Page:Impeachment of Donald J. Trump, President of the United States — Report of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives.pdf/95

 i.The Military and Security Assistance

On July 18, 2019, OMB notified the agencies that President Trump had directed a hold on military and security assistance funding for Ukraine. No explanation was provided for that hold. This was exceedingly irregular, given that the assistance had bipartisan Congressional support, was supported by the President's national security agencies and advisors (including the State Department, Department of Defense, and National Security Council), and was widely perceived as crucial to both Ukrainian and American security. Moreover, there were substantial concerns about the legality of the hold under the Impoundment Control Act. Adding to the irregularity, a career civil servant at OMB with decades of experience in this arena (Mark Sandy) was deprived of sign off authority, which was shifted to a political appointee of President Trump (Michael Duffey) who had virtually no relevant experience or expertise and no history or stated interest in managing such issues.

As early as July 25—the day that President Trump spoke by phone to President Zelensky— Ukrainian officials recognized and grew nervous about the delay in receiving their military and security assistance. That same day, Ukrainian officials contacted their American counterparts in Washington, D.C. to express those concerns. Specifically, the Department of Defense received two e-mails from the State Department revealing that the Ukrainian Embassy was "asking about the security assistance" and knew about the "[security assistance] situation to an extent." Former Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister, Olena Zerkal, also reported that her office, and the Ukrainian Presidential Administration, received a diplomatic cable from Ukrainian officials in Washington the week of the July 25 call, stating that the Trump administration had frozen military aid for Ukraine; she elaborated: "We had this information. ... It was definitely mentioned there were some issues."

In the weeks that followed, President Trump's top officials came to understand and communicated to Ukrainian officials that release of the assistance was in fact conditioned on President Zelensky publicly announcing the two investigations that President Trump had requested on his July 25 call. For example, on August 22, Ambassador Sondland e-mailed Secretary Pompeo, copying the State Department's Executive Secretary, Lisa Kenna, that to break the "logjam" on the assistance, President Zelensky should "look [President Trump] in the eye" and tell him he would "move forward publicly and with confidence on those issues of importance to Potus and to the U.S." Ambassador Sondland testified that the "issues of importance to Potus" were the two investigations.