970 Letter from Senators Jeanne Shaheen, Rob Portman, Richard Durbin, Ron Johnson, and Richard Blumenthal to Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney (Sept. 3, 2019) (online at www.shaheen.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Ukraine%20Security%20Letter%209.3.2019.pdf).
971 Letter from Chairman Eliot L. Engel and Ranking Member Michael T. McCaul, House Foreign Affairs Committee to Mick Mulvaney, Director, and Russell Vought, Acting Director, Office of Management and Budget, The White House (Sept. 5, 2019) (online at https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/_cache/files/c/4/c49328c2-941b-4c41-8c00-8c1515f0972f/D1968A9C42455BB3AFC38F97D966857B.ele-mccaul-letter-to-mulvaney-vought-on-ukraine-assistance.pdf).
972 Trump Tries to Force Ukraine to Meddle in the 2020 Election, Washington Post (Sept. 5, 2019) (online at www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/is-trump-strong-arming-ukraines-new-president-for-political-gain/2019/09/05/4eb239b0-cffa-11e9-8c1c-7c8ee785b855_story.html).
973 Taylor Dep. Tr. at 37-38.
974 Taylor Dep. Tr. at 38.
975 See Letter from Senator Christopher Murphy, to Chairman Adam B. Schiff, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and Acting Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, House Committee on Oversight and Reform (Nov. 19, 2019) (online at www.murphy.senate.gov/download/111919-sen-murphy-letter-to-house-impeachment-investigators-on-ukraine) (“Senator Johnson and I assured Zelensky that Congress wanted to continue this funding, and would press Trump to release it immediately.”); Letter from Senator Ron Johnson, to Ranking Member Jim Jordan, Committee on Oversight and Reform, and Ranking Member Devin Nunes, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (Nov. 18, 2019) (online at www.ronjohnson.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/e0b73c19-9370-42e6-88b1-b2458eaeeecd/johnson-to-jordan-nunes.pdf) (“I explained that I had tried to persuade the president to authorize me to announce the hold was released but that I was unsuccessful.”).
976 House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Three House Committees Launch Probe Into Trump and Giuliani Pressure Campaign (Sept. 9, 2019) (online at https://intelligence.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=685).
977 Letter from Chairman Eliot L. Engel, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Chairman Adam B. Schiff, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and Chairman Elijah E. Cummings, House Committee on Oversight and Reform, to Pat Cipollone, Counsel to the President, The White House (Sept. 9, 2019) (online at https://intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/ele_schiff_cummings_letter_to_cipollone_on_ukraine.pdf).
978 Letter from Chairman Eliot L. Engel, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Chairman Adam B. Schiff, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and Chairman Elijah E. Cummings, House Committee on Oversight and Reform, to Pat Cipollone, Counsel to the President, The White House (Sept. 9, 2019) (online at https://intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/ele_schiff_cummings_letter_to_cipollone_on_ukraine.pdf).
979 Letter from Chairman Eliot L. Engel, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Chairman Adam B. Schiff, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and Chairman Elijah E. Cummings, House Committee on Oversight and Reform, to Pat Cipollone, Counsel to the President, The White House (Sept. 9, 2019) (online at https://intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/ele_schiff_cummings_letter_to_cipollone_on_ukraine.pdf).
980 Letter from Chairman Eliot L. Engel, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Chairman Adam B. Schiff, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and Chairman Elijah E. Cummings, House Committee on Oversight and Reform, to Michael R. Pompeo, Secretary of State (Sept. 9, 2019) (online at https://intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/ele_schiff_cummings_letter_to_sec_pompeo_on_ukraine.pdf).
981 Morrison Dep. Tr. at 245.
982 Morrison Dep. Tr. at 245.
983 Vindman Dep. Tr. at 303.
984 Vindman Dep. Tr. at 304.
985 Letter from Michael Atkinson, Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, to Chairman Adam B. Schiff and Ranking Member Devin Nunes, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (Sept. 9, 2019) (online at https://intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/20190909_-_ic_ig_letter_to_hpsci_on_whistleblower.pdf).
986 Letter from Michael Atkinson, Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, to Chairman Adam B. Schiff and Ranking Member Devin Nunes, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (Sept. 9, 2019) (online at https://intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/20190909_-_ic_ig_letter_to_hpsci_on_whistleblower.pdf); see also 50 U.S.C. § 3033(k)(5) (setting forth procedures for reporting of complaints or information with respect to an “urgent concern” to Congressional intelligence committees).
