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THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2019
Syria cease-fi re
off to rocky start
By ELENA BECATOROS
and SARAH EL DEEB
Associated Press
CEYLANPINAR, Turkey —
The cease-fi re in northern Syria
got off to a rocky start Friday,
as Kurdish leaders accused Tur-
key of violating the accord with
continued fi ghting at a key bor-
der town while casting doubt on
provisions in the U.S.-brokered
deal with Ankara.
Turkey’s president warned
that Turkish forces would go
back on the attack in four days
unless Kurdish-led fi ghters
withdraw “without exception”
from a zone 20 miles deep in
Syria running the entire 260-
mile length of the border.
“Without exception, if the
promise is not fulfi lled, Oper-
ation Peace Spring will resume
the minute the 120 hours end
with even more determination,”
President Recep Tayyip Erdo-
gan told journalists in Ankara.
There was no sign of any
pullout by the Kurdish-led
forces. They say the deal only
covers a much smaller section
of the border, about 75 miles,
and haven’t committed to pull
out from anywhere.
Some fi ghters have vowed
not to withdraw, calling the
accord an “insult to Kurdish
dignity” and tantamount to a
surrender arranged by the U.S.,
the former ally that abandoned
them to the Turkish assault.
The Kurdish self-adminis-
tration said some provisions of
the cease-fi re deal “need fur-
ther discussion with the United
States,” though it did not spec-
ify what. A senior Kurdish pol-
itician, Ilham Ahmed, was due
in Washington over the week-
end to meet U.S. offi cials.
The cease-fi re agreement
— reached in negotiations
between Erdogan and U.S.
Vice President Mike Pence —
requires the Kurdish fi ghters
to vacate a swath of territory
in Syria along the Turkish bor-
der. That effectively means the
Kurds would grant Turkey its
goals in the offensive and con-
secrate its control of territory it
captured.
White House acknowledges Ukraine aid
held over election probe, Sondland testifi es
By LISA MASCARO and
MARY CLARE JALONICK
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The White
House acknowledged that Presi-
dent Donald Trump’s decision to
hold up military aid to Ukraine
was linked to his demand that
Kyiv investigate the Democratic
National Committee and the 2016
U.S. presidential campaign, a shift-
ing new explanation about events
at the heart of the impeachment
inquiry.
The admission from acting chief
of staff Mick Mulvaney on Thurs-
day undercut the president’s posi-
tion that there was no quid pro quo
during Trump’s phone call with the
Ukraine president that sparked the
House investigation.
The sudden turn of events had
immediate fallout. Trump’s lawyer
distanced the Republican president
from Mulvaney’s account. The Jus-
tice Department said the explana-
tion was news to them. And Dem-
ocrats cast Mulvaney’s remarks as
further evidence of wrongdoing
as Trump sought a “favor” from
Ukraine.
Trump, traveling in Texas,
appeared to stand by his top aide,
calling Mulvaney a “good man.”
“I have a lot of confi dence” in
him, Trump said.
But Mulvaney’s initial remarks,
made during a rare appearance by
an administration offi cial in the
White House briefi ng room, spun
open a new phase of the impeach-
ment inquiry.
He indicated that a quid pro quo
was at play for the military aid —
but a different one than Democrats
initially highlighted as they probed
Trump’s efforts to have Ukraine
investigate a company linked to
the son of his Democratic rival Joe
Biden.
Trump, as shown in a rough
transcript of the July call with
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zel-
enskiy, sought help in investigat-
ing not only the fi rm tied to Biden
but also a security company hired
by the DNC that discovered that
Russian agents had broken into
the committee’s network. The sto-
len emails were subsequently pub-
Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo
U.S. Ambassador to the European
Union Gordon Sondland, left,
greets President Donald Trump.
Sondland owns hotels in Portland.
lished by WikiLeaks ahead of the
2016 election.
“The look back to what hap-
pened in 2016 certainly was part of
the thing that he was worried about
in corruption with that nation,”
Mulvaney told reporters, deliver-
ing the White House’s most gran-
ular explanation yet of the decision
to withhold military assistance.
“Did he also mention to me in
the past the corruption that related
to the DNC server? Absolutely, no
question about that,” Mulvaney
continued. “That’s why we held up
the money.”
