(CNN) Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney acknowledged in a news conference Thursday that the US withheld military aid from Ukraine in hopes of securing a promise that the foreign government would look into the possible presence of the physical Democratic National Committee server hacked by the Russians in 2016.

As Mulvaney recounted Trump telling of Ukraine: "This is a corrupt place. Everyone knows this is a corrupt place. ... Plus, I'm not sure that the other European countries are helping them out either. Did he also mention to me in the past that the corruption related to the DNC server? Absolutely. No question about that."

Mulvaney's willing acknowledgment of that quid pro quo -- "we do that all the time with foreign policy" -- is a big deal. (Although, in truth, anyone who read the rough transcript of the July 25 call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky understood the quid pro quo was implicit. And even kind of explicit.)

But what I find truly remarkable is the reason that the White House set up this quid pro quo was to force Ukraine's hand on what is, without ANY question, a complete and total conspiracy theory.

Start here. In that July call between Trump and Zelensky , the President tells his Ukrainian colleague this:

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