Mulvaney walks back comments tying Ukraine aid to 2016 probe

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: The Hill

White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said Thursday that the flow of security assistance to Ukraine was not conditioned on Kiev investigating a conspiracy related to 2016 election interference, walking back statements he made earlier in the day.

Mulvaney issued a statement Thursday afternoon accusing the media of “misconstruing” his earlier remarks to the press at the White House “to advance a biased and political witch hunt against President Trump.” “Let me be clear, there was absolutely no quid pro quo between Ukrainian military aid and any investigation into the 2016 election,” Mulvaney said. “The president never told me to withhold any money until the Ukrainians did anything related to the server.”

Mulvaney insisted the only reason security aid was held up was because the administration was reviewing whether other nations were contributing enough and and out of concerns over corruption.

Mulvaney indicated earlier Thursday that the Trump administration held up military assistance to Ukraine in part because Trump wanted Kiev to investigate allegations about Ukraine’s involvement in the hack of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) server.

Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/466385-mulvaney-walks-back-comments-tying-ukraine-aid-to-2016-probe

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And they're spinning like tops!!!

(Ari brought up this sudden breaking news item)

[Miguelito Loveless]

1. There's video, right?

[B Stieg]

4. Yup. There is.

Here you go!

[BumRushDaShow]

7. Apparently he handed the press a "statement"

Link to tweet

TEXT
Peter Alexander
✔
@PeterAlexander

Read Mick Mulvaney’s statement, walking back today’s comments here:
View image on Twitter
108
5:56 PM - Oct 17, 2019

ETA -

Link to tweet

TEXT

Jake Tapper
✔
@jaketapper

Mulvaney just issued a statement denying that he said what we all heard and saw him say.
Embedded video
3,288
6:12 PM - Oct 17, 2019

[dchill]

36. "We do that all the time."

[madaboutharry]

2. He said it THREE TIMES!

The reporters gave him THREE chances to clarify his statement.

[dalton99a]

34. Yep.

[Cha]

3. MM gave his testimony under oath, right?

[B Stieg]

5. No. It was a press conference. nt

[Cha]

6. Oh.. thank you! How can he just walk

it back, though.. if he said it "3 times"?!

[madaboutharry]

9. Because the evil media is misconstruing what he said and

are twisting his words to pursue the worst witch hunt in American history, including Salem.

[Cha]

30. Thank you.. I hope there's

a tape!

[dchill]

37. He'll walk it back FOUR times! Voila...

...it never happened!

[AkFemDem]

8. I wonder when this tweet goes up...

“Mick Mulvaney is leaving my cabinet at the end of the month to spend more time with his family.”

[deminks]

10. The toothpaste is out of the tube, dude.

You can't put it back.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

11. Mulvaney was very clear there was quid pro quo. Nobody misconstrued his remarks.

“Did he also mention to me in passing the corruption related to the D.N.C. server? Absolutely. No question about that,” he said. “But that’s it, and that’s why we held up the money.” Mr. Mulvaney was referring to Mr. Trump’s discredited idea that a server with Hillary Clinton’s missing emails was being held by a company based in Ukraine.

[Docreed2003]

15. And when Jonathan Karl said "thats quid pro quo"

He said "Yes, we do it all the time"

[comradebillyboy]

12. He does know the comments were recorded doesn't he?

[yellowcanine]

13. Sometimes when you lie so much your brain rebels and forces you to tell the truth, Mick. Deal with

it dude. You can issue all of the press releases you wish. The video is out there and is going to be seen by a lot more people than your damn press releases. And you can be sure when you testify before the Impeachment committees (which you will, guaranteed) that they will be playing that video and asking you to explain it, line by line. No pleading the 5th or Executive Privilege can save you now, sucker.

[Nitram]

14. Oops. Did I say sumthin' wrong? Just try an forgedaboudit.

[RockRaven]

16. Nope. You admitted the quid pro quo, and you cannot un-ring that bell.

People in Trumpland are so marinated in criminality and ethics violations that they cannot follow the plot. They routinely confess to one crime/violation whilst denying a second. Trump has done it repeatedly. Giuliani has done it repeatedly. Don Jr has done it. Mulvaney has done it.

When they are accused of committing crime A they say "It is not true that I did A, what I did was B" but they fail to recognize that B is also illegal.

