Mulvaney Says, Then Denies, That Trump Held Back Ukraine Aid as Quid Pro Quo
"From Bombshell News To Giuliani 'Grenade': Trump Aide Warned Ukraine Plot Like A Criminal Drug Deal"
Conflicting comments by the acting White House chief of staff threw Washington into turmoil.
VIDEO The acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, told reporters that military aid was held back in part to prod Ukraine to investigate Democrats, undercutting President Trump’s denial of a quid pro quo. Leigh Vogel for The New York Times Michael D. ShearKatie Rogers
By Michael D. Shear and Katie Rogers
Oct. 17, 2019
WASHINGTON — Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, threw the Trump administration’s defense against impeachment into disarray on Thursday when he said that the White House withheld nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine to further President Trump’s political interests.
Mr. Mulvaney told journalists in a televised White House briefing that the aid was withheld in part until Ukraine investigated 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 without Russian help.
The declaration by Mr. Mulvaney, which he took back later in the day, undercut Mr. Trump’s repeated denials of a quid pro quo that linked American military aid for Ukraine to an investigation that could help Mr. Trump politically.
The comments sent Washington into turmoil as Democrats and some Republicans said they were deeply damaging to Mr. Trump.
At the White House, Mr. Mulvaney said that Mr. Trump had demanded that Ukraine investigate the theory, even though a former White House homeland security adviser had told Mr. Trump that the theory had been completely debunked.
“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.
Democrats called Mr. Mulvaney’s comments a potential turning point in their impeachment inquiry. “We have a confession,” said Representative Eric Swalwell, Democrat of California.
By day’s end, after Mr. Trump told aides to clean up the mess, Mr. Mulvaney 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,” Mr. Mulvaney 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 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 D.N.C. 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 Representative Ted Lieu, a California Democrat involved in the inquiry. “I think he’s lying now.”
At the White House, 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.”
Mr. Mulvaney’s performance was only part of 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 cease-fire that would cement Turkey’s goal of pushing Kurds from Northern Syria as “a great day for civilization.”
And on Capitol Hill, Gordon D. Sondland, the president’s ambassador to the European Union and a wealthy donor to Mr. Trump’s campaign, was implicating the president in the Ukraine scandal by telling lawmakers that Mr. Trump had delegated Ukraine policy to his personal lawyer Rudolph W. 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.
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.”
In wide-ranging remarks, Mr. 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.
Mr. Mulvaney denied that the aid for Ukraine was also contingent on its government’s opening an investigation into either former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., 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, Mr. 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. Mr. Mulvaney’s mention of a “D.N.C. server” was a reference to an unfounded conspiracy theory promoted by Mr. Trump .. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/03/us/politics/trump-ukraine-conspiracy.html?module=inline .. that Ukraine was somehow involved in Russia’s 2016 theft of emails from the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
“That’s an ongoing investigation,” Mr. 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 Mr. Durham was examining any role that Ukraine might have played in the early stages of the Russia investigation, a department official declined on Thursday to comment on whether he was 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 Mr. Mulvaney said the White House had frozen 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. Mr. Durham was seen leaving the Justice Department around midday Thursday.
Mr. 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 Mr. 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.’”
Mr. 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 Mr. Trump.
Asked whether he had admitted to a quid pro quo, Mr. 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 Mr. Trump’s personal interests.
Senior White House aides like Mr. 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.
Democrats had already been interested in Mr. Mulvaney’s role in the Ukraine matter after several impeachment witnesses described him as a central player in the effort to hold up the aid in the days before Mr. Trump pressed Ukraine’s president to investigate Mr. Biden.
They also have said they want to know whether Mr. Mulvaney helped prevent a White House meeting between Mr. Trump and Mr. Zelensky until the Ukrainian government agreed to investigate the president’s rivals, including the D.N.C. and the Bidens.