987 Maguire Hearing Tr. at 14 (“As a result, we consulted with the White House Counsel’s Office, and we were advised that much of the information in the complaint was, in fact, subject to executive privilege, a privilege that I do not have the authority to waive. Because of that, we were unable to immediately share the details of the complaint with this committee but continued to consult with the White House counsels in an effort to do so.”).
988 Maguire Hearing Tr. at 15-16 (“Because the allegation on its face did not appear to fall in the statutory framework, my office consulted with the United States Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel…. After reviewing the complaint and the Inspector General’s transmission letter, the Office of Legal Counsel determined that the complaint’s allegations do not meet the statutory definition concerning legal urgent concern, and found that I was not legally required to transmit the material to our oversight committee under the Whistleblower Protection Act.”).
989 Maguire Hearing Tr. at 22-23. See also CIA’s Top Lawyer Made ‘Criminal Referral’ on Complaint about Trump Ukraine Call, NBC News (Oct. 4, 2019) (online at www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-impeachment-inquiry/cia-s-top-lawyer-made-criminal-referral-whistleblower-s-complaint-n1062481) (reporting that the CIA’s General Counsel, Courtney Simmons Elwood, informed NSC chief lawyer John Eisenberg about an anonymous whistleblower complaint on August 14, 2019).
990 Maguire Hearing Tr. at 14, 21-22. On September 26, Acting DNI Maguire testified that he and the ODNI General Counsel first consulted with the White House counsel’s office before discussing the whistleblower complaint with the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel:
The Chairman.
I’m just trying to understand the chronology. You first went to the Office of Legal Counsel, and then you went to the White House Counsel?
Acting Director Maguire.
No, no, no, sir. No, sir. No. We went to the White House first to determine—to ask the question—
The Chairman.
That’s all I want to know is the chronology. So you went to the White House first. So you went to the subject of the complaint for advice first about whether you should provide the complaint to Congress?
Acting Director Maguire.
There were issues within this, a couple of things: One, it did appear that it has executive privilege. If it does have executive privilege, it is the White House that determines that. I cannot determine that, as the Director of National Intelligence.
Id. at 21-22.
991 Trump Knew of Whistle-Blower Complaint When He Released Aid to Ukraine, New York Times (Nov. 26, 2019) (online at www.nytimes.com/2019/11/26/us/politics/trump-whistle-blower-complaint-ukraine.html).
992 Trump Knew of Whistle-Blower Complaint When He Released Aid to Ukraine, New York Times (Nov. 26, 2019) (online at www.nytimes.com/2019/11/26/us/politics/trump-whistle-blower-complaint-ukraine.html). The Administration repeatedly referenced privilege concerns in connection with the whistleblower complaint. See, e.g., Letter from Jason Klitenic, General Counsel, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, to Chairman Adam B. Schiff, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (Sept. 13, 2019) (noting that “the complaint involves confidential and potentially privileged communication
s by persons outside the Intelligence Community”) (emphasis added); Letter from Jason Klitenic, General Counsel, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, to Chairman Adam B. Schiff, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (Sept. 17, 2019) (characterizing subpoena to the Acting DNI for documents as demanding “sensitive and potentially privileged” materials and whistleblower complaint as involving “potentially privileged matters relating to the interests of other stakeholders within the Executive Branch”) (emphasis added).
However, the White House never formally invoked executive privilege as to the whistleblower complaint. See Maguire Hearing Tr. at 20 (“Chairman Schiff: So they never asserted executive privilege, is that the answer? Acting Director Maguire: Mr. Chairman, if they did, we would not have released the letters yesterday and all the information that has been forthcoming.”).
993 Letter from Chairman Adam B. Schiff, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, to Joseph Maguire, Acting Director of National Intelligence (Sept. 10, 2019) (online at https://intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/20190910_-_chm_schiff_letter_to_acting_dni_maguire.pdf).
994 Letter from Chairman Adam B. Schiff, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, to Joseph Maguire, Acting Director of National Intelligence (Sept. 10, 2019) (online at https://intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/20190910_-_chm_schiff_letter_to_acting_dni_maguire.pdf).
995 See Letter from Jason Klitenic, General Counsel, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, to Chairman Adam B. Schiff, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (Sept. 13, 2019).
996 Letter from Chairman Adam B. Schiff, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, to Joseph Maguire, Acting Director of National Intelligence (Sept. 13, 2019) (online at https://intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/20190913_-_chm_schiff_letter_to_acting_dni_re_whistleblower_-_subpoena.pdf).
