MONDAY, OCTOBER 21 , 2019. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A
Politics & the Nation
BY KAROUN DEMIRJIANActing White House chief of
staff Mick Mulvaney continued to
back away Sunday from his public
acknowledgment of a quid pro
quo in which the Trump adminis-
tration leveraged military aid to
Ukraine for an investigation that
could politically benefit President
Trump, while the top U.S. diplo-
mat defended Trump’s private
lawyer’s role in Ukrainian affairs
as “completely appropriate.”
“I never said there was a quid
pro quo, ’cause there isn’t,” Mulva-
ney said on Fox News on Sunday,
insisting that while he “didn’t
speak clearly maybe on Thursday,”
there couldn’t have been a quid
pro quo because “the aid flowed.”
Mulvaney has struggled to ex-
plain his abrupt about-face since a
Thursday news conference in
which he said Trump “absolutely”
raised concerns about the Demo-
cratic National Committee server
that was hacked in 2016, which
according to a debunked con-
spiracy theory could be in Ukraine
and could prove Russia didn’t in-
terfere in the 2016 election.
During that appearance, Mul-
vaney also told a reporter who
pointed out that he had articulat-
ed a quid pro quo that “we do that
all the time with foreign policy,”
listing “three issues” that were
involved in the Ukraine decision:
corruption, the support other
countries were offering and an
ongoing Justice Department in-
vestigation into the origins of the
Russia investigation.
But in a subsequent written
statement, and again on Sunday,
Mulvaney insisted there were only
“two reasons for holding back the
aid,” leaving out the Justice De-
partment’s probe, which a depart-
ment official already disavowed.
Mulvaney added that once the ad-
ministration was able to satisfy
concerns that Ukraine was “doing
better with” corruption and estab-
lish that European nations were
giving “a considerable sum of
money in nonlethal aid, once
those two things cleared, the mon-
ey flowed.”
Current and former officials
who have been providing testimo-
ny to the House’s impeachment
probe paint a different picture.
According to their statements as
described by people familiar with
their closed-door testimony, the
administration was pushing for
Ukrainian leaders to conduct in-
vestigations into the server and
the role of former vice president
Joe Biden’s son Hunter on the
board of Ukrainian energy giant
Burisma — probes Trump himself
referenced in a July 25 phone call
with Ukrainian President Volod-
ymyr Zelensky. The push was
largely being driven by the presi-
dent’s personal lawyer Rudolph
W. Giuliani, they said, whom dip-
lomats were told to work with on
Ukraine policy, according to Gor-
don Sondland, the U.S. ambassa-
dor to the European Union who
said he was disappointed by the
directive.Hunter Biden served for nearly
five years on the board of Burisma,
Ukraine’s largest private gas com-
pany, whose owner came under
scrutiny by Ukrainian prosecutors
for possible abuse of power and
unlawful enrichment. Hunter
Biden was not accused of any
wrongdoing in the investigation.
As vice president, Joe Biden pres-
sured Ukraine to fire the top pros-
ecutor, Viktor Shokin, who Biden
and other Western officials said
was not sufficiently pursuing cor-
ruption cases. At the time, the
investigation into Burisma was
dormant, according to former
Ukrainian and U.S. officials.
Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
refused to say whether Giuliani
had been acting in Ukraine withhis blessing, arguing that it was
his “consistent policy... not to
talk about the internal delibera-
tions” of the administration. He
defended the decision to bring in
an outside figure like Giuliani,
however, arguing that “it happens
all the time.”
“This is completely appropri-
ate,” Pompeo said, pointing out
how former Secretary of State Hil-
lary Clinton took advice from Sid-
ney Blumenthal and former am-
bassador Bill Richardson had
been deputized to help on North
Korea policy.
Others vehemently disagree.
“Rudolph W. Giuliani running
around meeting with heads of
state on behalf of the president’s
political interests is a profoundly
shocking and important thing forus to understand,” Rep. Jim Himes
(D-Conn.) said Sunday on CBS’s
“Face the Nation.” Himes sits on
the Intelligence Committee, one of
three House panels conducting
the impeachment inquiry.
In the coming week, the House
panels will host at least five gov-
ernment officials who were in
some way connected to the use
and redirection of Ukraine mili-
tary aid, including Michael Duffey,
the official at the Office of Manage-
ment and Budget who signed off
on the apportionment letters that
froze the money.
