Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney on Sunday insisted “there was never a quid pro quo” in a call between President Donald Trump and Ukraine's president — and that his controversial news conference remarks about aid being tied to a probe of Democrats were misinterpreted.
In a grilling on “Fox News Sunday,” anchor Chris Wallace declared, “Anyone listening to what you said in that briefing could come to only one conclusion.”
“Go back and watch what I said before that,” Mulvaney replied.
“The reason we held back the aid is because of two reasons… and once those two things happened, the money flowed," he said.
Those reasons, he explained, were “the rampant corruption in Ukraine,” and that President Donald Trump “was also concerned about foreign influence.”
“I was talking about what it was legitimate for the president to do,” he said, adding: “I never said it was a quid pro quo because it wasn’t.”
“The phone call wasn’t connected to the [military] aid, he insisted.
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