23, September 2019
US: Impeachment ‘only remedy’ if Trump’s Ukraine call proved 0
The chairman of US House intelligence committee has threatened President Donald Trump with impeachment amid controversy over his phone call with Ukraine’s president.
Adam Schiff said on Sunday that impeachment would be the “only remedy” if an investigation revealed that the US president had pressured his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, to investigate possible corruption involving former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.
“If the president is essentially withholding military aid at the same time that he is trying to browbeat a foreign leader to do something illicit, to provide dirt on his opponent during a presidential campaign, then that may be the only remedy that is co-equal to the evil that conduct represents,” Schiff told the CNN.
Schiff, who has so far been reluctant to push for presidential impeachment, said it “may be that we do have to move forward with that extraordinary remedy” if Trump sought information on Biden and his son.
“[I] want the country to understand this is the last resort,” Schiff added. “The president is pushing us down this road.”
News outlets reported last week that Trump urged Zelensky about eight times during a phone call to work with his lawyer Rudy Giuliani on a probe that could hamper the US president’s potential 2020 opponent.
Biden said there should be an investigation into Trump’s call, denouncing the action as “an overwhelming abuse of power.”
Trump on Saturday dismissed the Ukraine allegations as another witch-hunt attempting to smear his already tarnished reputation and damage his popularity as the Americans get closer to the 2020 presidential election.
Now that the Democrats and the Fake News Media have gone “bust” on every other of their Witch Hunt schemes, they are trying to start one just as ridiculous as the others, call it the Ukraine Witch Hunt, while at the same time trying to protect Sleepy Joe Biden. Will fail again!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 21, 2019
In an interview with local media on Saturday, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko insisted that his country was independent and that Kiev would never take sides with either party in US politics.
Addressing a July phone conversation between Trump and Zelensky, the Ukrainian minister said there was no coercion and the conversation was friendly.
Biden is the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination for the 2020 election.
Since launching his bid for 2020 presidency, Biden has been referred to as “Sleepy Joe” by Trump, among other cases of name-calling.
The 76-year-old politician has also been lambasted for what his opponents and others have deemed inappropriate touching, hugging and sniffing of women and children. Biden has dismissed such allegations.
Source: Presstv
24, September 2019
US: Impeachment pressure grows over Trump’s call with Ukraine president 0
Pressure is escalating for Democrats in the US Congress to launch impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump over allegations that the Republican president had asked his Ukrainian counterpart to launch an investigation that could damage Democratic political rival Joe Biden.
Speaking to reporters as he arrived at the UN General Assembly in New York on Monday, a defiant Trump said he is taking the impeachment threat “not at all seriously”
“The conversation I had was largely congratulatory, was largely corruption… and largely the fact that we don’t want our people, like vice president Biden and his son, creating… the corruption already in the Ukraine,” Trump said.
Trump also sought to deflect any blame from himself and redirect it towards Biden, accusing the former vice president, without evidence, of engaging in corruption in Ukraine.
The latest crisis for Trump was sparked earlier this month after The Washington Post reported that Trump made a phone call in July to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and allegedly attempted to coerce Zelensky into finding damning information about Biden’s son’s business dealings in Ukraine.
On Sunday, Trump acknowledged that he discussed Biden and his son in a call with the Ukrainian president.
Several Democrats now argue that Trump’s call for Ukraine to investigate Biden, and what they suspect was a threat to condition $250 million in aid to Ukraine on an investigation of Biden, is impeachable conduct.
That view may be pushing House leaders towards a tipping point for launching removal proceedings.
The Democratic leader of a key congressional panel said on Sunday the pursuit of Trump’s impeachment may be the “only remedy” to the situation.
Amid the growing pressure, several Republicans in the US Senate, which would hold a trial of Trump should the House impeach him, have signaled they want the president to be more transparent about the call and the whistleblower’s complaint.
“I would just urge the president — you know, he’s talking openly about the conversation — to release as much as possible,” Senator Lindsey Graham, a Trump loyalist, told the Hugh Hewitt radio show.
However, Democrat leaders have hesitated to pull the impeachment trigger. Launching impeachment proceedings could be a politically risky move ahead of a presidential election.
Source: Presstv