Former National Security Council official Dr. Fiona Hill testified on Thursday that President Barack Obama had ignored the “interagency consensus” on sending weapons to Ukraine for “political” reasons.
Under questioning from Republicans, Hill admitted that she herself had been against giving weapons to Ukraine to help it fight Russian invasion, and that she had written an op-ed in the Washington Post expressing those views.
She also said that the “interagency consensus” had actually been in favor of arming the Ukrainians; she herself was not in government service at the time, but working at the liberal Brookings Institution think tank.
Hill noted that President Obama had ignored the “interagency consensus” for what she called “political” reasons. She explained that Obama was concerned that arming the Ukrainians could provoke the Russians.
On Tuesday, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who worked for Hill and remains at the National Security Council, testified that President Donald Trump’s decision to withhold aid from Ukraine temporarily went against the “interagency consensus” on Ukraine, though he also acknowledged that Trump had armed Ukraine while Obama had not.
Democrats say that Trump hurt U.S. national security by jeopardizing American support for Ukraine, and ignoring the “interagency consensus,” for what they claim are political reasons.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.