Another top government lawyer has waded into the Ukrainian aid scandal that has sparked an impeachment inquiry and engulfed the White House. 

Department of Defense general counsel Paul Ney on Thursday ordered the Pentagon to hand over all "pertinent documents and records" related to the distribution of U.S. military aid to Ukraine. 

Jonathan Hoffman, chief spokesman for the Defense Department, told reporters that Ney was following "past practice on matters of importance" and wants to "ensure that all appropriate department information is available on this matter," according to a report from Politico. 

Hoffman added that "this is a fairly standard practice that when there's a significant level of congressional or [inspector general] interest in a matter, for the department to take steps proactively to ensure that these materials are available."

Attempts to speak with Hoffman and other Defense Department representatives were not immediately successful.

Ney's move comes days after Central Intelligence Agency general counsel Courtney Elwood emerged as a key figure in a whistleblower's decision to file a complaint about President Donald Trump allegedly leveraging U.S. military aid to push Ukrainian officials to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son. 

Trump appointed Ney in 2018 to serve as chief legal officer of the Defense Department and legal adviser to the Secretary of Defense. Ney formerly served as Tennessee's chief deputy attorney general. 

Earlier in his career, he was acting general counsel and principal deputy GC of the Department of the Navy and deputy general counsel for the Defense Department. He's also had stints in private practice, first as a partner at the Nashville, Tennessee-based firm Trauger, Ney & Tuke and later as an IP litigator at Patterson Intellectual Property Law.

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