Fiona Hill, the president’s former senior director for European and Russian affairs at the National Security Council, testified that Mr. Mulvaney was part of a trio of Trump loyalists who conducted a rogue foreign policy operation in Ukraine.
“I am not part of whatever drug deal Sondland and Mulvaney are cooking up,” Mr. Bolton told Ms. Hill to tell White House lawyers, according to two people at Ms. Hill’s deposition, which took place on Monday.
In his remarks on Thursday, Mr. Mulvaney said there was nothing wrong with Mr. Trump’s relying on Mr. Giuliani or others outside of the diplomatic corps to conduct foreign policy.
“That’s the president’s call,” he said. “You may not like the fact that Giuliani was involved. That’s great, that’s fine. It’s not illegal, it’s not impeachable.” He added, “The president gets to set foreign policy, and he gets to choose who to do so.”
Democrats are also eager to know about a May 23 meeting during which career diplomats with responsibility for Ukraine were sidelined in favor of Mr. Sondland, Kurt D. Volker, the special envoy for Ukraine; and Rick Perry, the energy secretary, one witness testified.
George P. Kent, the deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, testified Tuesday that Mr. Mulvaney called the White House meeting, according to Representative Gerald E. Connolly, Democrat of Virginia, who was in the room for Mr. Kent’s testimony.
Katie Benner and Nicholas Fandos contributed reporting from Washington, and Maggie Haberman from New York.
Michael D. Shear is a White House correspondent. He previously worked at The Washington Post and was a member of their Pulitzer Prize-winning team that covered the Virginia Tech shootings in 2007. @shearm
Katie Rogers is a White House correspondent in the Washington bureau, covering the cultural impact of the Trump administration on the nation's capital and beyond. @katierogers
Trump Asked Rex Tillerson To Help Giuliani Client With DOJ: Bloomberg | Rachel Maddow | MSNBC
"From Bombshell News To Giuliani 'Grenade': Trump Aide Warned Ukraine Plot Like A Criminal Drug Deal"
Oct 10, 2019
MSNBC
Nick Wadhams, national security reporter for Bloomberg, talks with Rachel Maddow about new reporting that Donald Trump asked his then-Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, to help a client of Rudy Giuliani, a Turkish national named Reza Zarrab, who was facing federal charges with the DOJ. Aired on 10/09/19.
Just after Tillerson was fired in Dec. 2018 he said, in an interview, that Trump had asked him to do things in a way which would violate the law.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Monday, March 21, 2016 Manhattan U.S. Attorney Announces Arrest Of Turkish National For Conspiring To Evade U.S. Sanctions Against Iran, Money Laundering, And Bank Fraud
Charges Unsealed Against Three Defendants Who Allegedly Engaged in Hundreds of Millions of Dollars of Transactions on Behalf of the Government of Iran and Iranian Entities As Part of a Scheme to Evade U.S. Sanctions
Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, John P. Carlin, Assistant Attorney General for National Security, and Diego Rodriguez, the Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), announced today the unsealing of an indictment against three individuals in connection with engaging in hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of transactions on behalf of the Government of Iran and other Iranian entities, which were barred by United States sanctions, laundering the proceeds of those illegal transactions, and defrauding several financial institutions by concealing the true nature of these transactions. REZA ZARRAB, a/k/a “Riza Sarraf,” CAMELIA JAMSHIDY, a/k/a “Kamelia Jamshidy,” and HOSSEIN NAJAFZADEH are charged with orchestrating fraudulent transactions that were intended to hide the fact that the transactions were for the benefit of the Government of Iran or other sanctioned Iranian entities and to launder the proceeds of that illegal activity. The case is assigned to United States District Judge Richard M. Berman.
Prosecutor and Judge Issue Rare Response to Criticism From Turkey
Reza Zarrab, the Turkish gold trader whose criminal case has attracted high-powered lawyers and worldwide interest, in 2013. Depo Photos, via Associated Press
By Benjamin Weiser Nov. 21, 2017
Very few criminal prosecutions in New York have likely drawn as much public criticism from a foreign leader as that of Reza Zarrab, a Turkish-Iranian gold trader who was charged along with eight other defendants with conspiring to evade the United States sanctions on Iran.
