Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, threw the Trump administration’s defense against impeachment into disarray Thursday when he said that the White House withheld nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine to further President Donald Trump’s political interests. Mulvaney told journalists in a televised White House briefing that the aid was withheld in part until Ukraine investigated an unsubstantiated theory that Ukraine, not Russia, was responsible for hacking Democratic Party emails in 2016 — a theory that would show that Trump was elected without Russian help. The declaration by Mulvaney, which he took back later in the day, undercut Trump’s repeated denials of a quid pro quo that linked American military aid for Ukraine to an investigation that could help Trump politically. The comments sent Washington into turmoil as Democrats and some Republicans said they were deeply damaging to Trump. read more https://www.seattletimes.com/nation...-trump-held-back-ukraine-aid-as-quid-pro-quo/
