Tag: quid pro quo

New transcripts tie Mulvaney to quid pro quo effort

The Hill logoTwo White House witnesses in the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry implicated acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney in an alleged effort to press Ukraine for investigations sought by President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, according to transcripts of their private testimony released Friday.

Former National Security Council (NSC) official Fiona Hill described a meeting with Ukrainian officials on July 10 during which U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland said he had an agreement with Mulvaney that a White House meeting with Ukraine’s president would be contingent on Kiev launching investigations.

“Sondland, in front of the Ukrainians, as I came in, was talking about how he had an agreement with Chief of Staff Mulvaney for a meeting with the Ukrainians if they were going to go forward with investigations. And my director for Ukraine was looking completely alarmed,” Hill told three House committees on Oct. 15, according to the 446-page transcript of her closed-door deposition.

View the complete November 8 article by Morgan Chalfant and Olivia Beavers on The Hill website here.

Growing number of GOP senators consider acknowledging Trump’s quid pro quo on Ukraine

Washington Post logoA growing number of Senate Republicans are ready to acknowledge that President Trump used U.S. military aid as leverage to force Ukraine to investigate former vice president Joe Biden and his family as the president repeatedly denies a quid pro quo.

In this shift in strategy to defend Trump, these Republicans are insisting that the president’s action was not illegal and does not rise to the level of an impeachable offense as the Democratic-led House moves forward with the open phase of its probe.

But the shift among Senate Republicans could complicate the message coming from Trump as he furiously fights the claim that he had withheld U.S. aid from Ukraine to pressure it to dig up dirt on a political rival, even as an increasing number of Republicans wonder how long they can continue to argue that no quid pro quo was at play in the matter.

View the complete November 1 article by Rachael Bade and Seung Min Kim on The Washington Post website here.

An Envoy’s Damning Account of Trump’s Ukraine Pressure and Its Consequences

New York Times logoWilliam B. Taylor Jr. laid out in visceral terms the potentially life-or-death stakes of what he saw as an illegitimate scheme to pressure Kiev for political help by suspending American security aid.

WASHINGTON — He stood on one side of a war-damaged bridge in Ukraine staring across at Russian-backed forces and saw the real-world consequences of President Trump’s efforts to advance a personal agenda. “More Ukrainians,” he said, “would undoubtedly die.”

Recalling that moment during explosive testimony on Tuesday, William B. Taylor Jr., the top American diplomat in Ukraine, laid out in visceral terms the stakes of what he saw as an illegitimate scheme to pressure the Kiev government for political help by suspending American security aid.

In by far the most damning account yet to become public in the House impeachment inquiry Mr. Taylor described a president holding up $391 million in assistance for the clear purpose of forcing Ukraine to help incriminate Mr. Trump’s domestic rivals. Mr. Trump’s actions, he testified, undercut American allies desperately fighting off Russia’s attempt to redraw the boundaries of Europe through force.

View the complete October 22 article by Peter Baker on The New York Times here.

Trump made Ukraine aid contingent on public pledge to investigate Bidens and 2016 election, U.S. envoy says he was told

Washington Post logoAmerica’s top diplomat in Ukraine delivered a forceful blow to President Trump’s account of his “perfect” dealings with that nation, telling lawmakers Tuesday that the White House had threatened to withdraw much-needed military aid unless Kyiv announced investigations for Trump’s political benefit.

The explosive, closed-door testimony from acting ambassador William B. Taylor Jr. undermined Trump’s insistence that he never pressured Ukrainian officials in a potentially improper “quid pro quo.” It also offered House investigators an expansive road map to what Taylor called a “highly irregular” channel of shadow diplomacy toward Ukraine that lies at the heart of the impeachment inquiry.

In a 15-page opening statement, obtained by The Washington Post, Taylor repeatedly expressed his shock and bewilderment as he watched U.S. policy toward Ukraine get overtaken by Trump’s demand that newly elected president Volodymyr Zelensky “go to a microphone and say he is opening investigations of [Democratic presidential candidate Joe] Biden and 2016 election interference.”

View the complete October 22 article by Rachael Bade, Anne Gearan, Karoun Demirjian and Mike DeBonis on The Washington Post website here.

Mulvaney seeks to correct quid pro quo remarks in withering interview with Fox’s Chris Wallace

The Hill logoActing White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney insisted he never said the Trump administration expected a quid pro quo linking U.S. aid to Ukraine to Kiev launching investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden during a withering interview on “Fox News Sunday” with Chris Wallace.

Mulvaney repeatedly insisted his remarks at a Thursday press conference were taken out of context, saying he never used the language of “quid pro quo.”

“That’s not what I said. That’s what people said that I said,” he told a skeptical Wallace early in the interview.

View the complete October 20 article by Justine Coleman on The Hill website here.

Mulvaney ties withheld Ukraine aid to political probe sought by Trump

The Hill logoActing White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney indicated Thursday that the Trump administration held up military aid to Ukraine in part because officials wanted Kiev to investigate unproven election interference allegations linking the country to a Democratic National Committee (DNC) server.

“The look back to what happened in 2016 certainly was part of the things that he was worried about in corruption with that nation. And that is absolutely appropriate,” Mulvaney told reporters at the White House Thursday.

Mulvaney was referring to unsubstantiated allegations that Ukraine, and not Russia, was involved in the 2016 hack of the DNC server.

View the complete October 17 article by Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.