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has called the charges a plot against the Turkish Republic, and raised the issue in a phone call with President Trump in September. Turkey’s foreign minister claimed that the prosecution’s evidence was concocted by Gulenists, a movement led by an Islamic cleric living in exile in Pennsylvania; the movement has been banned in Turkey as a terrorist group and blamed by Mr. Erdogan for the failed coup in 2016.
On Saturday, Turkey opened an investigation of Preet Bharara, the former United States attorney in Manhattan whose office filed the original charges, and of his successor, Joon H. Kim, who is overseeing a trial in the case that starts next week.
Allegedly Flynn was offered millions more if he could get Reza Zarrab freed from prison. Giuliani was one of Zarrab's lawyers.
Closer to today
Apparently Trump asked Tillerson to interfere with the Justice Department by getting them to stop the prosecution of Zarrab. So Trump is now into what Flynn was allegedly offered more millions to do.
Trump Urged Top Aide to Help Giuliani Client Facing DOJ Charges
By Nick Wadhams, Saleha Mohsin, Stephanie Baker, and Jennifer Jacobs October 10, 2019, 9:27 AM GMT+11
> Secretary of State Rex Tillerson refused to interfere in case > 2017 episode bears hallmarks of Trump approach to Ukraine call
President Donald Trump pressed then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to help persuade the Justice Department to drop a criminal case against an Iranian-Turkish gold trader who was a client of Rudy Giuliani, according to three people familiar with the 2017 meeting in the Oval Office.
Tillerson refused, arguing it would constitute interference in an ongoing investigation of the trader, Reza Zarrab, according to the people. They said other participants in the Oval Office were shocked by the request.
Rex Tillerson and Donald Trump in 2017. Photographer: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Ari Melber: Evidence Points To AG Barr Abusing Law Enforcement Powers | MSNBC
"From Bombshell News To Giuliani 'Grenade': Trump Aide Warned Ukraine Plot Like A Criminal Drug Deal"
Oct 26, 2019
MSNBC
Trump’s hand-picked Attorney General, Bill Barr, is making good on Trump’s demands to ‘investigate the investigators,’ as the New York Times reports he is using the DOJ to push a ‘criminal’ probe in the Mueller investigation. MSNBC’s Chief Legal Correspondent Ari Melber reports on how Barr’s call for investigation, in the midst of the Ukraine impeachment probe, is Trump’s latest systematic demand to use the government’s gravest powers to go after anyone has ever opposed him. Aired on 10/25/19.
Justice Dept. Is Said to Open Criminal Inquiry Into Its Own Russia Investigation [...] The opening of a criminal investigation is likely to raise alarms that Mr. Trump is using the Justice Department to go after his perceived enemies. Mr. Trump fired James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director under whose watch agents opened the Russia inquiry, and has long assailed other top former law enforcement and intelligence officials as partisans who sought to block his election. [...] The move also creates an unusual situation in which the Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation into itself. https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=151906076
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Donald Trump Toys With Abuse Of Office In Beef Against Washington Post | Rachel Maddow | MSNBC May 19, 2018
MSNBC
Rachel Maddow revisits the history of Richard Nixon trying to use the IRS to audit his personal political enemies and notes the parallels with Donald Trump's attempt to punish Amazon with higher postal rates because of his personal disdain for The Washington Post.
