Impeachment bid is a coup – Trump
RAGING: INDICATES HE WILL COOPERATE WITH PROBE
President allegedly asked Ukraine leader to dish dirt on rival in exchange for aid.
Washington
resident Donald Trump unleashed furious attacks on Wednesday on the impeachment inquiry launched against him by Democrats, amid an intensifying standoff between the president and Congress.
Trump, accused of leaning on Ukraine’s president to dig up dirt on one of his main 2020 election rivals, used coarse language in his broadsides against the investigation and his adversaries conducting it.
Adam Schiff, the impeachment probe’s Democratic point man in the House of Representatives, said there was a “real sense of urgency” to press forward.
Trump claimed late on Tuesday that this is “not an impeachment, it is a coup”. He amplified the message on Wednesday, branding the impeachment process announced last week as a “hoax”. Trump assailed Schiff, declaring the House intelligence committee chairperson “a low life” who should be arrested for “treason”.
But at the same time the president acknowledged he may cooperate with the latest move by Democrats, who threatened to subpoena the White House for documents related to his efforts to get Ukraine to probe a political rival. “We’ll work together with all of them and see what happens,” he said.
Trump insists he did nothing wrong in a July phone call with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky and on Wednesday got support from Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, who said he saw “nothing compromising” in the conversation.
A White House summary of the call showed Trump pressed Zelensky several times to open a corruption investigation against leading Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and son Hunter, who did business in Ukraine when his father was vice-president. Neither Biden has been credibly accused of any wrongdoing.
Trump is alleged to have suggested that US military aid Ukraine sought to beef up its defences against Russia would be contingent on him getting that favour. A whistleblower, so far only identified as someone from the intelligence services, went to authorities with concerns about the call, triggering the impeachment inquiry. –
We’ll work with them and see what happens