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Donald Trump's acting聽chief of staff聽has acknowledged military aid to Ukraine was held up partly due to the president's request to investigate a Democratic National Committee server.

"We do that all the time with foreign policy," Mick Mulvaney said.

To those concerned about political influence in foreign policy, he declared, "Get over it…That is going to happen. Elections have consequences."

He added: "Did [Trump] also mention to me, in the past, 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... The look back to what happened in 2016 certainly was part of the thing that he was worried about in corruption with that nation. And that is absolutely appropriate."

Donald Trump and some of his supporters claim the DNC server that was hacked by Russian intelligence agents in the 2016 election may have been hidden in Ukraine.

This theory has been widely discredited but Mr Mulvaney insisted it was a line of enquiry being pursued by the Department of Justice (DOJ) in a probe led by US Attorney John Durham.

A DOJ official quickly took issue with that, stating: "We have no idea what he's talking about."

In a combative press briefing, Mr Mulvaney insisted Mr Trump's request to Ukraine was unrelated to the Bidens.

That's despite the fact his boss mentioned the former vice president Joe Biden in his July phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr ZelenAG百家乐在线官网.

"The money held up had absolutely nothing to do with Biden," Mr Mulvaney said.

He also rejected claims the White House was involved in a cover-up of the phone call, arguing it eventually released a rough transcript of the call.

"Everyone wants to believe there's a cover-up... There was no cover-up," he said.

A whistleblower alleged the White House had moved the transcript of the call into a highly classified database that is usually reserved for covert intelligence programs and operations.

What Mr Mulvaney admitted to is not the same thing House Democrats are looking into as part of their impeachment inquiry.

They're looking for evidence Mr Trump withheld the aid until Kiev agreed to start a corruption probe into Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company where Hunter Biden, Joe Biden's son, sat on the board.

That would suggest he abused his foreign policy powers for his own political gain in 2020.

A statement released from Mr Mulvaney later on Thursday said: "Once again, the media has decided to misconstrue my comments to advance a biased and political witch hunt against President Trump.

"Let me be clear, there was absolutely no quid pro quo between Ukrainian military aid and any investigation into the 2016 election. 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.

"There never was any condition on the flow of the aid related to the matter of the DNC server."