Mulvaney links Ukraine money delay to DOJ investigation today, then revises statement in latest Trump impeachment inquiry news — live updates – CBS News

Key facts and latest news

• The deposition of Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Laura Cooper, who was asked to appear before lawmakers Friday, has been postponed until next Thursday.
  
• At the White House Thursday, acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said a delay in aid to Ukraine was due to concerns about corruption in the country and tied the delay to Ukraine’s cooperation with a Justice Department investigation.
• Later, Mulvaney issued a statement walking back his comments, claiming there was “absolutely no quid pro quo.”
• Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, told lawmakers Thursday he was “disappointed” by President Trump’s directive to work with Rudy Giuliani on Ukraine.
• Congressman Elijah Cummings, the chairman of the powerful House Oversight Committee, has died at the age of 68. He was a key figure in the impeachment inquiry.
• On a July call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Mr. Trump urged Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden.

Washington — The acting White House chief of staff said Thursday that a delay in hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Ukraine over the summer was driven partly by a desire to pressure the country into cooperating with a Justice Department investigation into supposed Ukrainian involvement in the 2016 U.S. election.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Mick Mulvaney described conversations with President Trump, paraphrasing him as saying, “Look, this is a corrupt place. I don’t want to send them a bunch of money, and have them waste it, have them spend it, have them use it to line their own pockets. Plus, I’m not sure that the other European countries are helping them out either.”

“Did he also mention to me in the past, the corruption related to the DNC server? Absolutely. No question about that,” Mulvaney said, referencing an unproven theory that Ukrainians framed Russians for hacking into the DNC’s computer systems. “But that’s it. That’s why we held up the money.”

Mulvaney reiterated the rationale later in the briefing: “I was involved with the process by which the money was held up temporarily, OK? Three issues for that: the corruption in the country, whether or not other countries were participating in support of the Ukraine and whether or not they were cooperating in an ongoing investigation with our Department of Justice. That’s completely legitimate.”

After Mulvaney’s briefing, a senior Justice Department official said the department was not aware of any connection between aid to Ukraine and the department’s investigation into the origins of the 2016 counterintelligence probe.

“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,” the official said.

Jay Sekulow, the president’s outside counsel, also issued a terse statement in response to Mulvaney’s comments about the delay of Ukraine aid, saying, “The President’s legal counsel was not involved in acting chief of staff Mike Mulvaney’s press briefing.”

Later Thursday, the White House released a statement from Mulvaney seeking to clarify his remarks, blaming the media for misconstruing his remarks and claiming “there never was any condition on the flow of the aid related to the matter of the DNC server.”

Earlier in the day, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union told lawmakers he was “disappointed” that Mr. Trump had directed him and other diplomats managing U.S. policy toward Ukraine to work with Rudy Giuliani, his personal attorney.

“Please know that I would not have recommended that Mr. Giuliani or any private citizen be involved in these foreign policy matters,” Sondland said in a statement prepared for his congressional testimony Thursday. “However, given the President’s explicit direction, as well as the importance we attached to arranging a White House meeting between Presidents Trump and Zelensky, we agreed to do as President Trump directed.”

Sondland’s testimony came as Washington was grappling with the death of Congressman Elijah Cummings, the Democratic chairman of the powerful House Oversight Committee and a key figure in the impeachment inquiry. The congressman, 68, had often clashed with Mr. Trump.

The deposition of Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Laura Cooper, who was asked to appear before lawmakers Friday, has been postponed until next Thursday.– Stefan Becket

–Paula Reid and Clare Hymes contributed reporting