[IronLionZion]

17. They can't seem to keep their stories straight!

[Auggie]

18. Distract. Disinform. Disrupt. Discredit. Repeat.

[LudwigPastorius]

19. What a dumbass.

He stood up there in front the whole White House press corps and said American-taxpayer-paid foreign aid was withheld as a bargaining chip to get a politically beneficial investigation. ...then, punctuated his statement with, "Get over it!".

You just fingered your boss for abuse of the power of the office of the president. Hope you've got your resignation letter ready to go, Champ.

[DeminPennswoods]

20. What's the over/under on the number of days from today

that Mulvaney will still have a job? I'll say under 7.

[BlueIdaho]

21. Too fucking little, Too fucking late.

Let’s roll that beautiful bean footage again - shall we Nick?

[SWBTATTReg]

22. Scumbag already retreating from his idiotic but probably true statement. What an idiot. Nt

[Dr Vegas]

23. Mick Mudvaney & The Gang Who Couldn't Shoot Straight..,

[djacq]

24. Raise the BS Flag!

[BumRushDaShow]

25. ...

[rpannier]

29. Ladies and Gentlemen, a tap dance

[Pachamama]

26. Go tell Congress under oath Mick!

[Turbineguy]

27. Mulvaney should

get onto the Bureau of Prisons to get the decorators in.

[rpannier]

28. Channeling Chico Marx, "Who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes."

Last edited Fri Oct 18, 2019, 06:50 AM - Edit history (1)

[SaulofTucson]

32. The unspoken irony in the original line

still makes me laugh, as opposed to the current version of "lyin' eyes."

[Marcuse]

31. Which story will he tell under oath?

[bluestarone]

33. The rethugs in the senate will run with

this fuckers SECOND story NOT his first!

[dalton99a]

35. Misconstrue, my ass

QUESTION: So the demand for an investigation into the Democrats was part of the reason that he ordered to withhold funding to Ukraine?

MULVANEY: The look back to what happened in 2016 certainly was part of the thing that he was worried about in corruption with that nation, and that is absolutely appropriate.

QUESTION: Withholding the funding?

MULVANEY: Yeah, which ultimately then flowed. By the way, there was a report that we were worried that the money wouldn’t — if we didn’t pay out the money it would be illegal, okay? It would be unlawful.

____________

QUESTION: But to be clear, what you just described is a quid pro quo. It is, funding will not flow unless the investigation into the Democratic server happened as well.

MULVANEY: We do — we do that all the time with foreign policy. We were holding up money at the same time for, what was it, the Northern Triangle countries. We were holding up aid at the Northern Triangle countries so that they — so that they would change their policies on immigration.

____________

MULVANEY: And I have news for everybody. Get over it. There is going to be political influence in foreign policy.

____________

QUESTION: But — wait. No, no. On the call, the president did ask about investigating the Bidens. Are you saying that the money that was held up, that that had nothing to do with the Bidens? And you’re —

MULVANEY: Yeah. No, the money held up had absolutely nothing to do with Biden. There’s no — and that was the point I made to you.

QUESTION: — And you’re drawing the distinction? You’re saying that it would be wrong to hold up money for the Bidens —

MULVANEY: — There were three — three factors. Again — I was involved with the — the process by which the money was held up temporarily, okay? Three issues for that: the corruption in the country, whether or not other countries were participating in the support of the Ukraine, and whether or not they were cooperating in an ongoing investigation with our Department of Justice. That’s completely legitimate.

____________

QUESTION: You just said you were involved in the process in which — you know, the money being held up temporarily. You named three issues for that —

MULVANEY: Yeah.

QUESTION: — The corruption in the country, whether or not the country would look — they were assisting with an ongoing investigation of corruption. How is that not an establishment of an exchange, of a quid pro quo? You just seem to continue to be establishing this —

MULVANEY: Those are the terms that you used. I mean, go look at what Gordon Sondland said today in his — in his testimony. It was that — I think in his opening statement he said something along the lines of they were trying to get the — the deliverable. And the deliverable was a statement by the Ukraine about how they were going to deal with corruption, okay? Go read his testimony if you haven’t already. And what he says is, and he’s right, that’s absolutely ordinary course of business. This is — this is what you do when you have someone come to the White House, when you either arrange a visit for the president, you have a phone call with the president, a lot of times we use that as the opportunity to get them to make a statement of their policy or to announce something that they’re going to do. It’s one of the reasons we can’t, you know, you can sort of announce that at — he — on the phone call or at the meeting. This is the ordinary course of foreign policy.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/17/us/politics/mulvaney-transcript-quid-pro-quo.html