Trump’s personal lawyer Jay
Sekulow issued a pointed statement
distancing the president’s legal
team from Mulvaney’s comments.
“The President’s legal counsel
was not involved in acting chief of
staff Mick Mulvaney’s press brief-
ing,” it said.
Within hours, Mulvaney issued
a separate statement claiming his
remarks were misconstrued.
“Let me be clear, there was
absolutely no quid pro quo between
Ukrainian military aid and any
investigation into the 2016 elec-
tion,” he said. “The president never
told me to withhold any money
until the Ukrainians did anything
related to the server.”
But it may be diffi cult to
erase what Mulvaney said as
House Democrats dig into their
investigation.
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.,
the chairman of the Intelligence
Committee leading the impeach-
ment probe, said, “I think Mr. Mul-
vaney’s acknowledgment means
that things have gone from very,
very bad to much, much worse.”
Mulvaney, who has already
received a subpoena for docu-
ments in the impeachment probe,
will now likely be asked by inves-
tigators to appear for a deposition.
“I believe that they’re get-
ting closer to basically admitting
a crime,” said Rep. Joaquin Cas-
tro, D-Texas, who said Mulvaney
should testify. “Where he talks
about politics being attached to for-
eign policy. I mean, you’re going
up to the water’s edge there.”
Mulvaney during the press
briefi ng defended Trump’s request
to Ukraine by casting it as part of
an ongoing Justice Department
investigation looking into the ori-
gins of the investigation into Rus-
sia’s interference in the 2016
election.
He said the investigation was
one of several reasons Trump held
up nearly $400 million in military
aid to Ukraine, including a desire
for European nations to increase
their own assistance to Kyiv. Fund-
ing was eventually released.
A senior offi cial at the Jus-
tice Department said if the White
House was withholding aid in
regard to cooperation with any
investigation at the department, it
was news to them. The offi cial was
not unauthorized to discuss the sit-
uation and spoke on condition of
anonymity.
Trump’s request to Ukraine for
an investigation into the 2016 elec-
tion appears linked to unfounded
conspiracy theories about a
Ukraine link to the DNC hack that
began circulating almost immedi-
ately after the breach was discov-
ered. Some were propagated in sto-
ries online and by Russian media
and included mention of a sup-
posed “hidden DNC server,” which
acolytes of the Republican political
operative Roger Stone picked up
and circulated.
The sudden development punc-
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tuated another fast-moving day in
the impeachment inquiry.
Lawmakers met for hours
behind closed doors with the
U.S. ambassador to the European
Union, Gordon Sondland, who
testifi ed that he disagreed with
Trump’s decision to have envoys
work with the president’s personal
lawyer Rudy Giuliani on Ukraine
policy, rather than through tradi-
tional government channels.
Sondland also owns hotels in
Portland.
The ambassador was the lat-
est in a series of witnesses, many
of them career State Department
and foreign policy offi cials, pro-
viding new and detailed concerns
about Trump and Giuliani and their
attempts to infl uence Ukraine.
Sondland’s attempt to stand
apart from Trump is remarkable
since, unlike other career civil ser-
vants, he is a hand-picked politi-
cal appointee of the president who
contributed $1 million to Trump’s
inaugural committee.
Mulvaney defended Trump’s
decision to tap Giuliani to help
lead Ukraine policy, saying it was
the president’s prerogative.
“You may not like the fact that
Giuliani was involved,” he told
reporters. “It’s not illegal, it’s not
impeachable.”
“The president gets to set for-
eign policy, and he gets to choose
who to do so, as long as it doesn’t
violate any law,” Mulvaney added.
As for complaints about mix-
ing politics with foreign policy,
Mulvaney had a blunt rejoinder:
“I have news for everybody: Get
over it. There is going to be politi-
cal infl uence in foreign policy.”
Democrats plodding their way
through hours of witness testi-
mony during a week of closed-
door hearings said Mulvaney’s
admissions were game-changing
in the impeachment inquiry.
Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Ca-
lif., a member of the House Intel-
ligence Committee, said Mul-
vaney “co-signed the president’s
confession.”
Associated Press writers Mike
Balsamo, Eric Tucker and Dar-
lene Superville contributed to this
report.
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