Trump visits Texas with story in doubt
Aide undercuts president, says military money held in push for probe before walking it back
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 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 U.S. military aid for Ukraine to investigations of Democrats that could help him politically.
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 Trump was elected president without Russian help.
A former White House homeland security adviser had told Trump 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’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 Trump had pressured Ukraine for his personal political benefit in 2020. Mulvaney effectively threw the Republican defense of the president into disarray.
Democrats called Mulvaney’s comments a potential turning point in their impeachment inquiry. “We have a confession,” said Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif.
By day’s end, Mulvaney had issued a statement flatly denying what he had earlier said.
“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. The president never told me to withhold any money until the Ukrainians did anything related to the server.”
But in his lunchtime remarks to reporters, 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?” Mulvaney said, referring to 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, D-Calif., who is involved in the inquiry. “I think he’s lying now.”
At the White House, staff members recognized that Mulvaney had created an entirely new controversy with his remarks. Jay Sekulow, one of Trump’s personal lawyers, said Thursday, “The president’s legal counsel was not involved in acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney’s press briefing.”
G-7 at Trump resort
Mulvaney’s performance headlined another extraordinary day in Trump’s Washington. Mulvaney made his remarks after he stepped before the cameras to announce that leaders of the Group of 7 nations would meet in June at Trump’s golf resort in South Florida, even as he acknowledged the choice could be seen as self-enrichment.
Mulvaney said the president had considered the possibility of “political criticism” for picking the resort. But Trump chose it anyway because administration officials had considered hotels throughout the country and concluded that it was “by far and away, far and away, the best physical facility for this meeting,” Mulvaney said.
And on Capitol Hill, Gordon Sondland, the president’s ambassador to the European Union and a wealthy donor to Trump’s campaign, was implicating the president in the Ukraine scandal by telling lawmakers that Trump had delegated Ukraine policy to his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.
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 Giuliani and others related to Ukraine.
Sondland, a Trump campaign donor who has emerged as a central figure in the Ukraine scandal, testified under subpoena that he did not understand until later that Giuliani’s goal may have been an effort “to involve Ukrainians, directly or indirectly in the president’s 2020 re-election campaign.”
According to a copy of his opening statement to investigators, which was obtained by the New York Times, Sondland said that Trump refused to take the counsel of his top diplomats, who recommended to him that he meet with the new Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, without any preconditions. The president said that the diplomats needed to satisfy concerns both he and Giuliani had related to corruption in Ukraine, Sondland asserted.
His account is at odds with testimony from some foreign policy officials who have portrayed Sondland as someone who willingly inserted himself into Ukraine policy despite the fact that the country is not technically within the purview of his posting, and was a key player in Trump’s efforts to win a commitment from the new Ukrainian government to investigate his political rivals.
‘Get over it’
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.
But Mulvaney was defiant and unapologetic.
“I have news for everybody: Get over it. There’s going to be political influence in foreign policy,” he said, adding, “Elections have consequences.”
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 son Hunter. Asked whether he did anything to pressure Zelenskiy to investigate the Bidens, Mulvaney said no.
But the president did pressure Ukraine to re-examine 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.
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 had frozen aid to Ukraine in exchange for help with the 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.
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.”
His answer ignored the distinction — raised by many of the president’s critics — between holding up foreign aid to further American interests and holding up foreign aid to further Trump’s personal interests.
Senior White House aides such as Mulvaney are often largely immune from congressional subpoenas to discuss their private conversations with the president, but talking about them publicly in such an extended way could undermine that legal protection.