997 The White House, Memorandum of Telephone Conversation (July 25, 2019) (online at www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Unclassified09.2019.pdf).
998 Vindman Dep. Tr. at 305-06; Morrison Dep. Tr. at 242.
999 Morrison Dep. Tr. at 242.
1000 See, e.g., Morrison Dep. Tr. at 244; Vindman Dep. Tr. at 306; Williams Dep. Tr. at 147.
1001 Cooper Dep. Tr. at 68-69.
1002 Williams Dep. Tr. at 147. Ms. Williams did testify that President Trump’s pressure on President Zelensky to open investigations into the Bidens on the July 25 call “shed some light on possible other motivations behind a security assistance hold.” Williams Dep. Tr. at 149.
1003 Sandy Dep. Tr. at 42, 139-140. According to a press report, after Congress began investigating President Trump’s scheme, the White House Counsel’s Office reportedly opened an internal investigation relating to the July 25 call. As part of that internal investigation, White House lawyers gathered and reviewed “hundreds of documents” that “reveal extensive efforts to generate an after-the-fact justification” for the hold on military assistance for Ukraine ordered by President Trump. These documents reportedly include “early August email exchanges between acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and White House budget officials seeking to provide an explanation for withholding the funds after the president had already ordered a hold in mid-July on the nearly $400 million in security assistance.” White House Review Turns Up Emails Showing Extensive Effort to Justify Trump’s Decision to Block Ukraine Military Aid, Washington Post (Nov. 24, 2019) (online at www.washingtonpost.com/politics/white-house-review-turns-up-emails-showing-extensive-effort-to-justify-trumps-decision-to-block-ukraine-military-aid/2019/11/24/2121cf98-0d57-11ea-bd9d-c628fd48b3a0_story.html). The White House has withheld these documents from the Committee, so the Committee cannot verify the accuracy of the reporting as of the publication of this report.
1004 Sandy Dep. Tr. at 49.
1005 Sandy Dep. Tr. at 42, 44.
1006 Sandy Dep. Tr. at 180.
1007 Vindman Dep. Tr. at 306.
1008 Cooper Dep. Tr. at 83.
1009 Cooper Dep. Tr. at 47-48, 58, 112-114; Sandy Dep. Tr. at 34-35, 85-86, 95, 128, 139-131, 133; Morrison Dep. Tr. at 163; Kent Dep. Tr. at 308-309; Reeker Dep. Tr. at 133. News reports indicate that a confidential White House review of President Trump’s hold on military assistance to Ukraine has identified hundreds of documents revealing “extensive efforts to generate an after-the-fact justification for the decision and a debate over whether the delay was legal.” White House Review Turns Up Emails Showing Extensive Effort to Justify Trump’s Decision to Block Ukraine Military Aid, Washington Post (Nov. 24, 2019) (online at www.washingtonpost.com/politics/white-house-review-turns-up-emails-showing-extensive-effort-to-justify-trumps-decision-to-block-ukraine-military-aid/2019/11/24/2121cf98-0d57-11ea-bd9d-c628fd48b3a0_story.html). According to “two people briefed on an internal White House review,” in August, Acting Chief of Staff Mulvaney “asked…whether there was a legal justification for withholding hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine.” Mulvaney Asked About Legal Justification for Withholding Ukraine Aid, New York Times (Nov. 24, 2019) (online at www.nytimes.com/2019/11/24/us/politics/mulvaney-ukraine-aid.html). Reports indicate that, “[e]mails show [OMB Director] Vought and OMB staffers arguing that withholding aid was legal, while officials at the National Security Council and State Department protested. OMB lawyers said that it was legal to withhold the aid, as long as they deemed it a ‘temporary’ hold.” White House Review Turns Up Emails Showing Extensive Effort to Justify Trump’s Decision to Block Ukraine Military Aid, Washington Post (Nov. 24, 2019) (online at www.washingtonpost.com/politics/white-house-review-turns-up-emails-showing-extensive-effort-to-justify-trumps-decision-to-block-ukraine-military-aid/2019/11/24/2121cf98-0d57-11ea-bd9d-c628fd48b3a0_story.html). The White House and State Department’s obstruction of Congress has prevented the Committee from obtaining any documents on this matter and, therefore, the Committee cannot verify the accuracy of this reporting as of the publication of this report.
1010 Cooper Dep. Tr. at 80.
1011 Sandy Dep. Tr. at 146-147.
1012 See Department of Defense, DOD Budget Materials (FY2011-FY2018) (online at https://comptroller.defense.gov/Budget-Materials/). In 1974, President Nixon impounded 15-20 percent of a number of specific programs, which prompted the passage of the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. Congressional Research Service, The Congressional Budget Act of 1974 (P.L. 93-344) Legislative History and Analysis (Feb. 26, 1975).
