, democrats have tried other petty tricks to shake public opinion. Just this morning, they called a break in the hearing in order to press their absurd arguments tv cameras. Then for this hearing they canceled the multiple rounds of initial questioning they had earlier today with ambassador sondland, as they have with all the previous witnesses. Who they bizarrely consider us their star witnesses. When you look through the presumptions, assumptions, smoke and mirrors, you see the facts of this case are clear, President Trump was spectacle of foreign aid generally, and especially skeptical of aid to corrupt Companies Like ukraine. He wanted to discover the facts about ukrainian meddling in the 2016 election against his campaign. A brief hold on ukrainian aid was lifted without ukraine taking any steps, they were supposedly being bribed to do. President zelensky repeatedly said there was nothing improper about President Trumps call with him, and he did not even know about the hold on aid it. At the time he was supposedly being extorted with. So what are the democrats impeaching the president for . None of us really no. Because the accusations changed by the hour. Once again, this is impeachment, search of a crime, mister chairman i would urge you to bring this to a close, to adjourn this hearing and move on and get back to the work of the Intelligence Committee. That i yield back. I think the gentleman. Today we are joined by master david hill, and laura cooper, david hail serves as the undersecretary of state for Political Affairs, position hes held since 2018, he joined the Foreign Service in 1984 and holds the rank of career ambassador. Previously served as the ambassador to pakistan, to lebanon, special envoy for middle east peace, deputy special envoy ambassador to jordan. Ambassador hail also served as Deputy Assistant secretary of state an executive assistant to secretary of state paul bright, laura cooper is the Deputy Assistant secretary of defense for russia, ukraine and eurasia at the department of defense. She is a career member of the Senior Executive service, miss cooper previously served as a principle director in the office, the assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense, and Global Security affairs. Prior to joining the department of defense in 2001 most cooper was a policy planning officer at the state department in the office of coordinator of counterterrorism. Two final points before witnesses are sworn, first, witness depositions, as part as this inquiry, are unclassified in nature, all open hearings will also be caught at the unclassified level. Anything that may touch on classified information will be touch separately. Congress will not deal with any reprisal, attempt of reprisal, attempt to retaliate against any Government Official for testifying in front of congress including you or any of your colleagues. If you both would please rise and raise your right hand, i will begin by swearing un. You swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you god . Let the record show the witnesses answered in the affirmative, thank you will please be seated. Microphone is sensitive so please speak directly into it, without objection your written statements will be made part of the record, without, ambassador hail, if you have an Opening Statement you are free to give that and immediately thereafter, must cooper you are recognized for your Opening Statement. Mister chairman, i dont have a prepared Opening Statement but i would like to comment, as you said ive been undersecretary since august of 2018, of Foreign Service officer for over 35 years, and ambassador three times serving both republican and democratic administrations proudly, and im here in response to your subpoena to answer the questions of the committee. Thank you undersecretary, miss cooper. Mister chairman, Ranking Member, members of this committee, i appeared today to provide facts that answer questions based on my experience as the Deputy Assistant secretary of defense for russia, ukraine and eurasia. I would first like to describe my background as well as my role and Vantage Point relative to your inquiry. I bring to my daily work into this proceeding my sense of duty to u. S. National security, not to any political party. I have proudly served two democratic and two republican president s. I entered Government Service through the president s shawl management internship competition, joining the state department in 1999 to work on counterterrorism in europe and the former soviet union. Inspired by working with the u. S. Military Ana Department of defense rotational assignment, i decided to accept a Civil Service position in the policy organization of the office of the secretary of defense, in january 2001, where i have remained for the past 18 years. My strong sense of pride in serving my country and dedication to my pentagon colleagues were cemented in the moments after i felt the pentagon shake beneath me on september 11th, 2001. My office was scheduled to move into the section of the pentagon that was destroyed in the attack, but a construction delay meant that we were still on our old desks in the adjacent section on that devastating day. After we had wiped the block dust from our desks and try to get back to work, i found meaning by volunteering to work on afghanistan policy and we give my next four years to this mission. I later had the opportunity to move into the leadership ranks of my organization and have had the privilege to manage issues ranging from defense Strategic Planning to homeland offense and mission assurance. I accepted the position of principle director for russia, ukraine and eurasia in 2016, and was honored to be appointed formerly to the position of Deputy Assistant secretary of defense in 2018. In my current role i work to advance u. S. National security with a focus on deterring russian aggression and building strong partnerships with the frontline states of ukraine and georgia as well as ten other allies and partners from the balkans to the caucuses. Strengthening ukraines capacity to defend itself against russian aggressions essential to my teams mission. The United States and our allies provide ukraine with Security Assistance because it is in our National Security interest to deter russian aggression around the world. We also provide Security Assistance so that ukraine can negotiate a peace with russia from a position of strength. The human toll continues to climb in this ongoing war, with 14,000 ukrainian lives lost since rushes 2014 invasion. The sacrifices are in my mind as i lead the efforts to provide training and equipment, including defensive lethal assistance to the Ukrainian Armed forces. I have also supported a robust Ukrainian Ministry of