WATCH: Hale: Unusual to hold aid to leverage a foreign country to investigate political opponent

Rep. Adam Schiff, the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, questioned Laura Cooper, a deputy assistant secretary of defense, and David Hale, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, on Nov. 20, in a public hearing as part of the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump. Schiff, pushing back against the GOP argument that placing holds on military aid was common, asked if Hale agreed that it would be "very unusual" to place a hold on military aid to leverage a foreign country to investigate President Donald Trump’s political rivals. Hale said yes. Asked whether it would also be wrong as well, Hale said, it was "certainly not what I would do." The impeachment inquiry has focused on a July 25 phone call in which Trump asked the president of Ukraine to investigate former vice president and 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.

For more on who’s who in the Trump impeachment inquiry, read:

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