Virginia Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly, a member of the House Oversight Committee, wants White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney to testify about the president’s phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
During a 40-minute press conference Thursday, Mulvaney told reporters that $400 million in aid to the Ukraine was held up in part because of allegations related to the Democratic National Committee server and the 2016 election.
“Did he also mention to me in [the] past the corruption related to the DNC server? Absolutely,” Mulvaney said of a discussion he had with Trump. “No question about that. But that’s it, and that’s why we held up the money.”
Mulvaney also said the aid withheld had to do with if Ukraine was working with the Justice Department investigation of the origins of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
“The look-back to what happened in 2016 certainly was part of the thing that he was worried about in corruption with that nation,” Connolly said.
Connolly scolded Mulvaney’s reaction to the president’s July 25 phone call with Zelensky, telling reporters, “I was told he said, which was, ‘Get over it.’ He does not belong anywhere near the Oval Office, because that’s somebody who does not understand our form of government or what it means to be a democracy.”