Trump directed Mulvaney to
hold back the aid to Ukraine a
week before his July 25 phone call
with Zelensky, upending the tradi-
tional process of sending that
money out through the State and
Defense departments. In his re-
vised statements, Mulvaney has
said that the process was slowed
not because of a quid pro quo but
because of concerns about corrup-
tion in Ukraine and the level of
contributions from European na-
tions.
For the past five years, the
Trump administration and the
Obama administration have sent
Ukraine increasing amounts of
military aid to fend off Russian-
backed separatists in its eastern
provinces. Before this year, no offi-
cials raised the concerns Mulva-
ney cited to the point of withhold-
ing military aid until the last days
of the fiscal cycle, a move by the
Trump administration that
alarmed diplomats and lawmak-ers of both parties.
“The fact is that pretty much
everybody who was inside the
White House, from the whistle-
blower to all of the other witnesses
who have released opening state-
ments, had profound discomfort
with what Rudolph W. Giuliani
was doing and believed... that the
military aid was being held up for
the president’s partisan gain,”
Himes said.
Republican lawmakers have
challenged Democrats to prove
that, however, arguing that the
panels should be holding more
proceedings in public and releas-
ing to members the transcripts
and full contents of the materials
witnesses in the impeachment
probe are turning over to investi-
gators.
“It’s all being done in secret....
If they wanted to do an impeach-
ment, they should be doing this
out in the open,” Rep. Devin Nunes
(R-Calif.), a member of the House
Intelligence Committee, said on
Fox’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”
“They are creating this false narra-
tive for television.”
Democrats say that the materi-
als will be made public and that
the delays are the result of a probe
that is moving at breakneck pace
and being presented every day
with “jaw-dropping new informa-
tion” — such as Mulvaney’s news
conference, which Democrats saw
as tantamount to a confession.
[email protected]Kyle Swenson contributed to this report.Mulvaney still in retreat; Pompeo defends Giuliani’s role
BY STEPHANIE MCCRUMMENnew york — It was Week 3 of the
ongoing impeachment inquiry,
and Joanne Vega was only begin-
ning to pay attention, the details
sifting into her consciousness as
she half-listened to Fox News or
caught snippets on the radio driv-
ing to her job caring for special-
needs children. Now, outside the
Bagel Bin on Staten Island, she lit
a cigarette.
“So, they said he was on the
phone with some guy because he
wanted to get dirt on Biden, but I
don’t know if they got any proof of
that,” she said, taking a drag. “And
it was something else, too — I
don’t know. Rudy’s doing it? Rudy
called?”
As the investigation heads into
its second month, this is how the
facts and disinformation sur-
rounding the possible impeach-
ment of the 45th president of the
United States are seeping into the
minds of voters in New York’s 11th
Congressional District, a swath of
the country as good a place as any
to gauge how a defining moment
in American democracy is play-
ing out.
There is confusion about the
details, especially as those details
become ever more intricate.
There is also an evolving sense of
what is at stake — not so much
among Democrats, whose reac-
tions have changed little, moving
from “that mofo needs to go” in
the first week to “they should nail
his ass” in the fourth, but among
Trump supporters, whose opin-
ions matter to Republican law-
makers who could ultimately de-
cide the president’s fate.
“It’s all nonsense,” one of those
supporters said in the first days of
the inquiry.
“I’m watching it very closely,”
another said last week.
The district they live in encom-
passes a sliver of un-gentrified
Brooklyn and all of Staten Island,
the “forgotten borough” of New
York City that is home to many
civil servants, police officers, fire-
fighters and the Wu Tang Clan. It
has an expressway that locals call
the “Mason-Dixon line,” which
roughly divides the more diverse,
more Democratic northern cres-
cent of the borough from the
whiter, more Republican rest of
it. Its voters backed Donald
Trump for president in 2016 and
elected to Congress in 2018 a
Democratic centrist named Max
Rose who has called progressives
“hipster socialists” and a GOP
opponent “a mouth-pisser.”
For any voter, there has been a
lot to process in the inquiry — a
country called Ukraine, a whistle-
blower, another whistleblower,
Rudolph W. Giuliani, Joe Biden,
Hunter Biden, various ambassa-
dors, and two men named Igor
and Lev. There has been real news
and fake news, and all of that has
been pouring through a filter of
mistrust evident here since the
earliest days of the investigation,
when Gregory Berg said he felt
like he was being dragged into
something he wished to avoid.
