You’re damn right we did!
So Mulvaney says yeah there was a quid pro quo, deal with it, ya big bunch of anti-corruption wimps.
Or almost that.
A senior White House official has admitted military aid to Ukraine was withheld partly to pressure Kyiv to investigate allegations on the Democrats and the 2016 election.
Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said President Donald Trump had mentioned Democratic “corruption”.
But Mr Trump was also concerned about wider corruption in Ukraine, he said.
Yeah like socialist corruption and Mexican corruption and…uh…Muslim corruption. Stuff like that.
Briefing reporters on Thursday, Mr Mulvaney gave a lengthy answer to a question about Ukraine, saying the president had told him Ukraine was a “corrupt place” and that Mr Trump didn’t want to spend aid and “have them use it to line their own pockets”.
This is Trump talking – Trump accusing other people of corruption and lining their own pockets. Trump.
Mr Mulvaney also said that the president “did not like” the fact that European countries weren’t providing much military aid to Ukraine.
“Those were the driving factors,” he said. “Did he also mention to me in past the corruption related to the DNC [Democratic National Convention] server? Absolutely. No question about that.
“But that’s it. That’s why we held up the money.”
Ok then, thanks for being so candid.
When reporters put to him that he had described a “quid pro quo”, Mr Mulvaney replied: “We do that all the time with foreign policy,
“There’s going to be political influence in foreign policy. That is going to happen. Elections have consequences. And foreign policy is going to change from the Obama administration to the Trump administration,” he said.
He also said that the move had been made in connection with “an ongoing investigation by our Department of Justice”.
But a senior Justice Department official told CBS News: “If the White House was withholding aid in regards to the cooperation with any investigation at the Department of Justice, that is news to us.”
A person familiar with the reaction inside the department said officials were “utterly confused” and “angry” at Mr Mulvaney for saying the aid was withheld in connection to an investigation, CBS reports.
Well they’re just a bunch of whiners.
The movie scene for reference.
Now Mulvaney has come out and denied what he just admitted, because we’ve always been at war with Eastasia.
That’s the way this works, right?
Day One: I never did that.
Day Two: You can’t prove I did that.
Day Three: It wouldn’t be wrong if I had done that.
Day Four: Of course I did that, and I’m proud I did.
Day Five: Obama something something Hillary.
Dave Ricks @1,
Yes, except we got this slightly less dramatic version:
Caffey: “Could you state your name for the record, please?”
Jessup: “Col. Nathan Jessup. I ordered the Code Red.”
Caffey: (stunned) “Uh, I’m sorry, could you repeat that?”
Jessup: “I ordered Kendrick to have a Code Red done on Santiago. What’s the big deal?”
Yep, that’s about it. Makes for a boring climactic scene.
Which I think is why it doesn’t make a bigger splash. The media ran story after story about the mere possibility that the Clinton Foundation might be perceived as a way for foreigners to buy favor with a President Hillary Clinton. Trump just flat-out admits to selling influence, taking bribes, using taxpayer funds to extort personal benefits, and the media doesn’t know how to react.
I tend to think of it as over-correction for personal preference. Journalists as a group tend Dem, I think, so they’re more vigilant rather than less? But if that is what it is by god they need to figure it out and STOP DOING THAT SHIT.
It’s probably partially that, too, but I think it’s a small part of the explanation. When “Clinton Foundation” stories run three times in a week on the front page, that’s an editorial decision, not a reportorial one. Reporters may lean Dem, but editors less so. And the editors have to please their publishers, who don’t lean Dem at all.
And in the particular case of Hillary, media figures like Matt Lauer and Charlie Rose had their own reasons for not liking her….
Ugh, god, that’s for sure.
Speaking of which, a State Department inquiry — and remember, this is now Pompeo’s State Department — just cleared Clinton of any deliberate mishandling of classified information. The WaPo has reported it, but the Times can’t be bothered with such trivialities as stories about email server best practices….