In a gaslighting statement, White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney has responded through his lawyer to the House impeachment testimony of Dr. Fiona Hill that ties him directly to efforts to extort Ukrainian officials into providing politically premised "investigations" for the campaign benefit of Donald Trump.
Mulvaney's statement, which pointedly refuses to call Dr. Hill by her title but instead refers to her as "Ms." throughout, is egregiously dishonest. In fact, it's almost completely bunk.
Fiona Hill’s testimony is riddled with speculation and guesses about any role that Mr. Mulvaney played with anything related to Ukraine. She bases much of her testimony about him on things allegedly heard from unnamed staffers, guards in the West Wing, and “many people.” The fact is that Ms. Hill has never met Mr. Mulvaney other than in passing, and has never discussed anything with him regarding Ukraine. We have no idea why Ms. Hill believes Mr. Mulvaney was so heavily involved, especially in light of Ambassador Sondland’s contrary testimony that he only spoke very infrequently to Mr. Mulvaney and had zero substantive conversations with him about Ukraine. This inquiry continues to be a sham. No court in this country would give any weight to testimony about Mr. Mulvaney as speculative as Ms. Hill’s. Neither should Congress or the public.
But none of that is the charge actually leveled against Mulvaney. Dr. Hill explicitly testified that Ambassador Gordon Sondland told her he had an "arrangement" with Mulvaney that the Ukrainians would get an urgently sought White House meeting with Donald Trump "if specific investigations are put underway." This is a direct, and illegal, tying of a foreign policy act to an act of election assistance. It is a crime.
In this statement drafted by attorney Bob Driscoll (who previously represented now-deported Russian agent Maria Butina), Mulvaney does not dispute this blockbuster claim. In fact, he avoids all mention of it.
Mulvaney also does not dispute Dr. Hill's contention that it was absolutely implausible for Mulvaney to have not been aware that the so-called "Burisma" investigation was intended by both Trump and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani to focus on the family of possible Trump election opponent Joe Biden.
Furthermore, Mulvaney has refused to testify about any of his claims under oath, even after confirming his own involvement in the Ukrainian pressure campaign in a televised press event.
So he's very clearly lying here, and not being even a little subtle about it. Dr. Hill asserts that Sondland told her directly that his authorization for trading an official government act—a White House meeting with the president—for campaign assistance came from White House chief of staff Mulvaney. If Mulvaney truly intended to dispute that, he could do so under oath.