Hillary Clinton suggested in a tweet on Thursday that President Trump committed an impeachable offense on national television.
The failed presidential candidate tweeted a clip of Trump telling a reporter that he hoped Ukraine would open an investigation examining Joe Biden’s (D) questionable role in the firing of the Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin, who was investigating the natural gas company Burisma Holdings. Biden’s son, Hunter, was taking in tens of thousands of dollars per month operating as a legal consultant for the company at the time.
“Someone should inform the president that impeachable offenses committed on national television still count,” Clinton wrote:
Democrats are accusing the president of “pressuring” the Ukrainian government into investigating Biden’s role in Shokin’s removal. A transcript of the conversation between Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky shows that Trump’s mention of a “favor” was in reference to CrowdStrike – not Biden.
Of Biden, Trump said:
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.
While the former vice president was mentioned later in the conversation, there is no evidence of quid pro quo, as impeachment-driven Democrats in the House suggest. Zelensky confirmed as much during a press conference with Trump this month.
“Have you felt any pressure from President Trump to investigate Joe Biden?” a reporter asked.
“I think you read everything. I think you read text. I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be involved to democratic open elections, elections of USA,” Zelensky said.
“No, sure, we had I think good phone call. It was normal. We spoke about many things, and I — so I think and you read it that nobody pushed me,” he continued.
“In other words, no pressure,” Trump added.
Trump’s claim in the phone call – that Biden bragged about getting the prosecutor fired – is correct. While Democrats assert that Trump was engaging in quid pro quo and generally impeachable behavior, it was Biden who threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid over the prosecutor’s firing.
“I said, I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars. I said, you’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours,” Biden said during a January 2018 appearance at the Council of Foreign Relations.
“I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch. He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time,” he added:
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) sent a scathing letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Thursday, demanding she halt the impeachment inquiry and answer a series of questions on the Democrat impeachment effort before proceeding: