Page:Impeachment of Donald J. Trump, President of the United States — Report of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives.pdf/111

 requested or independently conducted any subsequent review of Ukraine's anti-corruption policies— and the Defense Department adhered to its view that all anti-corruption benchmarks had already been satisfied. He persisted in denying the public and his own staff any explanation, even though Congress and every agency other than OMB (headed by the President's Acting Chief of Staff) supported the provision of military and security assistance to Ukraine and strongly objected to President Trump's hold. Tellingly, the President's purported concerns about corruption in Ukraine as a reason for placing the hold on security assistance were not conveyed at the time of the hold or any time prior to lifting the hold.

Moreover, as numerous United States officials observed, it would be squarely inconsistent with advancing an anti-corruption agenda for an American President to avoid official channels and demand that a foreign leader embroil themselves in our politics by investigating a candidate for President. Yet President Trump made that very same demand. He also fired, without any explanation, an ambassador widely recognized as a champion in fighting corruption, praised a corrupt prosecutor general in Ukraine, and oversaw efforts to "cut foreign programs tasked with combating corruption