Mulvaney Confesses to High Crimes on National TV

Dumb as mud, apparently

Since Rudy Giuliani is busy getting ready for likely charges from the U.S. attorney’s office, acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney has taken over one of the most vital roles in the Trump White House—confessing to crimes on national television.

In front of a host of reporters (and live on TV), Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney admitted that President Donald Trump withheld foreign aid in order to get Ukraine’s help in the U.S. election.

“We do that all the time with foreign policy,” Mulvaney responded when ABC News reporter Jon Karl pointed out that withholding funding from Ukraine “unless the investigation into the Democrats’ server happens” is a “quid pro quo.”

“Get over it,” Mulvaney added. “There’s going to be political influence in foreign policy. ... That is going to happen.

Incredibly, Mulvaney then announced that Trump would be bypassing federal procurement regulations and violating the Emoluments clause of the Constitution at the same time-- by awarding the G7 summit to the Trump Doral Resort.   The Doral resort is not just a existing commercial property that licenses the Trump name.  It is wholly owned by the Trump family-- so every penny spent there goes directly into the family coffers.  Normally, the contract for such an event would be made available to a variety of bidders, with the contract being given to the lowest offeror. 

The Doral resort by the way, is not doing very well-- it's average occupancy rate is less than 40%.  And the G7 summit will be held in June, which is the second-slowest month of the year for the resort.  So even if Trump charged all the international attendees of the G7 the wholesale cost of their stay, Trump would still be filling up the resort at a time when it would mostly be empty.