Official: ‘We held up the money’
Chief of staff: Trump held back Ukraine aid pending investigation of Democrats
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 Kyiv’s assistance to Democrats during the 2016 election.
The declaration by Mulvaney — which he tried to take back later in the day — undercut President Donald Trump’s repeated denials of a quid pro quo that linked American military aid for Ukraine to Trump’s unsubstantiated theory that a server with missing Democratic emails was being held by a company based in Ukraine.
Trump had pushed Ukraine to open an investigation into an unsubstantiated theory that Ukraine, not Russia, was responsi
ble for hacking Democratic party emails in 2016 — a theory that would show that Trump was elected president without Russian help.
A former White House homeland security adviser had told Trump repeatedly that the theory had been “completely debunked.” But Trump demanded Ukraine take a look, 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,” Mulvaney told reporters, referring to Trump. “And that is absolutely appropriate.”
Mulvaney said that administration officials initially withheld the aid because “everybody knows this is a corrupt place,” and the president was demanding Ukraine clean up its own government. But, Mulvaney added, “Did he also mention to me in passing the corruption related to the DNC server? Absolutely. No question about that.”
“But that’s it,” he concluded, “and that’s why we held up the money.”
With his defense of the president, Mulvaney, one of Trump’s most loyal lieutenants, effectively confirmed the main premise of the House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry, which is focused on a shadow diplomatic campaign to pressure Ukraine to investigate the Democrats.
“The only thing I’ll say at this point is that Mr. Mulvaney’s acknowledgment certainly indicates that things have gone from very, very bad to much, much worse,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, D- Calif., the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee who is leading the impeachment inquiry.
Jay Sekulow, one of Trump’s personal lawyers, said Thursday that “the president’s legal counsel was not involved in acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney’s press briefing.”
Mulvaney made his remarks on the same day that Gordon Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union and a wealthy donor to Trump’s campaign, implicated the president by telling lawmakers that Trump had delegated Ukraine policy to his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
Sondland testified behind closed doors for more than 10 hours at the Capitol, the latest in a series of current and former diplomats and White House aides who have provided detailed accounts of actions by Giuliani and others related to Ukraine.
Democratic lawmakers are certain to seize on 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 Trump’s political loyalists.
“We have a confession,” said Rep. Eric Swalwell, DCastro Valley.
In wide- ranging remarks, Mulvaney told reporters at the White House that the $ 391 million in military aid was initially withheld from Ukraine because the president was displeased that European countries were not as generous with their assistance. He also wanted more attention paid to Ukraine’s persistent political corruption.
Mulvaney denied that the aid for Ukraine was also contingent on its government opening an investigation into either former Vice President Joe Biden, a leading Democratic candidate for president, or his younger son, Hunter Biden. Asked whether he did anything to pressure President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine to investigate the Bidens, Mulvaney said “no.”
But the president did pressure Ukraine to reexamine discredited theories that Ukraine, not Russia, had worked to sway the 2016 campaign. Mulvaney’s mention of a “DNC server” was a reference to an unfounded conspiracy theory promoted by Trump that Ukraine was somehow involved in Russia’s 2016 theft of emails from the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Mulvaney tied the server to the Justice Department’s review of the origins of the Russia investigation, led by the U. S. attorney in Connecticut, John H. Durham, and closely overseen by Attorney General William Barr.
“That’s an ongoing investigation,” Mulvaney said. “So you’re saying the president of the United States, the chief law enforcement person, cannot ask somebody to cooperate with an ongoing public investigation into wrongdoing? That’s just bizarre to me that you would think that you can’t do that.”
But while the Justice Department said last month that Durham is examining any role that Ukraine might have played in the early stages of the Russia investigation, a department official declined Thursday to comment on whether he is examining the server conspiracy theory.
Russian military officers hacked Democratic servers to steal thousands of emails in 2016, the intelligence community and the special counsel found, and no one has uncovered evidence of Ukrainian involvement.
Justice Department officials were confused and angry when they heard that Mulvaney said the White House froze aid to Ukraine in exchange for help with the Durham investigation, according to a person familiar with their discussions.
“If the White House was withholding aid in regards to the cooperation of any investigation at the Department of Justice, that is news to us,” a senior Justice Department official said.
Durham was seen leaving the Justice Department around midday Thursday.
Mulvaney said the president had done nothing improper and had stayed within normal diplomatic channels.
He blasted the current and former administration officials who have testified in the impeachment inquiry, describing them as personally opposed to the changes in foreign policy that Trump had put in place.
“What you’re seeing now, I believe, is a group of mostly career bureaucrats who are saying, ‘ You know what, I don’t like President Trump’s politics, so I’m going to participate in this witch hunt that they are undertaking on the hill.’ ”
Mulvaney said holding up Ukraine’s aid was a normal part of foreign policy, and he compared it to the foreign aid to Central America that the administration froze until Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras agreed to adopt the immigration policies pressed by Trump.
Asked whether he had admitted to a quid pro quo, Mulvaney said: “We do that all the time with foreign policy.”