OPENING STATEMENT OF DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY
OF DEFENSE LAURA K. COOPER

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, Members of this Committee,

I appear today to provide facts and answer questions based on my
experience as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine, and
Eurasia. I would ?rst like to describe my background as well as my role and

vantage point relevant to your inquiry.

I bring to my daily work and to this proceeding my sense of duty to US.
national security not to any political party. I have proudly served two
Democratic and two Republican presidents. I entered government service through
the Presidential Management Internship competition, joining the State Department
in 1999 to work on counterterrorism in Europe and the former Soviet Union.
Inspired by working with the US. military on a Department of Defense rotational
assignment, I decided to accept a civil service position in the Policy organization
of the Of?ce of the Secretary of Defense in January 2001, where I have remained
for the past 18 years.

My strong sense of pride in serving my country and dedication to my
Pentagon colleagues were cemented in the moments after I felt the Pentagon shake
beneath me on September 1 1, 2001. My of?ce was scheduled to move into the
section of the Pentagon that was destroyed in the attack, but a construction delay
meant we were still at our old desks in the adjacent section on that devastating day.
After we had wiped the black dust from our desks and tried to get back to work, I

found meaning by volunteering to work on Afghanistan policy and would give my

next four years to this mission. I later had the opportunity to move into the
leadership ranks of my organization and have had the privilege to manage issues
ranging from defense strategic planning to homeland defense and mission

assurance .

I accepted the position of Principal Director for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia
in 2016 and was honored to be appointed formally to the position of Deputy
Assistant Secretary of Defense in 2018. In my current role, I work to advance U.S.
national security with a focus on deterring Russian aggression and building strong
partnerships with the front line states of Ukraine and Georgia as well as ten other

allies and partners from the Balkans to the Caucasus.

Strengthening Ukraine?s capacity to defend itself against Russian aggression
is central to my team?s mission. The United States and our Allies provide Ukraine
with security assistance because it is in our national security interest to deter
Russian aggression around the world. We also provide security assistance so that
Ukraine can negotiate a peace with Russia from a position of strength. The human
toll continues to climb in this ongoing war, with 14,000 Ukrainian lives lost since
Russia?s 2014 invasion. These sacri?ces are continually in my mind as I lead 
efforts to provide vital training and equipment, including defensive lethal

assistance, to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

I have also supported a robust Ukrainian Ministry of Defense program of
defense reform to ensure the long-term sustainability of U.S. investments and the
transformation of the Ukrainian military from a Soviet model to a NATO-
interoperable force. The National Defense Authorization Act requires the

Department of Defense to certify defense reform progress to release half of

Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative funds, a provision we ?nd very
helpful. Based on recommendations from me and other key advisors, the
Department of Defense, in coordination with the Department of State, certi?ed in
May 2019 that Ukraine had ?taken substantial actions to make defense institutional
reforms for the purposes of decreasing corruption, increasing accountability, and
sustaining improvements of combat capability,? meriting obligation of the entire

$250 million in USAI funds.

This brings me to the speci?c topic of these proceedings. I would like to
recap my recollection of the timeline in which these events played out. I testi?ed

about all of this at length in my deposition.

In July, I became aware of a hold being placed on obligation of State
Department?s Foreign Military Financing (F MF) and DoD?s USAI funds. In a
series of interagency meetings, I heard that the President had directed the Of?ce of
Management and Budget to hold the funds because of his concerns about
corruption in Ukraine. Let me say at the outset that I have never discussed this or
any other matter with the President and never heard directly from him about this

matter.

At a senior level meeting I attended on July 26, chaired by National Security
Council leadership, as at all other interagency meetings on this topic of which I
was aware, the national security community expressed unanimous support for

resuming the funding as in the US. national security interest.

At the July 26 meeting there was also a discussion of how Ukrainian anti-

corruption efforts were making progress. reiterated what we had said in our

earlier certi?cation to Congress, stating that suf?cient progress in defense reform

(including anti?corruption) had occurred to justify the USAI spending.

I, and others at the interagency meetings, felt that the matter was particularly
urgent because it takes time to obligate that amount of money, and my
understanding was that the money was legally required to be obligated by

September 30, the end of the ?scal year.

In the ensuing weeks until the hold was released on September 1 1, I pursued

three tracks.

0 First, starting on July 31 at an interagency meeting, I made clear to
interagency leadership my understanding that once reaches the point at
which it does not have suf?cient time to obligate all the funding by the end
of the ?scal year, there were only two legal ways to discontinue obligation
of USAI: a President-directed rescission or a DOD-directed reprogramming
action, either of which would need to be noti?ed to Congress. I never heard
that either was being pursued.

0 Second, I was in communication with the security assistance
implementing community to try to understand exactly when they would
reach the point at which they would be unable to obligate all the funds by the
end of the ?scal year. I received a series of updates, and in a September 5
update, I and other senior Defense Department leaders were informed that
over $100 million could not be obligated by September 30.

0 And third, I was advocating for a meeting of the Cabinet level Principals
with the President to explain why the assistance should go forward.

Although I heard of attempts to discuss the issue with the President, I never

received details about any conversations other than a status update that the

hold had not been lifted.

After the decision to release the funds on September 11 of this year, my
colleagues across the security assistance enterprise worked tirelessly to be
able to ultimately obligate about 86% of the funding by the end of the ?scal year,
more than they had originally estimated they would be able to. Due to a provision
in September?s continuing resolution appropriating an amount equal to the
unobligated funds from FY2019 we ultimately will be able to obligate all of the
USAI funds. Given how critical these funds are for bolstering Ukraine?s security

and deterring Russia, I appreciate this Congressional action.

Mr. Chairman, I welcome your questions. I will answer them to the best of

my ability. Thank you.