October 17, 2019

Mick Mulvaney Issues Furious Denial of Mick Mulvaney’s “Quid Pro Quo” Allegations

Evan Vucci/AP

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Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney on Thursday night sent out a statement to reporters moonwalking back an admission he’d made during a White House press briefing earlier in the day: that the Trump administration withheld military aid from Ukraine as a ploy to get Ukraine to investigate a baseless theory involving Democrats, a server, and the 2016 election. In the span of a few hours, Mulvaney had covered the full spectrum of Trumpish protestation: from a wised-up “everyone does it” to a martyred cry of total innocennce.

Here’s what he told reporters hours ago:

When ABC News’ Jon Karl pointed out that what Mulvaney had said amounted to a quid pro quo, Mulvaney responded: “We do that all the time with foreign policy. Now, in a statement that starts with blaming the media for misconstruing what he told reporters, Mulvaney claimed that there actually “never was any condition on the flow of the aid related to the matter of the DNC server.” 

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“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

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