Defense (Comptroller) that said that “the President had questions about the press report and that he was seeking additional information.”304 Notably, the same day, President Trump gave an interview on Fox News where he raised the so-called “Crowdstrike” conspiracy theory that Ukraine, rather than Russia, had interfered in the 2016 election, a line he would repeat during his July 25 call with the Ukrainian president.305
On June 20, in response to the President’s inquiry, Ms. McCusker responded to President Trump’s inquiry by providing Mr. Sandy information on the security assistance program.306 Mr. Sandy shared the document with Mr. Duffey, who had follow-up questions about the “financial resources associated with the program, in particular,” the “history of the appropriations, [and] any more details about the intent of the program.”307 Mr. Sandy said that his staff provided the relevant information to Mr. Duffey, but he did not know whether Mr. Duffey shared the information with the White House.308
Ms. Cooper also recalled receiving an email inquiring about DOD-administered Ukraine security assistance a “few days” after DOD’s June 18, 2019 press release.309 The email was from the Secretary of Defense’s Chief of Staff, “asking for follow-up on a meeting with the President.” The email contained three questions:
- And the one question was related to U.S. industry. Did U.S—is U.S. industry providing any of this equipment? The second question that I recall was related to international contributions. It asked, what are other countries doing, something to that effect. And then the third question, I don’t recall—I mean, with any of these I don’t recall the exact wording, but it was something to the effect of, you know, who gave this money, or who gave this funding?310
Like Mr. Sandy, Ms. Cooper believed that the President’s inquiries were spurred by DOD’s June 18 press release. She testified, “we did get that series of questions just within a few days after the press release and after that one article that had the headline.”311 Ms. Cooper noted that it was “relatively unusual” to receive questions from the President, and that she and her staff at the DOD responded “as quickly” as they could.312 According to Ms. Cooper, DOD officials included in their answers that security assistance funding “has strong bipartisan support,” but never received a response.313
President Trump Froze Military Assistance
Despite the fact that DOD experts demonstrated that the security assistance was crucial for both Ukraine and U.S. national security and had strong bipartisan support in Congress, President Trump ordered OMB to freeze the funds in July.
On July 3, the State Department notified DOD and NSC staff that OMB was blocking the State Department from transmitting a Congressional notification for the provision of State Department-administered security assistance to Ukraine (i.e., the $141 million in foreign military financing).314 Because the State Department is legally required to transmit such a notification to Congress before spending funds, blocking the Congressional notification effectively barred the State Department from spending the funding.315 Ms. Williams testified that she saw the news in
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