Mick Mulvaney's presser, a closer look powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/… via @powerlineUS
@powerlineUS My previous post focused on the fact that if Mulvaney was talking about a quid pro quo, it wasn’t military aid in exchange for conducting an investigation of the Bidens. Rather it was military aid for cooperating with an investigation of Ukrainian involvement in the 2016 election
@powerlineUS I argued that even if such a pro quid quo was offered, it wasn’t corrupt because investigating foreign involvement in our election is a legitimate national interest.
@powerlineUS In this post, I want to look more closely at whether Mulvaney confessed to any quid pro quo. Having listened more closely to what Mulvaney said, it’s not clear that he did.
@powerlineUS Mulvaney cited two reasons for the holding up of military aid to Ukraine: (1) lack of a contribution by European countries and (2) corruption in Ukraine. Then he added:...
@powerlineUS ...Did [Trump] also mention to me in past the corruption related to the DNC server? Absolutely, no question about that. But that’s it, and that’s why we held up the money.
@powerlineUS Thus, Mulvaney was telling reporters that Trump initially withheld the aid because of lack of European participation and because of corruption. The “DNC server” was merely something Trump had mentioned in the past as an example of the corruption that concerned him.
@powerlineUS This is not a confession that, when aid was withheld, there was a quid pro quo involving investigating the DNC, a server, and/or interference in the 2016 election.
@powerlineUS At this point, Mulvaney still has not said that there was a quid pro quo in connection with an investigation. All he has said is (1) that the funding was withheld because of (a) lack of European participation and (b) Ukrainian corruption
@powerlineUS ...and (2) that what Ukraine did (or might have done) relating to 2016 was part of the corruption concern.
A reporter then claimed, erroneously, that Mulvaney has described a quid pro quo:
A reporter then claimed, erroneously, that Mulvaney has described a quid pro quo:
@powerlineUS Mulvaney is saying we do quid pro quos — aid in exchange for policy adjustments — all the time. He’s not saying we demand investigations — of Democratic servers or anything else — all the time. Clearly, we do not.
@powerlineUS Given Mulvaney’s previous statements, the demand here, to the extent there was one, is to satisfy the administration that we wouldn’t be aiding a hopelessly corrupt country. Mulvaney still hasn’t said or agreed that aid was conditioned on an investigation of Democrats.
@powerlineUS Democrats and their media allies are also trying to make something of Mulvaney’s statement later on that “there’s going to be political influence in foreign policy.” Here, though, all Mulvaney was saying is that the substance of foreign policy changes as the result of elections.
@powerlineUS This is clear from his statement, in the middle of this part of the discussion, that “elections have consequences.” In fact, Mulvaney said this twice. He added that “foreign policy is going to change from the Obama administration to the Trump administration.” Obviously.
@powerlineUS That’s the sense in which Mulvaney was saying that politics influences foreign policy. Mulvaney certainly wasn’t saying that foreign policy is or should be influenced by the desire to investigate political opponents.
@powerlineUS It’s possible that Trump did withhold military aid for a time because he wanted to pressure Ukraine to investigate matters of Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election. If so, I see little, if anything, wrong with this. But Mulvaney didn’t really say that happened.
@powerlineUS It’s possible that Trump withheld military aid for a time because he wanted to pressure Ukraine to investigate the Bidens. If so, I think this would be a serious wrong. But Mulvaney certainly didn’t say this happened either!
