Trump impeachment: Security establishment said US military aid to Ukraine was vital, testifies top defence official
Testimony is latest witness deposition to be made public
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Your support makes all the difference.America’s security establishment believed US military aid to Ukraine was vital and should not be jeopardised, a senior defence official told impeachment investigators probing Donald Trump.
Laura Cooper, deputy assistant secretary of defence, told members of Congress that her department was “concerned” with delaying aid to Ukraine.
“DoD was concerned about the obligation of funds. Policy, my team, we were also concerned about any signal that we would send to Ukraine about a wavering in our commitment,” she said.
She added: “And that’s another reason why, I mean, we did not want for this to be a big public discussion, you know, if we were about to get it turned back on again because we didn’t want to signal any lack of support.”
Ms Cooper told investigators that soon after a meeting of national security officials at the White House, she was visited by Kurt Volker, the US special envoy to Ukraine, who explained there was a “statement” that the Ukraine government could make to get the security money flowing.
Ms Cooper is the latest official whose private testimony has now been made public, as Democrats prepare for open testimony from three witnesses this week, starting on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Mr Trump was subjected to chants of “lock him up” as he addressed New York City’s Veterans Day parade after hitting out at House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff, the top Democrat spearheading the impeachment inquiry, accusing him of releasing “doctored transcripts” of witness depositions.
A lawyer for Lev Parnas, an associate of Mr Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, has meanwhile told The New York Times his client was tasked with offering Ukraine US military aid in exchange for a corruption investigation into 2020 candidate Joe Biden and his son.
As Mr Giuliani denies the claim, the president has called on his fellow Republicans not to fall into the “fools trap” of questioning his 25 July call with the country’s new president, Volodymyr Zelenksy.
Please look below to see how the day’s drama played out
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Trump seen here trying to raise money off of America's love of its veterans:
House Democrats have asked a federal judge to block acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney from joining a lawsuit fighting a subpoena to compel testimony from national security adviser Charles Kupperman.
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Hi, it's Andrew Buncombe in Seattle here, picking up our coverage
Democrats have released the latest transcript of their impeachment inquiry, the most recent being details of a deposition given by deputy assistant secretary of defence Laura Cooper.
Ms Cooper said that national security leaders across the US government shared the view that the military assistance to Ukraine was essential. According to CNN, she said: “My sense is that all of the senior leaders of the U.S. national security departments and agencies were all unified in their — in their view that this assistance was essential, that we could work with the government of Ukraine to tackle corruption, and they were trying to find ways to engage the president on this."
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