If the impeachment of Donald Trump was probable prior to today, it is now inevitable thanks to Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff.
Mulvaney admitted today 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 then took back later in the day — undercut Trump’s repeated denials of a quid pro quo that linked American military aid for Ukraine to investigations 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 that 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 Representative Eric Swalwell, Democrat of California.
By day’s end, 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. 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, 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?” 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 Representative Ted Lieu, a California Democrat 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 today, “The president’s legal counsel was not involved in acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney’s press briefing.”
Mulvaney’s performance headlined another extraordinary day in Trump’s presidency.
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 Trump’s golf resort in South Florida, even as he acknowledged the choice could be seen as self-enrichment.
In Texas, 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 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.