Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said Thursday that President Donald Trump — who is facing an impeachment inquiry because of controversial contacts with Ukraine — did not withhold congressionally appropriated military aid to Ukraine as part of a quid pro quo to get that country to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden. Instead, Mulvaney told reporters that the withholding of almost $400 million in aid this summer was due in part because Trump wanted Ukraine to investigate the possibility that elements in that country somehow had interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election to Trump's detriment. "The money held up had absolutely nothing to do with Biden," Mulvaney said. Instead, he said, the withholding of aid came in connection with "an ongoing investigation into the 2016 election," and the possibility that a Democratic National Committee server that investigators have said was hacked by Russian agents ended up in Ukraine. While Mulvaney did not himself use the term "quid pro quo," when he was told by a reporter during a White House news conference that the situation of withholding aid to get Ukraine to conduct a probe at Trump's request was in fact a quid pro quo, Mulvaney said, "We do that all the time."

Referring to a conversation with Trump, Mulvaney said, "Did he also mention to me in passing the corruption related to the DNC server? Absolutely." "No question about that. But that's it, and that's why we held up the money." "You're saying the president of the U.S. can't ask someone to help with an ongoing public investigation?" Mulvaney said. Later Thursday, amid a wave of criticism, Mulvaney sharply walked back his comments. "Let me be clear, there was absolutely no quid pro quo between Ukrainian military aid and any investigation into the 2016 election," he said in the statement. "The president never told me to withhold any money until the Ukrainians did anything related to the server. The only reasons we were holding the money was because of concern about lack of support from other nations and concerns over corruption." During a July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — at a time when the White House was withholding military aid from Zelensky's country — Trump asked Zelensky to "get to the bottom" of questions about the 2016 election. But Trump also asked him during the same call to speak with Attorney General Bill Barr "to look into" Biden allegedly stopping "the prosecution" of Biden's son, Hunter Biden, while serving as vice president. A senior Justice Department official told NBC News, before Mulvaney walked back his comments, that "if the White House was withholding aid from Ukraine with regard to any investigation by the Justice Department, that's news to us." Trump's personal attorney Jay Sekulow, in a brief statement before Mulvaney's about-face, said, "The President's legal counsel was not involved in acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney's press briefing."

Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney answers questions during a briefing at the White House October 17, 2019 in Washington, DC. Win McNamee | Getty Images News | Getty Images