“Look, I care about infrastruc-
ture,” he said one afternoon,
ranking that as a priority far
above the impeachment of a pres-
ident he supports.
By then, the first crucial facts
had come to light: A whistleblow-
er alleged that President Trump
had called the Ukrainian presi-
dent and asked him to investigate
discredited allegations about the
son of Joe Biden, a potential 2020
rival. A summary of the phone
call had documented this, after
which House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi (D-Calif.) had opened the
impeachment inquiry, saying the
president had “seriously violated
the Constitution.”
Meanwhile, on the following
Sunday, people had been out at a
street fair.
“You put on the news and all
you hear is impeachment,” said
Linda Sagebick, whose priority
remained her medical bills. “I got
stitches that cost me $8,000,” she
said, walking with two friends
past stands selling mangoes, sun-
glasses and “Trump 2020: No
More Bull----” hats.
“We got the problem of opioids
here, and homelessness,” said
Mike Rehberg, a retired firefight-
er.
“Things like that are much
more important to us than what
Donald Trump said to Ukraine,”
added Brian Pritchard, a retired
fire captain who did not support
Trump but shared the wide-
spread sense that whatever was
about to happen would be moti-
vated by “politics” rather than the
nation’s best interests.
It was a cynicism that tran-
scended party lines, even as
Week 2 of the impeachment in-
quiry began.
“They’re all corrupt,” Michael
Bisignano, who supports Sen.
Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep.
Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) in theirpresidential runs, said while
working on his laptop at Fab Cup.
“They’re all addicted to power
and money, and impeachment is
just taking us away from what’s
really going on. Health care, glob-
al warming — people are really
suffering in this country.”
By that point in the inquiry, a
second whistleblower had
emerged. House Democrats had
subpoenaed Giuliani, Trump’s
personal attorney, who had ac-
knowledged that he was working
on behalf of Trump to gather
damaging information about
Biden, Biden’s son and others.
Trump had said that his call with
the Ukrainian president was
“perfect,” and a conspiracy theory
was taking hold that the inquiry
was only the latest “witch hunt”
and “coup attempt” against the
president.
Behind the counter at the Ba-
gel Bin, Joe Mastrapaolo was just
trying to keep up.
“To be honest, it’s overwhelm-
ing,” he said.
He’d stopped watching CNN
and turned to Fox. He’d stopped
watching Fox and turned to the
even more pro-Trump One Amer-
ica News Network. He’d stopped
watching OANN and started
watching YouTube videos featur-
ing psychics.
“Who do you trust anymore?”
he said to a customer ordering a
roast beef sandwich. “Like this
week, I heard they changed the
whistleblower law or something?
Doesn’t the law say a whistle-
blower has to have firsthand
knowledge of what took place?”
“I can’t remember,” said the
customer, Paul Solaequi, a retired
transit worker. “I’m so tired. Joe, I
need a pound of coleslaw.”
Over by a rack of potato chips, a
woman named Janice, a retiredcivil servant who did not want to
give her last name, was trying to
put it all together.
“So, they have this whistle-
blower, right?” she began. “And
the whistleblower is part of the
government, I dunno what agen-
cy, right? Seems like a plan to me.
It doesn’t seem real. It seems like
they’re doing whatever they have
to do to take him down. It’s very
complicated.”
She went to the counter, where
sheets of notebook paper with
handwritten prices of bagels, cof-
fee and beer were taped to the
Formica, and Sandra Villacampa
was ringing up customers.
“You know Max Rose?” Villa-
campa said to one of them, refer-
ring to the congressman who had
just held a town hall event. “He
did that pro-impeachment
speech and he’s going to pay.”
She pointed to a stack of news-
papers under the counter. “Con-
gressman criticized for impeach-
ment inquiry decision,” the head-
line read.
That decision had also come
during the second week of the
inquiry, when Rose had faced 200
voters and declared, “The Ameri-
can people have a right to know if
our president used the power of
his office to get a foreign power to
interfere in our election.” He had
spent the rest of the time fielding
audience questions about senior
express bus fares and $18 bridge
tolls, but the inquiry was still
looming over the conversations.
“Maybe some of it has some
validity,” said Candace Crupi, a
Trump supporter.