Randolph Thrower, I.R.S. Chief Who Resisted Nixon, Dies at 100 Randolph W. Thrower in 1969. By Paul Vitello March 18, 2014 [...] The end came in January 1971, after Mr. Thrower requested a meeting with the president, hoping to warn him personally about the pressure White House staff members had been placing on the I.R.S. to audit the tax returns of certain individuals. Beginning with antiwar leaders and civil rights figures, the list had grown to include journalists and members of Congress, among them every Democratic senator up for re-election in 1970, Mr. Thrower told investigators years later. P - He was certain the president was unaware of this and would agree that “any suggestion of the introduction of political influence into the I.R.S.” could damage his presidency, he said. P - Mr. Thrower received two responses. The first was a memo from the president’s appointments secretary saying a meeting would not be possible; the second was a phone call from John D. Ehrlichman, the president’s domestic affairs adviser, telling him he was fired. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/19/us/randolph-w-thrower-dies-at-100-ran-irs-under-nixon.html
A Nolan guy, already high-up in the IRS was recommended by Treasury for the job, but Nixon's people warned Nixon that Nolan probably wouldn't do as he was told. Nixon wanted...
NIXON SOUGHT 'RUTHLESS' CHIEF TO 'DO WHAT HE'S TOLD' AT IRS Add to list By George Lardner Jr. January 3, 1997
The discussion in the Oval Office on May 13, 1971, was short and to the point. President Richard M. Nixon was enunciating his standards for a new commissioner of internal revenue. P - "I want to be sure he is a ruthless son of a bitch, that he will do what he's told, that every income tax return I want to see I see, that he will go after our enemies and not go after our friends," Nixon told his top aides, H.R. "Bob" Haldeman and John Ehrlichman. "Now it's as simple as that. If he isn't, he doesn't get the job. "We've got to have somebody like that for a change in this place." https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1997/01/03/nixon-sought-ruthless-chief-to-do-what-hes-told-at-irs/6a9dbd0a-0261-4afe-9402-21b154bb20bd/
So Nixon, on John Mitchell's recommendation, a Johnny Walters out of the Justice Dept. was hired to head the IRS. To know what happens next see from 6:13. Hint: John Dean hands Walters a list with 199s of names on it. Nixon's "Enemies List" Then, haha, the little historical snapshot is worth a view. Surprise.
At 13:59 Nixon goes after the LA Times. Nixon said, Check re wetbacks... Yep, immigration. 1972. Almost 50 years ago. Mitchell, "Yes, sir." Today Trump's main media target is WaPo.
Abuse of power was in the impeachment articles back then.
Related:
How Democracy Dies, American-Style Sharpies, auto emissions and the weaponization of policy. [...] At first Sharpiegate, Donald Trump’s inability to admit that he misstated a weather projection... [...] Now, according to The Wall Street Journal .. https://www.wsj.com/articles/justice-department-launches-antitrust-probe-into-four-auto-makers-11567778958 , the Justice Department is considering bringing an antitrust action against those [automobile] companies, as if agreeing on environmental standards were a crime comparable to, say, price-fixing. [...] Who’s next? In at least two cases, Trump appears to have tried to use his power to punish Amazon, whose founder, Jeff Bezos, owns The Washington Post, which the president considers (like this newspaper) to be an enemy. First he pushed for an increase in the post office’s package shipping rates .. https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/04/us-postal-service-amazon-trump-1044592 , which would hurt Amazon’s delivery costs; then the Pentagon suddenly announced that it was re-examining the process for awarding a huge cloud-computing project .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/08/01/after-trump-cites-amazon-concerns-pentagon-re-examines-billion-jedi-cloud-contract-process/ .. that Amazon was widely expected to win. P - In each case it’s hard to prove that these were efforts to weaponize government functions against domestic critics. But who are we kidding? Of course they were. P - The point is that this is how the slide to autocracy happens. Modern de facto dictatorships don’t usually murder their opponents (although Trump has been fulsome in his praise .. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/08/trump-praises-kim-jong-uns-beautiful-vision-for-his-country/ .. for regimes that do, in fact, rely on brute force). What they do, instead, is use their control over the machinery of government to make life difficult for anyone considered disloyal, until effective opposition withers away. https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=151131419
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