Laura Cooper, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia and Ukraine, is giving testimony that totally undermines a theory advanced by Republican Elise Stefanik yesterday. In her questioning of former ambassador Kurt Volker, Stefanik, who was until recently the youngest member ever elected to Congress but who is just as annoying as any of them, said emphatically that the Ukranians did not even know there was a hold on the security aid, so there's no way they could have felt extorted by it.

"The fact is that the Ukrainians were not even aware of this hold on aid, is that correct?" Stefanik says one minute into the video below. Kurt Volker replies: "That's correct." Stefanik goes on to assert that Ukraine didn't know there was a hold on the aid until they read about it in Politico. "The Ukrainians never even knew their foreign aid was on pause until the article was published in Politico in August," she says two minutes in. Volker: "That is correct."

Well, guess what, Elise and Kurt? No. Wrong. It turns out it's not true that Ukraine didn't know about the months-long delay on funds to their own country until they read all about it at Politico dot com. But your confidence here is something to behold.

Just now, Cooper from the Pentagon testified (at the 11:08 mark below) that: "On July 25, a member of my staff got a question from a Ukraine embassy contact asking what was going on with Ukraine security assistance." A little later she says, "Sometime during the week of August 6 to 10, a Ukraine embassy officer told a member of my staff that a Ukranian official might raise concerns about security assistance in an upcoming meeting." And then she gives a third example. The Politico article didn't come out until August 28.

This is helpful and clarifying. Of course Ukraine knew they were being squeezed, and they were squirming.

* Cooper is not an agent, even though she appears to be the long-lost sister of Dale Cooper and Dana Scully.