“He’s not a perfect person,” said
her friend Michele Kunz, who
also supports Trump.
By the third week, as more
administration officials were
coming forward to say there wasmore to the Ukraine matter than
Trump’s phone call, national polls
were starting to show a slim
majority of the public supporting
the inquiry, including an uptick
among Republican voters.
At the Bagel Bin, Joe Tompkins
was not quite one of those, not
yet.
He described himself as a “gay
sheet-metal worker,” a disillu-
sioned Democrat turned Trump
supporter. He had read the whis-
tleblower complaint and found
its professionalism “suspicious”
rather than convincing. He had
watched the Democratic leader of
the impeachment inquiry, House
Intelligence Committee Chair-
man Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), para-
phrase the complaint during a
congressional hearing, and
thought Schiff was “a total joke.”
He had seen how Trump was
reacting, and thought the presi-
dent was “a total and complete
buffoon” capable of anything, and
all of this had left him saying, “I’d
be open to it if I saw that the facts
were there.”
On the front page of the news-
papers under the counter, a head-
line read, “Stone Wall vs Dems,”
and a story on Page 7 was about a
White House letter sent to House
Democrats calling the impeach-
ment inquiry “baseless” and “un-
constitutional” and refusing to
respond to congressional subpoe-
nas. A customer buying a gallon
of milk glanced at the cover.
“The cynic in me thinks it’s a
witch hunt, but the realist in me
thinks it was quid pro quo,” said
the man, who gave his name only
as Fallon, explaining that he
worked in law enforcement.
He was a Libertarian-leaning
Republican and was no fan of
Schiff, saying, “When you rush to
the podium to embarrass some-one, that tells me you have other
motives.”
On the other hand, he said,
“I’m firmly behind the rule of law,
and if they have enough proof to
impeach the president, they need
to move forward.”
Later, Joe Garofolo, who owns
the Bagel Bin, was behind the
counter, his cellphone beeping
with news alerts about the latest
developments.
“I try not even to listen to half
of it — I get aggravated,” said
Garofolo, a Democrat who was
usually in the minority in his own
store.
“Can I get two Advil PMs?” a
customer asked.
“He should be impeached, but
as long as the Republicans are in
[control of ] the Senate, they’re
not going to go against him,”
Garofolo said. “Every one of them
is compromised. I think they’re
all corrupt, every one of them.”
“Whatever,” said another cus-
tomer.
“Whatever?!” Garofolo said.
“Well, the president is not sup-
posed to ask foreign countries to
go against his opponent, that’s
whatever.”
He tried to stay calm.
A regular named Gary came in
and offered his solidarity.
“He’s walking around like he’s
untouchable,” he told Garofolo.
“They should nail his ass.”
And now Robert Rusello was at
the counter. He was a Trump
supporter who was only begin-
ning to tune in to the news about
impeachment.
But now Trump was moving on
to a different subject. Syria. Tur-
key. U.S. troops. A different phone
call with a different president.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Rusello
said. “If he did something illegal
with — who was it, Turkey? Or
Syria?”
He paused for a moment, try-
ing to keep it all straight.
“Ukraine,” he said. “That’s the
thing. If he did something illegal,
then that’s no good.”
Now it was the beginning of
the fourth week. Igor Fruman and
Lev Parnas had been arrested and
charged with campaign finance
violations, legal experts were say-
ing the United States was de-
scending into a constitutional cri-
sis, Congress was on its way back
to Washington to sort it all out,
and that was what Richard Wick-
strom was trying to do.
He was a retired system analyst
and “reluctant Trump supporter”
who had stopped watching Fox
News and turned to CNN. He’d
stopped watching CNN and
turned to the BBC, and now he
was following the news almost
hour to hour.
“I think what he did was
wrong,” Wickstrom said. “Was he
criminal in it? I don’t know. I
think he went overboard. Was it a
treasonous thing?”
He was not sure whether the
45th president of the United
States should be removed from
office. But in this fourth week, he
wanted to know more.
“I want to see what comes out
of the woodwork,” he said.
[email protected]On Staten Island, Trump voters warily start to focus on impeachment inquiry
YANA PASKOVA FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
New York’s 11th Congressional District in Staten Island backed Donald Trump for president but elected a Democrat to Congress.JIM WATSON/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
Mick Mulvaney defends the president’s Ukraine policy.