Besieged Trump tries to drag Murphy into Ukraine fray
WASHINGTON — A new memo describing a conversation between President Donald Trump and the leader of Ukraine fired up Democrats on Tuesday, while Trump — besieged by the House’s impeachment inquiry — tried to shift focus onto U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy’s own work in the country.
In a news conference Tuesday afternoon, Trump brought up the Connecticut Democrat’s September trip, during which Murphy also spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
“Sen. Chris Murphy literally threatened the president of Ukraine that if they didn’t do things right they wouldn’t have support in Congress,” Trump said in an afternoon news conference Tuesday.
The comment echoed a talking point that Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal
lawyer, and U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, RKy., used earlier in the day.
“I stand by my belief that the President of the United States should never be allowed to use the Oval Office for personal gain, especially when it includes leveraging away the international credibility of the United States,” said Murphy, who supported an impeachment inquiry.
“In the meeting Republican Sen. Ron Johnson and I had with President Zelenskiy three weeks ago, I made it clear to him that Ukraine should not become involved in the 2020 election and that his government should communicate with the State Department, not the president's campaign,” Murphy said. “I still believe this to be true.”
Republicans’ criticism of Murphy mirrored Democrats’ accusations of Trump: a quid pro quo. Republicans said Murphy implied that American military aid to Ukraine was at risk if Ukraine worked with Trump’s campaign to investigate former vice president Joe Biden in the hope of getting dirt on his presumed 2020 opponent.
Democrats have charged that Trump briefly withheld the aid in response to Ukraine’s refusal to conduct the investigation he wanted. And to most Democrats, the president’s comments were a small distraction.
To the Connecticut Congressional delegation — which unanimously backs the impeachment probe — the unclassified memo released by the White House on Tuesday was strong evidence of what they already believed: that Trump used his office to try to boost his 2020 campaign.
“As a prosecutor, I have never seen a more damning piece of evidence from the mouth of a potentially indictable criminal,” said U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, DConn.
When U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro read the memo of Trump’s call with the leader of Ukraine on Wednesday, she felt certain that House Democrats’ decision to start an impeachment inquiry was the right one.
“It would appear what the president did was to use his office to get a foreign government to interfere with our elections,” said DeLauro, a New Haven Democrat. “That is illegal and obviously, selfserving.”
Late Wednesday, Congress received the whistleblower complaint but there was no immediate reaction from the Connecticut delegation.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are gearing up for a House Intelligence Committee hearing Thursday focused on the complaint that allegedly describing Trump’s talks with Zelenskiy.
All day Wednesday, the halls of the U.S. Capitol bubbled with talk of the headlinegrabbing memo. The document reflects a July 25 conversation between Trump and Zelenskiy in which Trump repeatedly brings up a Ukrainian investigation with Biden and asks Zelenskiy to work with his attorney general and personal lawyer on it. The memo is not a verbatim transcript and it only describes one 30minute call between Trump and Zelenskiy.
“There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great,” Trump said according to the memo. “Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it ... It sounds horrible to me.”
U.S. Rep. Jim Himes and Blumenthal were troubled by Attorney General William Barr’s apparent involvement in the president’s press for a Biden investigation.
“(Barr) testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that the President never asked him to investigate anyone,” said Blumenthal, who serves on the committee. “He should be brought back before the Senate Judiciary Committee to explain his previous testimony.”
Blumenthal demanded that Barr recuse himself from any Department of Justice involvement in the TrumpUkraine scandal going forward.
“If reports are true that DOJ declined to open an investigation after receiving a criminal referral about this call, we must find out what role Barr played in that decision, given that he is mentioned numerous times in the very call that the referral is about,” Blumenthal said. “We must also find out what role Barr played in instructing the DNI not to turn over the whistleblower complaint to Congress.”
Many Republicans did not see damning material in the memo. Johnson, RWis., who traveled to Ukraine with Murphy in September, said people should withhold judgement until more information surfaces.
“What (former) Vice President Biden did there with the firing of that prosecutor general, more information may be coming out,” said Johnson, a Trump ally who went to the White House Wednesday morning to discuss the transcript.
Trump's team has alleged that during a visit to Ukraine in 2016, Biden pressured government officials there to fire a top prosecutor or the U.S. would withhold $1 billion in aid. Biden has acknowledged that account, but said it was because the prosecutor had failed to investigate widespread corruption in Ukraine.
Trump contends, without providing evidence, that Biden wanted the prosecutor fired so that he would not investigate Hunter Biden, who at the time was being paid tens of thousands of dollars per month to sit on the board of Ukraine's largest private gas company.
“I just look at that call transcript as ‘Oh, OK, what’s the big deal?’” Johnson added.
U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, RKy., slammed Murphy for implying in conversation with Zelenskiy that the U.S. would withhold military aid from Ukraine if it collaborated with the Trump administration on an investigation.
“Just last month, another Democrat senator was over there,” said Paul. “And he said, well, if you investigate the Biden link, it may evaporate your bipartisan support for Ukrainian aid.”
Giuliani also fired at Murphy Tuesday on Fox News. Murphy had called for a Senate probe of Giuliani’s work in Ukraine in May.
“(Murphy) went to see the president of the Ukraine, and he told the president of the Ukraine that if he cooperates with president they’ll cut off aid,” Giuliani said to Fox host Laura Ingraham. “That’s a quid pro quo. That’s threatening. Nancy Pelosi should be outraged at Chris Murphy. They should impeach him. They should impeach Chris Murphy.”
Murphy responded, “We’re in a bizarro world if there is something wrong with me telling the Ukrainians they shouldn’t get involved in the 2020 election. It is simply not proper for Rudy Giuliani to be conducting an independent relationship on behalf of the Trump campaign with the Ukrainians.”
“I think there should be more people making it clear to Zelenskiy that he should be coordinating with the State Department, not with the Trump campaign,” Murphy said.