Trump launches broadsides against Democrats leading Ukraine phone call impeachment inquiry
Donald Trump unleashed a series of attacks on the impeachment inquiry launched against him by Democrats amid an intensifying stand-off between the US president and Congress.
Mr Trump – accused of pressuring Ukraine’s president to dig up dirt on one of his main 2020 election rivals – resorted to coarse language in his broadsides against the inquiry and his adversaries conducting it.
Democrats should be “focused on building up our Country, not wasting everyone’s time and energy on b ******* , which is what they have been doing ever since I got overwhelmingly elected in 2016,” Mr Trump tweeted.
Adam Schiff, the impeachment inquiry’s Democratic point man in the House of Representatives, said there was a “real sense of urgency” to press forward.
Mr Trump fought back in terms once inconceivable for a president, including claiming late on Tuesday that this is “not an impeachment, it is a coup”.
He amplified the message on Wednesday alongside Finnish President Sauli Niinisto at the White House, branding the impeachment process – announced by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last week – a hoax.
Mr Trump assailed Mr Schiff, declaring the House Intelligence Committee chairman “a low-life” who should be arrested for treason.
Yet at the same time, Mr Trump acknowledged he may yet co-operate with the latest move by Democrats, who threatened to subpoena the White House for documents related to the president’s efforts to convince Ukraine to investigate a political rival.
“We’ll work together with ‘shifty’ Schiff and Pelosi and all of them and we’ll see what happens,” he said.
Mr Trump insists he did nothing wrong in a July phone call with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy and on Wednesday received support from Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, who said he saw “nothing compromising” in the conversation.
Given Mr Trump’s history with Mr Putin, it is unlikely the Kremlin leader’s backing would do much to calm waters in Washington.
A White House summary of the call showed Mr Trump asked Mr Zelenskiy 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.
“Biden and his son are stone-cold crooked,” Mr Trump said on Wednesday. Mr Trump is alleged to have implied that US military aid Ukraine sought to beef up its defences against Russia would be contingent on receiving getting that favour.
A whistle-blower, so far identified only as someone from the intelligence services, went to authorities with concerns about the call, triggering the impeachment inquiry.
Mr Trump has likened the whistle-blower to a spy and called for his or her identity to be made public, although by law whistle-blowers are protected.
Mr Schiff on Wednesday called Mr Trump’s comments about the whistle-blower a “blatant effort to intimidate witnesses”.
He also warned Mr Trump and the White House to treat the pending subpoena with the utmost gravity.
“We’re not fooling around here,” Mr Schiff said. Efforts to stonewall the collection of related data would be considered “evidence of obstruction of justice”, he said.
We’ll work together with ‘shifty’ Schiff and Pelosi and all of them and we’ll see what happens DONALD TRUMP US President