President Donald Trump criticized Democrats on Tuesday for continuing the impeachment theater while he was overseas in London attending a NATO summit.
“I think it’s very unpatriotic for the Democrats to put on a performance where they do that. I do,” he said. “I think it’s a bad thing for our country.”
The Democratic case for President Donald Trump’s impeachment will be publicly released on Tuesday, according to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff.
The president spoke to reporters in the British capital during a meeting with Secretary-General of NATO Jens Stoltenberg, ahead of the conference’s 70th anniversary.
He said despite the effort by Democrats to remove him, he believed that his negotiating position with NATO countries was not affected.
“I don’t think so,” he replied when reporters asked him if his position was weakened. “I know most of the leaders. I get along with them. It’s a hoax.”
Trump again asserted that the impeachment process was having the opposite effect, garnering political support for him in swing districts that voted Democrat in the Congressional midterms.
“I think it’s a very bad thing for our country,” he said. “Does it cast a cloud? Well, if it does, then the Democrats have done a very great disservice to the country, which they have. They’ve wasted a lot of time.”
The president commented on reports that Attorney General Barr disputed the Department of Justice Inspector General’s conclusion that the Russia probe was justified.
“I think we have to read it, we have to see it, but I hear there’s a lot of devastating things in that report, but we’ll see what happens,” he said.
Trump said he had not seen the report but had heard that there were some interesting elements to it.
“I do believe that because I’m hearing the report is very powerful, but I’m hearing that by reading lots of different things, not from inside information,” he said.
Trump acknowledged that Americans had waited a long time for the Inspector General report released by Michael Horowitz, but indicated that he was more interested in the criminal inquiry into the investigation led by U.S. Attorney John Durham.
“I do think the big report to wait for is going to be the Durham report,” he said. “That’s the one that people are really waiting for. He’s highly respected and he’s worked very hard. He’s worked long hours, I can tell you, and gone all over the world.”