RASCOE: It's hard to say, but the administration knew that he was going to get these questions. Why do you think Mulvaney would then stand in front of this group of reporters and say what he did? And foreign policy is going to change from the Obama administration to the Trump administration.ĬORNISH: Now, what Mulvaney is saying would seem to go directly against the White House's argument that this whole impeachment inquiry is baseless. There's going to be political influence in foreign policy. MULVANEY: I have news for everybody - get over it. He's saying that they're motivated by policy differences, not whether the president's behavior was appropriate. Mulvaney then criticized some of the career officials who had been testifying before the House impeachment inquiry. The president can delegate to who he wants as long as he follows the law. It doesn't matter whether officials like it or not. RASCOE: He said this is the president's decision. What did Mulvaney have to say about that? Many of the officials who've testified have talked about the concerns that they had about his role. Obviously, his words were different during the press conference, and he didn't make that very clear during the press conference.ĬORNISH: Another point of focus has been Rudy Giuliani, the president's personal lawyer, and the work Giuliani had been doing in Ukraine. He's saying that this money was not held up for anything related to that investigation about the server in Ukraine. But now Mulvaney is kind of walking that back. RASCOE: And when he talked about that ongoing investigation, this was the thing involving the DNC server. 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. MICK MULVANEY: I was involved with the process by which the money was held up temporarily, OK. And he did say that this wasn't focusing on political opponents like Biden and that aid wasn't held up over that. intelligence agencies.īut Mulvaney said that this was something that he wanted Ukraine to look into. He said it was an order to force Ukraine to address corruption.Īnd also, he talked about having them address this conspiracy theory that has been floating around from President Trump and others, without evidence, that the DNC server - involving the DNC server and basically saying that Russia somehow was not involved in meddling in the 2016 election. And he talked about the reasons for that. RASCOE: So one of the key things he confirmed was that he was a part of this decision-making process to hold up military aid to Ukraine. We're joined now by White House reporter Ayesha Rascoe.ĬORNISH: Help us understand or tease out what Mulvaney confirmed today. Mulvaney admitted that the administration withheld aid to Ukraine until that country agreed to launch specific corruption investigations. Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney gave a press conference today in which he confirmed a key fact at the heart of the impeachment inquiry into President Trump. We begin with a surprising admission from the White House.
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