Trump says fight as Pelosi outlines ‘abuse’
President assails ‘phony emoluments clause’ in impeachment case
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump urged his party to “get tougher and fight” against his impeachment Monday as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., distributed a “fact sheet” outlining what her office called a gross abuse of presidential power, including a “shakedown,” a “pressure campaign” and a “cover up.”
On Monday evening, majority Democrats blocked an effort by House Republicans to censure intelligence committee Chairman Adam Schiff for his handling of the inquiry.
Democrats have also planned two closed-door depositions this week, including one Tuesday from Bill Taylor, the top official at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine. In text messages with other U.S. diplomats, Taylor raised alarms about the White House holding back military aid to Ukraine and pressing for investigations into the 2016 U.S. election and an energy company that employed former Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden.
Trump decried “this phony emoluments clause” as he continued to defend his now-abandoned decision to host next year’s international Group of Seven summit at a private Miami golf club he owns.
Speaking to reporters who were allowed to sit in on his Cabinet meeting, Trump suggested that he was being held to a different standard than other presidents, including some who were also wealthy.
“Other presidents, if you look, other presidents were wealthy, not huge wealth,” he said. “George Washington was actually considered a very, very rich man at the time. But they ran their businesses. George Washington, they say had two desks. He had a presidential desk and a business desk.”
At that point, Trump complained about “you people with this phony emoluments clause.”
Under the emoluments clause of the Constitution, presidents are not permitted to use the office to enrich themselves.
Trump reversed course on holding the G-7 at the Trump National Doral Miami after he was told by conservative allies that Republicans were struggling to defend him on multiple fronts. Democrats had considered adding the alleged emoluments violation to the articles of impeachment they are preparing.
Several Democrats ridiculed Trump on his “phony” comment — including Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, who tweeted: “My instinct is, and I am not kidding, that someone just explained the emoluments clause to him, possibly for the first time.”
Earlier, Trump praised Democratic unity on the impeachment inquiry and said his party needs “to get tougher and fight.”
“The two things they have: They’re vicious, and they stick together,” Trump said of Democrats during a Cabinet meeting.
“Republicans have to get tougher and fight,” Trump said during the Cabinet meeting. “Democrats are trying to hurt the Republican Party for the election.”
Pelosi’s office released a four-page “fact sheet” citing the most compelling evidence of what Democrats have cast as a gross abuse of power by Trump.
The citations are divided into categories: “the shakedown,” “the pressure campaign” and “the cover up.”
As evidence of a “shakedown,” the fact sheet cites quotes from the rough transcript from Trump’s July call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, which it says “paints a damning picture of Trump abusing his office by pressing a foreign government to interfere in our 2020 elections.”
Trump, the document contends, “has betrayed his oath of office, betrayed our national security and betrayed the integrity of our elections for his own personal political gain.”
The evidence of a “pressure campaign” includes several texts from State Department officials, including one in which Taylor says, “I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.”
As of evidence of a “cover up,” the document points to the complaint filed by the whistleblower that sparked the impeachment inquiry.
In it, the anonymous U.S. intelligence official asserts that senior White House officials “intervened to ‘lock down’ all records of the phone call” and loaded the transcript into “a separate electronic system . . . used to store and handle classified information of an especially sensitive nature.”