1013 Department of Defense and Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Act, 2019 and Continuing Appropriations Act, 2019, Pub. L. No. 115-245, § 9013 (2018); Sandy Dep. Tr. at 147.
1014 Continuing Appropriations Act 2020, and Health Extenders Act of 2019, Pub. L. No. 116-59, § 124 (2019).
1015 Cooper Dep. Tr. at 98.
1016 $35 Million in Pentagon Aid Hasn’t Reached Ukraine Despite White House Assurances, L.A. Times (Nov. 19, 2019) (online at www.latimes.com/politics/story/2019-11-19/documents-show-nearly-40-million-in-ukraine-aid-delayed-despite-white-house-assurances).
1017 Zelensky Planned to Announce Trump’s ‘Quo’ on My Show. Here’s What Happened, Washington Post (Nov. 14, 2019) (online at www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/zelensky-was-planning-to-announce-trumps-quid-pro-quo-on-my-show-heres-what-happened/2019/11/14/47938f32-072a-11ea-8292-c46ee8cb3dce_story.html).
1018 Zelensky Planned to Announce Trump’s ‘Quo’ on My Show. Here’s What Happened, Washington Post (Nov. 4, 2019) (online at www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/zelensky-was-planning-to-announce-trumps-quid-pro-quo-on-my-show-heres-what-happened/2019/11/14/47938f32-072a-11ea-8292-c46ee8cb3dce_story.html).
1019 Taylor Dep. Tr. at 40.
1020 Kent-Taylor Hearing Tr. at 106.
1021 Kent-Taylor Hearing Tr. at 106.
1022 Hill-Holmes Hearing Tr. at 33.
1023 Hill-Holmes Hearing Tr. at 33.
1024 Taylor Dep. Tr. at 41.
1025 Taylor Dep. Tr. at 217-18.
1026 Taylor Dep. Tr. at 217-18.
1027 Holmes Dep. Tr. at 30.
1028 Zelensky Planned to Announce Trump’s ‘Quo’ on My Show. Here’s What Happened, Washington Post (Nov. 4, 2019) (online at www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/zelensky-was-planning-to-announce-trumps-quid-pro-quo-on-my-show-heres-what-happened/2019/11/14/47938f32-072a-11ea-8292-c46ee8cb3dce_story.html).
1029 Hill-Holmes Hearing Tr. at 33; see also Zelensky Planned to Announce Trump’s ‘Quo’ on My Show. Here’s What Happened, Washington Post (Nov. 4, 2019) (online at www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/zelensky-was-planning-to-announce-trumps-quid-pro-quo-on-my-show-heres-what-happened/2019/11/14/47938f32-072a-11ea-8292-c46ee8cb3dce_story.html).
1030 Kent. Dep. Tr. at 333.
1031 Kent Dep. Tr. at 329-31.
1032 Kent Dep. Tr. at 330.
1033 Zelensky Planned to Announce Trump’s ‘Quo’ on My Show. Here’s What Happened, Washington Post (Nov. 4, 2019) (online at www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/zelensky-was-planning-to-announce-trumps-quid-pro-quo-on-my-show-heres-what-happened/2019/11/14/47938f32-072a-11ea-8292-c46ee8cb3dce_story.html).
1034 Hill-Holmes Hearing Tr. at 46-47.
1035 Williams Dep. Tr. at 156.
1036 Williams Dep. Tr. at 156.
1037 Pence Says He’s Working to Release Transcripts of His Calls with Ukraine Leader, Politico (Oct. 9, 2019) (online at www.politico.com/news/2019/10/09/pence-ukraine-zelensky-biden-043684).
1038 Pence: I Don’t Object To Releasing My Call Transcripts With Zelensky, Fox Business (Nov. 7, 2019) (online at www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/11/07/pence_i_dont_object_to_releasing_my_call_transcripts_with_zelensky.html).
1039 Rudy Giuliani’s Remarkable Ukraine Interview, Annotated, Washington Post (Sept. 20, 2019) (online at www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/09/20/rudy-giulianis-remarkable-ukraine-interview-annotated/).
1040 The White House, Remarks by President Trump and President Duda of Poland Before Bilateral Meeting (Sept. 23, 2019) (online at www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-president-duda-poland-bilateral-meeting/).
The Impeachment Report Page 33