Since news broke that a CIA whistle-blower filed a complaint against Donald Trump for pressuring Ukraine to launch investigations from which he would personally benefit, Republicans have insisted that the president did nothing wrong, and certainly nothing that rises to the level of an impeachable offense. That argument largely centers around the claim that during the July 25 phone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, there was no quid pro quo. Of course, everyone who read the rough readout released by the White House could understand what the president was getting at when he told Zelensky, “I would like you to do us a favor”—right after Zelensky mentioned military aid—and then proceeded to ask Ukraine to look into CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm at the center of a conspiracy theory that Russia was framed for hacking the Democratic National Committee in 2016, and Joe and Hunter Biden. Still, in the minds of GOP lawmakers, the fact that the president didn’t literally say something like, “If you don’t investigate these things, I won’t give you any of the money, and I’ll send someone to break your legs,” meant he was fully exonerated. Unfortunately for those allies, they’re going to have to dig a little deeper to find an excuse for why Trump is apparently being wrongfully accused by obstructionist Democrats, because on Thursday, the White House just came out and said it: Of course there was a quid pro quo deal with Ukraine.

During a press conference with reporters, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney made the head-scratching decision to admit the president held up nearly $400 million in military aid in part to pressure Ukraine into digging up dirt on the Bidens and helping discredit the Mueller investigation, while insisting the tactic was “absolutely appropriate.”

“Did he also mention to me in the past the corruption related to the DNC server? Absolutely, no question about that. But that’s it, that’s why we held up the money,” Mulvaney said, referring to the right-wing fever dream that the hacked DNC server was transported to Ukraine to hide the evidence that Kyiv interfered in the election, not Moscow. Astonished that Mulvaney would so freely cop to the president extorting another country, reporters pressed the chief of staff further on the matter, to which he explained that this—criminal activity—is standard operating procedure and the administration does that kind of stuff “all the time.”

“I have news for everybody: Get over it,” Mulvaney said. “There’s going to be political influence in foreign policy. Elections do have consequences and they should, and your foreign policy is going to change…there’s no problem with that.” In fact, a lot of people think there is a problem with that when the change is going from not using the office of the presidency to blackmail foreign countries to doing exactly that, but ole Mulvaney wasn’t done making things as comically bad as possible for his boss. Asked about using Rudy Giuliani, a private citizen, as an unofficial envoy, Mulvaney responded: “You may not like the fact that Giuliani was involved, that’s great, that’s fine. It’s not illegal, it’s not impeachable...the president gets to set foreign policy and he gets to choose who to do so, as long as it doesn’t violate any law.”

In a statement following the absolute train wreck of a press conference, Rep. Adam Schiff said that “Mr. Mulvaney’s acknowledgment means that things have gone from very, very bad to much, much worse.” Which is probably true! Members of Trump’s own legal team were likewise reportedly baffled by Mulvaney’s monologue. Said a source familiar with the legal team’s internal discussions: “It was not helpful.”

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