During the last few weeks of impeachment hearings, Republicans liked to cite a number — 55 — the number of days they thought the military aid for Ukraine was withheld.

According to their timeline, the clock begins on July 18, a date that a number of witnesses said they first learned of the hold.

But the clock really began a month earlier. On June 18, the Pentagon publicly announced it would release its portion of the money: $250 million.

According to documents reviewed by Just Security, the Office of Security Assistance at the State Department sent the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) a routine congressional notification for its Foreign Military Financing program that same day: June 21. The State Department needed OMB to green light the document, whichdescribed the congressionally appropriated funding, including more than $100 million in funding for Ukraine.

Soon after submitting the congressional notification, the State Department was made aware that the White House had concerns about the Ukraine funding, and so State Department officials started inquiring about what exactly was going on. Was it just the State Department’s money that had been frozen or had the Defense Department’s program also been stopped? And, if the money was really being held, why? Emails flew back and forth from State to OMB to the White House chief of staff’s office between July 10 and 12, as officials tried to clarify what was happening.

Meanwhile, across the Potomac River at the Pentagon, Laura Cooper, who oversees Ukraine policy at the Defense Department (DoD), was also being