White House budget official appears for testimony on Ukraine aid hold amid impeachment inquiry

A senior White House budget official appeared for testimony Saturday morning before House impeachment investigators — a significant crack in President Donald Trump’s firewall that has prevented Democrats from learning critical details about the decision to freeze nearly $400 million of military aid to Ukraine.

Mark Sandy’s closed-door appearance alone was a breakthrough for Democrats, who have struggled to obtain testimony about what other officials have described as an abrupt order by the president to withhold the U.S. military assistance meant for Ukraine. Democrats have blamed the nagging mystery on an all-out blockade by the White House Office of Management and Budget, which has fought relentlessly to spurn requests and subpoenas seeking documents and witness testimony.

Sandy is a career non-political official at OMB and is expected to face questions about why the congressionally appropriated military aid was halted and how the decision was implemented — two key blind spots for Democratic investigators as they seek to make the case that Trump ordered the hold the military aid and refused a White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky until the country would publicly commit to investigations of Trump’s political rivals, in particular former Vice President Joe Biden.

“We’re in the process of collecting the details of how that process took place within the budget bureaucracy,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who attended Sandy’s deposition. “And I expect before all the evidence is in, we will find out that there was political influence used to hold that money back. And it comes from the White House.”

“This is a technical part of our investigation,” added Raskin, a member of the House Oversight and Reform Committee. “We want to know exactly how the president translated his political objective to shake down the Ukrainian government for the favors he wanted, translated into the budget process.”

Republicans had a completely different view of Sandy’s deposition, noting that lawmakers were not permitted to speak about the specifics of the testimony. They demanded that the transcript of Sandy’s deposition be released before the next public impeachment hearing on Tuesday.

“Throughout this entire impeachment hearing, the Democrats have been suggesting that there is some nefarious purpose as it relates to the hold on aid,” said Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), a top Trump ally. “And yet we heard today, behind closed doors, in general terms, that the assumptions that Democrats have made, and certainly the allegations that they have made, have not been supported by the witness’ testimony here today.”

Officials who have already appeared before investigators — including Laura Cooper, who oversees Russia and Ukraine policy at the Pentagon — have testified that a senior OMB official announced the hold on aid during a secure video conference on July 18, setting off a scramble within the State Department, Pentagon, National Security Council and Joint Chiefs of Staff as officials sought to learn why the hold had been placed.

All of those departments and agencies had already signed off on the military aid, with OMB as the lone exception, outraging national security officials who argued the security assistance was critical to protect U.S. interests in the region and to help Ukraine fend off Russian aggression to its east.

David Holmes, the political counsel at the U.S. embassy in Kyiv who was on the July 18 video conference, told investigators late Friday that NSC officials “could not determine the cause of the hold or how to lift it.” Holmes and Cooper, among other witnesses who were present, testified that the OMB official said acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney had placed the hold and that it had been ordered by the president.

Top administration officials from across the government were alarmed at the hold on military aid and sought to answer key questions that have stumped lawmakers, including what justification was given for the hold and how the order was implemented.

The House Intelligence Committee issued a subpoena to Sandy, according to an official working on the impeachment inquiry, citing “an attempt by OMB to direct [him] not to appear for his scheduled deposition.”

Sandy’s lawyer, Barbara Van Gelder, previously said her client would testify if he receives a subpoena. The three House committees spearheading the inquiry have issued subpoenas to witnesses from across the government who were ordered not to testify.

Russell Vought, the acting OMB director, and Michael Duffey, OMB’s national security chief, were subpoenaed but have refused to appear for depositions or turn over documents related to the decision to withhold military assistance. Mulvaney, too, has spurned a subpoena seeking his testimony. A senior administration official accused House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) of “threatening” the potential witnesses “without the ability to even have agency counsel present.”

In a statement later Saturday, Schiff slammed Mulvaney for refusing to testify.

“If Mulvaney had evidence that contradicted what we’ve already heard, he’d be eager to testify and provide documents,” Schiff said. “Instead, he’s hiding behind, and assisting in, Trump’s efforts to conceal the truth from the American people.”

The hold on military aid was not publicly known until Aug. 28 when POLITICO revealed it, prompting lawmakers from both parties to inquire about the hold. Bipartisan majorities in the House and Senate have backed the security assistance for Ukraine as it has come under siege from Moscow.

Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, testified that he told a senior Ukrainian official on Sept. 1 that the country would likely not receive the aid unless it committed to the politically motivated investigations Trump and his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, were seeking. Sondland is slated to testify in public next Wednesday.

The military aid was eventually released on Sept. 11 — but only after a whistleblower complaint detailed Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate his rivals, and after House Democrats had launched an investigation targeting Giuliani, who was leveraging contacts in Ukraine in an effort to spur Trump’s desired probes.

Sandy’s appearance comes as House Democrats have moved to the public phase of the impeachment inquiry, with two hearings already under their belt and several more scheduled for next week. Their stated goal of the public hearings is to make the case to the public that Trump abused the power of the presidency by pressuring a foreign leader to investigate his political rivals, and conditioning military aid and a White House meeting on such a demand.

Holmes, the U.S. embassy official in Kyiv, recounted to investigators on Friday a conversation between Sondland and Trump that only recently came to light. According to Holmes, Trump asked Sondland if Ukraine was going to “do the investigation,” to which Sondland said Zelensky is “gonna do it” and would do “anything you ask him to.”

Sondland also relayed to Holmes that Trump only cares about “‘big stuff’ that benefits the president, like the ‘Biden investigation’ that Giuliani was pushing.”

Democrats said the phone call, which took place on July 26, represents another data point connecting Trump to a scheme to extract political favors out of a U.S. ally.

Kyle Cheney contributed to this report.