Quid pro quo confusion reigns
Chief of staff says comments on withholding military aid to Ukraine were misconstrued
WASHINGTON — Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, said Thursday that the Trump administration withheld nearly $400 million in military aid to pressure Ukraine to investigate what the president has long insisted was Kiev’s assistance to Democrats during the 2016 election.
The declaration by Mr. Mulvaney — which he then took back later in the day — was seen by many as undercutting President Donald Trump’s repeated denials of a quid pro quo that linked American military aid for Ukraine to investigations that could help him politically.
Mr. Mulvaney later claimed his comments were misconstrued and that no conditions were put on releasing military aid to Ukraine.
Mr. Trump had pushed Ukraine to open an investigation into an unsubstantiated theory that Ukraine, not Russia, was responsible for hacking Democratic Party emails in 2016 — a theory that would show that Mr. Trump was elected president without Russian help.
A former White House homeland security adviser had told Mr. Trump that the theory had been “completely debunked.” But Mr. Trump demanded that Ukraine take a look, Mr. Mulvaney said.
“The look back to what happened in 2016 certainly was part of the thing that he was worried about in corruption with that nation,” Mr. Mulvaney told reporters, referring to Mr. Trump. “And that is absolutely appropriate.”
Mr. Mulvaney’s acknowledgment of a tie between military aid and a political investigation came as House Democrats were summoning a stream of witnesses to the Capitol to investigate whether Mr. Trump had pressured Ukraine for his personal political benefit in 2020. Mr. Mulvaney effectively threw the Republican defense of the president into disarray.
Democrats called Mr. Mulvaney’s comments a potential turning point in the impeachment inquiry. “We have a confession,” said Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif.
By day’s end, Mr. Mulvaney had issued a statement flatly denying what he had earlier said at a briefing for reporters in the White House.
“Once again, the media has decided to misconstrue my comments to advance a biased and political witch hunt against President Trump,” he wrote. “Let me be clear, there was absolutely no quid pro quo between Ukrainian military aid and any investigation into the 2016 election.”
But in his earlier remarks to reporters, Mr. Mulvaney pointed to “three issues” that explained why officials withheld the aid: corruption in Ukraine, frustration that European governments were not providing more money to Ukraine and the president’s demand that Kiev officials investigate the issue of the Democratic National Committee server.
“Did he also mention to me in passing the corruption related to the DNC server?” Mr. Mulvaney said, referring to Mr. Trump. “Absolutely. No question about that.” He added, “That’s why we held up the money.”
Democrats ridiculed the reversal.
“Mick Mulvaney was either lying then, or he’s lying now,” said Rep. Ted Lieu, a California Democrat involved in the inquiry. “I think he’s lying now.”
At the White House, many staff members recognized that Mr. Mulvaney had created an entirely new controversy with his remarks. Jay Sekulow, one of Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers, said Thursday, “The president’s legal counsel was not involved in acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney’s press briefing.”
One Trump adviser called Mr. Mulvaney’s briefing “totally inexplicable.”
“He literally said the thing the president and everyone else said did not happen,” the adviser said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the situation frankly.
But Mr. Trump, traveling in Texas, appeared to stand by his top aide, calling Mr. Mulvaney a “good man.”
“I have a lot of confidence” in him, Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Mulvaney’s performance headlined another extraordinary day in Mr. Trump’s presidency.
Mr. Mulvaney made his remarks after he stepped before the cameras to announce that the leaders of the Group of 7 nations would meet in June at Mr. Trump’s golf resort in South Florida, even as he acknowledged the choice could be seen as self-enrichment.
In Texas, Mr. Trump hailed a Middle East ceasefire that would cement Turkey’s goal of pushing Kurds from Northern Syria as “a great day for civilization.”
And on Capitol Hill, Gordon Sondland, the president’s ambassador to the European Union and a wealthy donor to Mr. Trump’s campaign, implicated the president in the Ukraine scandal by telling lawmakers that Mr. Trump had delegated Ukraine policy to his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
Mr. Sondland testified behind closed doors for more than six hours, the latest in a series of current and former diplomats and White House aides who have provided detailed accounts of actions by Mr. Giuliani and others related to Ukraine.
And he said in opening statement to congressional investigators that Mr. Trump assured him directly there was “no quid pro quo” connecting the withholding of military aid to Ukraine and a White House meeting with Mr. Trump’s demand for Ukraine to investigate his political rivals or look into Mr. Trump’s unfounded theories about the 2016 election and foreign interference.
“I asked the president: ‘What do you want from Ukraine?’ The president responded, ‘Nothing. There is no quid pro quo,’” Mr. Sondland recounted. “The president repeated: ‘no quid pro quo’ multiple times. This was a very short call. And I recall the president was in a bad mood.”
Democratic lawmakers are certain to seize on Mr. Mulvaney’s comments as crucial support of the testimony coming from other witnesses, who have accused the administration of improperly pressuring Ukraine and of sidelining veteran diplomats in favor of Mr. Trump’s political loyalists.
But Mr. Mulvaney was defiant and unapologetic at the suggestion that there was anything wrong with the president’s relying on political loyalists to conduct foreign policy.
“I have news for everybody: Get over it. There’s going to be political influence in foreign policy,” he said, adding, “Elections have consequences.”