White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney admitted that President Donald Trump held up Ukraine aid to pressure the country to investigate a conspiracy theory.
Mulvaney, who is also the White House budget director, told reporters Thursday that Trump’s desire to investigate his belief that a DNC computer server was hidden in Ukraine was part of the reason congressionally approved military aid was held up.
However, he insisted that did not represent a quid pro quo arrangement.
“We do that all the time, get over it,” Mulvaney said. “Politics is going to be involved in foreign policy, elections do have consequences.”
Gordon Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union, told that Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, wanted to investigate a debunked conspiracy theory involving a Democratic National Committee computer that the president believes would prove Ukraine, and not Russia, interfered in the 2016 election.