The White House acknowledged Thursday that President Donald Trump’s decision to hold up military aid to Ukraine was linked to his demand that Kyiv investigate the Democratic National Committee and the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, a shifting new explanation about events at the heart of the impeachment inquiry.
The admission from acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney undercut the president’s position that there was no quid pro quo during Trump’s phone call with the Ukraine president that sparked the House investigation.
The sudden turn of events had immediate fallout. Trump’s lawyer distanced the president from Mulvaney’s account. The Justice Department said the explanation was news to them. And Democrats cast Mulvaney’s remarks as further evidence wrongdoing as Trump sought a “favor” from Ukraine.
Trump, traveling in Texas, appeared to stand by his top aide, calling Mulvaney a “good man.”
“I have a lot of confidence” in him, Trump said.
But Mulvaney’s initial remarks, made during a rare appearance by an administration official in the White House briefing room, spun open a new phase of the impeachment inquiry.
He indicated that a quid pro quo was at play for the military aid — but a different one than Democrats initially highlighted as they probed Trump’s efforts to have Ukraine investigate a company linked to the son of his Democratic rival Joe Biden.