Several Democrat presidential candidates on Wednesday reacted to the release of the unredacted transcript of President Donald Trump’s conversation with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, claiming victory and assessing that the “‘transcript’ itself is a smoking gun.”
“This is the smoking gun,” Julián Castro (D) declared. “Donald Trump pressured a foreign government to work with his Justice Department to investigate a political opponent.”
“Congress should cancel recess and begin impeachment proceedings immediately,” he added:
“This ‘transcript’ itself is a smoking gun,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) echoed. “If this is the version of events the president’s team thinks is most favorable, he is in very deep jeopardy.”
“We need to see the full whistleblower complaint and the administration needs to follow the law,” she continued. “Now”:
“They admit it: Trump pressured the Ukrainian president to work with the U.S. Attorney General to investigate a political opponent. He must be impeached,” Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) declared:
“This confirms what we already knew: President Trump asked a foreign power to investigate a political rival,” Beto O’Rourke (D) wrote. “He’s unfit for office and needs to be impeached”:
“This is how an incompetent mobster does business,” Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (D) said:
Trump authorized the “complete, fully declassified and unredacted transcript” of his conversation with Zelensky on Tuesday.
“You will see it was a very friendly and totally appropriate call. No pressure and, unlike Joe Biden and his son, NO quid pro quo!” Trump said. “This is nothing more than a continuation of the Greatest and most Destructive Witch Hunt of all time!”:
The transcript does not provide a “smoking gun,” as Democrat candidates proclaim. Rather, it shows Trump asking the Ukranian leader to further look into the 2016 election meddling roots — something Democrats, given their self-described goals of ensuring election security, would be in favor of.
Trump said:
I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike… I guess you have one of your wealthy people… The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think you’re surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it’s very important that you do it if that’s possible.
Biden’s son was not mentioned until after the fact:
… I just want to let you know that’s the other thing, 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. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you ·can look into it … It sounds horrible to me.
As the Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel explained:
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