Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney says there is no coverup of the Ukraine phone call that is at the heart of the impeachment inquiry...he also admitted that indeed, President Trump engaged in a ‘quid pro quo’ scenario with Ukraine’s president as it relates to withholding money and investigating Democrats.
In an exchange with ABC’s Jonathan Karl, Mulvaney laid out his view of what happened on the now-infamous phone call and when Karl pointed out that he was describing a ‘quid pro quo,’ Mulvaney replied, “We do that all the time with foreign policy.” He’s now walking those comments back.
Mulvaney now says there was no quid pro quo over military aid to Ukraine – and that Trump never told him to withhold money until Ukrainians investigated a conspiracy theory about Ukraine being involved in a cover-up over the hacking of a Democratic National Committee server. Instead, he says the aide was held up because of concerns about a lack of support over corruption.
What he said during his 40-minute press conference? "Did he also mention to me in [the] past the corruption related to the DNC server? Absolutely," Mulvaney said of a conversation he had with the President. "No question about that. But that's it, and that's why we held up the money."
As for his “clarification,” Mulvaney accused the press of misconstruing his words. “Once again, the media has decided to misconstrue my comments,” he offered in part, “To advance a biased and political witch hunt against President Trump."
Source: ABC News