Ex-Ohio Governor Kasich supports ‘impeachment’
WASHINGTON, Oct 20, (AP): Former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who ran against President Donald Trump in the 2016 Republican primary, said Friday that he supports impeaching the president – but isn’t ready to call for his removal from office.
Kasich said he decided to back impeachment after hearing acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney acknowledge Thursday that Trump’s decision to hold up military aid to Ukraine was linked to his demand that Ukraine investigate the Democratic National Committee and the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. Mulvaney later claimed his remarks were misconstrued.
“This is an extremely serious matter,” Kasich told The Associated Press in an interview. “I wrestled with it for a very long time.”
It marked a reversal for Kasich, who previously said he hadn’t seen evidence of a quid pro quo on Trump’s part. Congress is conducting an impeachment inquiry sparked by a whistleblower’s allegation that Trump pressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to dig up dirt on Trump’s potential 2020 Democratic presidential rival Joe Biden as Trump delayed military aid to the country.
“I can understand why executives would withhold military aid if it was in the sense of public policy, but you don’t withhold military aid to anybody ... for political reasons,” Kasich said.
He first announced his change of heart on CNN on Friday afternoon, calling Mulvaney’s acknowledgement the “final straw” and saying, “The last 24 hours has really forced me to review all of this.”
In an interview later with the AP, he declined to call for Trump’s ouster, saying only, “Slow down, one thing at a time.” Kasich said he wanted to see the articles of impeachment and the process by which the Democrats conduct their investigation.
“There’s a long way to go and a lot of witnesses to see,” he said.
Acknowledging that he’s the rare Republican to have broken with Trump, Kasich said it was “difficult to believe (Republicans) think they can look the other way on these things.” But he also declined to criticize his party, saying, “I’m not interested in berating them. I don’t think it helps.”
Kasich is touring the nation promoting his new book “It’s Up to Us,” which he says outlines ways in which individuals have “the power to bring about change.” The former Ohio governor said that he hasn’t yet ruled out a 2020 bid for president, and that he still gets requests from supporters daily asking him to run for president. He emerged as the last moderate Republican standing against Trump during the 2016 presidential primary and bowed out of the primary after winning only his home state.
But he wasn’t bullish about his chances this time around, lamenting that “there’s no way for me to win right now.” He noted that Republicans “are still very much behind Trump” and that some states have already canceled their Republican presidential primaries.
Declined
Kasich doesn’t know who he’ll vote for in 2020 - and he declined to answer when asked whether he’d support a Democrat. He is certain of one thing, though. “I’m not going to vote for him!” he said. Meanwhile, Florida Rep. Francis Rooney, one of the few Republicans openly weighing whether to impeach President Donald Trump, said Saturday he will not run for reelection.
Asked if he needed or hoped for a third term in 2020, he told Fox News, “I don’t really think I do and I don’t think I really want one.” He later confirmed to The Associated Press that he will not run again, thereby adding his name to an already extensive list of GOP retirements.
Rooney said Friday he was “still thinking about” whether to vote to impeach Trump, saying Trump’s acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, had acknowledged a quid pro quo was at work when Trump held up US aid to Ukraine in exchange for Ukraine’s investigation of Democrats and the 2016 elections. Mulvaney later claimed his comments had been misconstrued, but Rooney said he and other Republicans heard them clearly.
“I just don’t think that the power and prestige of our country is supposed to be used for political things,” he said in an AP interview. He also said he was still thinking about whether he believed Trump’s conduct was impeachable.
Anything short of a “no” on that question, even from only one of 197 Republicans in the House, is notable as Democrats drive to impeach Trump.
Trump has made clear that he does more than notice what he considers acts of disloyalty. He is fond of making examples of Republicans by threatening to sink their reelection bids and following through in a few cases.
Tweeted
On Friday night, Trump tweeted, “Republicans Must Stick Together And Fight!” That tweet was accompanied by a video targeting Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, who has been critical of Trump’s handling of Turkey’s assault on Syrian Kurds.
When Rep. Justin Amash of politically critical Michigan became the first House Republican to call for Trump’s impeachment earlier this year – and quit the party – the backlash from Trump’s orbit was swift.
That was before revelations about Trump’s pressure on Ukraine, which made his impeachment by the end of the year a real possibility.
A year ago, at a presidential rally in Estero, Trump praised Rooney as “a man who’s so great to me on television. This guy is special. He was a great businessman. Now he’s a great congressman, Francis Rooney.”
He went on: “I love him when he defends me. He’s brutal. He gets the job done, right, Francis? Thank you, man.”
Rooney, 65, serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and is a solid member of the Republican establishment. Among the wealthiest members of the House, he won his second term last year with 62 percent of the vote. His foreign policy bona fides come in part from his service as ambassador to the Holy See under President George W. Bush.
Rooney has at times been a Trump critic. He was one of 13 House Republicans to join a Democratic effort early this year to stop the president from declaring a national emergency to pay for his border wall with Mexico.