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That the president would have to take to notify congress. as far as you know, was there ever a note that was sent out to congress? >> there was no such notice, to my knowledge or preparation of such notice to my knowledge. >> there was never rescission or reprogramming of that money? >> no, sir. not to my knowledge. >> instead what happened was omd devised an alternative solution in providing footnotes to implement the hold and their payment time in august when the department of defense no longer had the footnotes because of concerns there might be sufficient time for dod to obligate the funds...

>> that is the statement that the president reportedly made as reported to me by the office of management and budget. >> you said in your testimony that based on recommendations from me and other key dod advisers the department of defense in coordination with the department that you certified the release of the dollars, is that accurate? >> that is correct, sir? >> but there was -- there was a small change in ukraine in the spring of 2019, wasn't there? >> yes, sir. >> and can you elaborate on what that change was? >> the government of -- well, president zelensky was elected to government. >> ...

And even after now as an aside even after the whistle-blower had come forward. is that right? >> it was correct that the hold was released on september 11th, yes. >> i know i and many of us here share dod's concerns about the legality of the hold, and i want to thank you, ms. cooper, for voicing dod's concerns to the white house and pursuing the national security interests of the united states. i yield back. >> mr. ratcliffe? >> chairman. miss cooper, based on the e-mails that you mentioned in your opening and subsequent declarations by some of my democratic colleagues that those e-mails were ...

And proffered that perhaps a reprogramming action would be the way to do this, but that more research would need to be done, so then after that discussion we had a lower-level discussion at my level on the 31st of july -- >> let me ask you about that july 31st meeting. based on your conversations with colleagues at the dod at the july 31st inner agency meeting, did you share your understanding of the legal mechanisms that were available at that time? >> yes, sir. >> and what were they? >> i expressed that it was my understanding that there were two ways that we would be able to implement presi...

Under these two buckets? >> there are two separate pieces to our overall ability to provide equipment to the ukrainian armed forces. the first is the foreign military finance system which is a state department authority and countries around the world have this authority. that authority is used for some of the training and equipment. there's also the ukraine security assistance initiative and that's the dod authority and under the state authority, the state authority is only a one-year authority and third, there's opportunity for defense sales and that is something that we're working with the u...