New york universitys center on law and security has viewed the unblacked out versions of those emails. What they found, it amplifies recent reporting from cnn and others about just how concerned and suspicious senior government officials were that the aid freeze to ukraine was against the law, or as the former top diplomat in the ukraine put it, at the time just plain wrong. As the committee is aware, i wrote that withholding Security Assistance in exchange for help with a domestic Political Campaign in the United States would be crazy. I believed that then, and i believe it now. He, of course, testified to congress. Many of the people in these emails that were now seeing, they did not. And some are being blocked by the white house from telling what they know. And what they know is probably an awful lot, which is why this new reporting is so important. Were going to talk to the author who broke the story, kate brannon in just a moment. But first, we want to kind of set the table on what some of her reporting has uncovered. Starting with a top defense officials email, an email questioned about the legality of what the white house was up to. The email is dated july 25th, and yes, thats the day President Trump made that phone call to ukraines president , asking for, in his words, a favor for us. So here is the one line redacted email that acting pentagon comptroller Elaine Mccusker wrote to the white house budget official, a guy named michael duffey. According to just security, behind that blacked line, just security has learned that she asked whether the decision had gone through the Defense Departments general counsel. In other words, its official. Mccusker wanted to know has anyone vetted the legality of this because the law requires that money appropriated by congress cannot be held back or impounded by the white house. Which is precisely what subsequent emails show the pentagon was worried about, quoting from just securities report, on october 6, duffey, remember, he is the white house budget official, sent mccusker she is the pentagon comptroller an email telling her that he planned to extend the hold on the ukraine funding by reinserting the same footnote into the budget document. The footnote still noted that the pause would not prevent the Defense Department from spending the money before the Fiscal Year Ended if the hold was lifted. Mccusker wrote back, asking to whom duffey spoke to confirm that the additional pause would not affect the ultimate execution of the program. Good catch is what duffey wrote back. Lets just remember, because this is confusing. Congress had appropriated the money for ukraine back in 2018. The law required that it be spent by september 30th. The ukrainians fighting a war with russianbacked forces needed it immediately. Yet according to impeachment testimony, was being held up really for no apparent reason except its what the president wanted. Here is Foreign Service officer david holmes talking what he was told horrettly before the aid freeze went into effect. The official said that the order had come from the president , it had been conveyed to omb by mr. Mulvaney, with no further explanation. This began a week or so of efforts by various agencies to identify the rationale for the freeze, to conduct a review of the assistance, and to reaffirm the unanimous view of ukraine policy community of its importance. Republicans, youll recall, downplayed that testimony as hearsay saying there is no direct link to the president. But these emails in just securitys reporting on the unredacted content, thats where the connection is, where you can see at least part of the direction by the president. It would presumably be even plainer if bolton or mulvaney or any of these other Administration Officials who were up to their necks in this thing, this drug deal is what bolton called it, but they arent talking. The new emails do reveal something else. They reveal what appears to be the emergence of a kind of cover story from the office of management and budget as well as pushback from the pentagon on this policy. This all happened shortly after august 28th when politico broke the aid freeze story. Thats when it suddenly came to light. Thats when the president decided okay, you know what . Actually, the aid will go through after that. You hear all these republicans saying well, look, there may have been a pause, but the aid went through. Yes, it did, but only after the story was going to go public. The michigan hashing out talking points, the main one being that none of this would stop the aid from going out by the deadline. So here is a redacted email on the matter from Elaine Mccusker, the comptroller at the pentagon to michael duffey, the official at the office of management and budget. It reads mike and then a redaction. Just got outside of another long session on redacted again. Things have evolved again. Reach you in a bit. Its hard to tell what that means with all the redactions. According to just security, theyve seen what is behind the redaction. It reads i dont agree to the revised tps, talking points. The last one is just not accurate from a financial execution standpoint, something we have been consistently conveying for a few weeks. So this clash escalated all the way up to the president with the president on august 30th after which according to just security, responsibility for the freeze is tied directly to him. Im quoting again, after the meeting with the president took place, duffey told mccusker clear direction from potus to hold. Certainly democrats would like to hear from that guy, michael duffey. House Speaker Pelosi also weigh in tweeting late today, quote, trump engaged in unprecedented total obstruction of congress, hiding these emails, all other documents, and his top aides from the American People. Why wont trump and mcconnell allow a fair trial . Joining us now is kate brannon, editorial director at just security. Kate, thanks for joining us. Its so fascinating, your reporting, and what you found behind these redactions. Its quite clear at least in the opinion of the people writing was it was the president himself who personally directed the aid to be held. And every step of the way when there is sort of a moment where they think the hold could be lifted, it all comes down to what the president wants. There has been this pretext sort of this pretextual story of why the hold was there in the first place is they wanted to do a policy review, see that the money was being well spent. But its clear from these emails that thats not taking place. There is no reference to anything like that happening. Its just is potus going to lift it . Did potus decide to lift it . And sort of the repeated answers no, potus says keep the hold. The argument by jim jordan and others about oh, yeah, its just on hold for a policy review, that makes absolutely sense. The president doesnt believe in Foreign Policy so much, doesnt want to spend a lot of money needlessly to a corrupt regime. There is no evidence of any kind of policy reviews. In other words, the white house brought forth a 200page white paper on ukrainian corruption that they compiled in those days as they were holding up the aid. And in fact we know the corruption review had already been signed off on by the military and the u. S. Embassy in ukraine. Thats what they were working on, anticorruption efforts. According to these documents, the pentagon was clearly concerned about the hold. It seems like at least some were very upfront with the white house about those concerns. Yeah. I mean, to go back to your