On this week’s broadcast of “Fox News Sunday,” Defense Secretary Mark Esper defended the Trump administration’s decision not to fully cooperate with Congress on its impeachment push.
Esper told host Chris Wallace he saw Congress as having oversight authority, but it must be executed in a “right and proper way.”
Partial transcript as follows:
WALLACE: Finally, a couple questions about impeachment. When we lost — last talked a couple of months ago, you said you were going to do everything you could to comply with congressional subpoenas of records about the cut off, the withholding of aid to Ukraine. But two days after our conversation, the Pentagon stonewalled Congress. Didn’t release a single document.
Are you comfortable with that as secretary of defense?
ESPER: Well, what my general counsel had come forward with is that there were legal and technical issues related to the request that we simply couldn’t honor. So, that was the reason behind that.
WALLACE: And — but do you feel Congress has a right to oversight and to be able to see documents from the Pentagon about a program that was approved by Congress?
ESPER: Well, they do, but provided it’s on the right and proper way, and I think it was the issue.
Again, I think my reputation is pretty good in terms of being very transparent. I like to communicate with members of Congress. But in this case, there were — as my recollection is that there were technical and legal issues that prohibited us from doing exactly what was requested by the Congress.
WALLACE: Finally, you were the secretary of defense this past summer when a lot of these actions were going down with regard to Ukraine. Did President Trump ever explained to you, tell you why he was holding up U.S. military aid to Ukraine, and ally that was and is in a current war with Russia?
ESPER: Well, look, I’m not going to get into that. There’s obviously an inquiry underway on Capitol Hill. I came into this story, if you will, in late July when I assumed office.
WALLACE: But you’ve been acting secretary earlier in July.
ESPER: I had for a couple weeks and then I was out of the game for a couple weeks while we waited for my confirmation process.
I will tell you this much, when I came onto the scene, the three things we were looking at for this. One, is the — was the aid necessary, vital to the Ukrainians in terms of defending against Russia? Number two, had that Ukrainians addressed corruption? And that was a congressional concern. And number three, were other countries in the region, other allies and partners assisting them?
And given those three things, we decided to support the provision of Ukrainian aid. At the end of the day, the bottom line is most of that aid got out on time and at no time did have any impact on United States national security.
WALLACE: And you were never told about any political considerations?
ESPER: I’m not going to get into that. Again, there’s a congressional inquiry underway and I’ll leave that process unto itself.
WALLACE: Mr. Secretary, thank you. Thank you so much for talking, you’ve got a lot on your plate defending this country.
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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