policy reviewpoint, when the hold is first put in place, the pentagon wants to know why and they dont get a straight answer. Whats also really important is when its lifted, mccusker, who you were talking about, the acting pentagon comptroller asked her colleagues why has it been lifted now . I dont know. Ill see what i can find out there. Is not a rationale at the beginning and there is not a rationale at the end either. Its not how you imagine communications at the highest levels of our government to be. Just the amount of confusion and sort of everybody in service to the whimsical thoughts of one man, the president of the United States in this case is if youre not used to reading these kind of things. Even if you are used to reading government communication, its really strange. Yeah. That definitely came across as i worked my way through them from june through october is sort of the opportunity costs of trying to implement this hold, the amount of chaos it sort of created. Its difficult to get a contract out the door at the pentagon. Its an incredibly bureaucratic process. And so they were sort of bending over backward every step of the way to sort of slow it down, to buy time, and to hold things up. One of the directions from omb was basically like please keep doing all the planning and preparatory work for these contracts. Just dont obligate the money. And dod sort of repeatedly was there is only so much we can do until you give us you permit us to spend the money. Then the money wont go out the door. And omb sort of kept pushing them on that. As you said earlier, the chief concern from the pentagon was that this hold violated the law and that it would violate the impoundment control act, which in fact it appears it did. By the time the hold was lifted, the pentagon couldnt get 35 million of the 250 million total spent by september 30th, and it required congress to step in and pass legislation that extend that money in order for them to buy weapons for ukraine. Were going to take a quick break. Were going have more with you. This is an important conversation. There is so much to know about. Also tonight, what sizable new fundraising numbers say about Bernie Sanders position with just a few weeks left for iowa and new hampshire. Well talk money and politics and the rest of the democratic field with some top strategists. Howard dean is going to join us. Later the attack in iraq, the influence of iran and the question of whether the United States is losing its influence around the world. Fareed zakaria joins us for that. Anderson cooper 360 is sponsored by 1917. 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Were talking about tonight about information hiding behind redaction bars and the things they black out in those letters they dont want you to see. It goes straight to the heart of the impeachment of President Trump. It makes the reporting by our guest tonight kate brannen and just security so significant. Kate is back now with us. There is a thing in your article, in your reporting which is extraordinary. Its not only extraordinary just as a policy but also it shows personalities and the humankind of betrayal and trust and lack of trust between people in different branches of government. There was despite weeks of being warned about the dangers of holding the aid, the office of management and budget, this guy mike duffy, who had been in communication with the comptroller of the pentagon who deals with the money explained what happened right at the end in two emails that you saw. Yes. As i was reading these emails, it sounds silly, because they are very wonky, but the personalities coming across it was a bit of a pageturner in that mccusker and duffey are exchanging these emails all summer about the hold, about the concerns from the pentagon about it. Mccusker is repeatedly warning him and telling him about the pentagons concerns about the legality, and duffey seems to kind of understand her and understand the situation, or at least sort of thats whats coming across, and they talk to each other regularly and in a pretty familiar tone. And then i think it was september 9th, she sends him an email again stating quite firmly like the serious legal concerns the pentagon has. And he writes to her in what i thought was a sort of remarkably formal letter. He ccs a bunch of lawyer, pentagon lawyer, omb lawyers, and writes her this stern letter saying basically throwing her under the bus if the money is impounded and in fact the law is violated, its going to be on you for dropping the ball and not doing all the preparatory work that you were supposed to, and its really going to be the Defense Departments fault and not ours. And she writes back to him she she takes everybody off the cc line and writes just back to him and says you cant be serious. Im speechless. Because she has sort of epically been thrown under the bus by him. For anyone who works in the office, to suddenly get an email from somebody you have been corresponding with for months, that you have rapport with, and trying to do whats good for the country, suddenly get an email and ccd are all these attorneys who havent been involved in it, throwing you under the bus, and then she just emails him back directly without ccing, its a little microcosm of just what goes on. Thats fascinating. Yeah. And i mean, in terms of the substance of it, what he is saying to her is ludicrous, which is sort of why she returns the response that she does. And this guy michael duffey, he is the associate director of National Security programs in the office of management and budget. He was the one who said this order came directly from President Trump. He is also the witness that the democrats want to call to testify. The more you see these emails, the more you want to hear from him from bolton, from the chief of staff. I mean, its mulvaney. Yeah. There is this real line, because mulvaney had previously been with the director of omb, and i believe he remains the acting director, but his the person who held duffeys job before him is a man named robert blair who moved into the chief of staffs office when mulvaney became the chief of staff at the white house. And so there is a real like omb group of people that are tied to this story from mulvaney to blair to duffey, and the entire sort of ukraine hold was communicated through that line. It went from trump to mulvaney to blair to duffey, and then out to the department, the state department, the Defense Department. So this group, this small group of omb officials are really kind of key to the puzzle. Kate brannen, thank you so much. Really fascinating reporting. Thank you so much. At the top of the broadcast, we showed you House SpeakerNancy Pelosis reaction to kates reporting. House Intelligence Committee chairman adam schiff has just weighed in on the story as well. From his part of the statement, quote, these incriminating documents reinforces the need for all of these materials to be produced, and that a fair trial in the senate cannot take place without them. Joining us now is Intelligence Community member and California Democratic congresswoman jackie speier. Congresswoman speier, first of all, im wondering what your overall reaction is to these documents and how much it makes it all the more important that testimony is given from the people who are actually sending these emails. You know, anderson, i actually feel what is most important is for us to get the documents. What ive seen over and over again when weve interviewed many of these people is their great ability to forget or not remember. And