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News > U.S.

US Senate Republicans Push Resolution Against Trump Impeachment Process

  • Supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump carry

    Supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump carry "Stop Impeachment" signs outside a campaign town hall meeting. | Photo: Reuters

Published 24 October 2019
Opinion

The resolution does not say Trump should not be investigated, nor says anything about the president’s conduct in the Ukraine scandal.

United States Republicans Thursday pressed their campaign to discredit the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump, with an ally of the president introducing a U.S. Senate resolution calling the procedures used by House of Representatives Democrats unfair.

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Unruly Bunch: US Republican Lawmakers Disrupt Trump Impeachment Inquiry

Forty-four of the 53 Republicans in the 100-seat Senate have signed on to the resolution, which urges the House to hold a formal vote to initiate the impeachment inquiry and give Trump the ability to “confront his accusers” and call his own witnesses, said its lead sponsor, Senator Lindsey Graham. 

The resolution does not say Trump should not be investigated, nor says anything about the president’s conduct in the Ukraine scandal.

In a similar manner on Wednesday Republican lawmakers disrupted the U.S. House of Representatives’ impeachment inquiry and prevented a Pentagon official from testifying.

The unruly bunch of Republican legislators stormed into the hearing room where the U.S. defense official who oversees Ukraine and Russia matters,  Laura Cooper,  was due to testify behind closed doors and began yelling, lawmakers and aides reported.

As the impeachment inquiry against Trump gains momentum, on Tuesday the U.S. Senior Envoy to Ukraine William Taylor testified admitting that he was told that Trump made the release of security aid to Ukraine with the condition Kiev would publicly declare it would carry out politically motivated investigations against presidential candidate Joe Biden.

Taylor’s appearance marked another key development in the main happening unfolding in Washington that threatens Trump’s presidency even as he pursues re-election.

This comes as the initial whistleblower from within the U.S. intelligence community lodged a complaint with an internal watchdog about Trump’s conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

The July 25 call, which was later released by the White House, confirmed that the U.S. president asked Zelenskiy to investigate his political rival in coordination with the U.S. attorney general and Trump’s personal lawyer,  which in turn occurred after Trump had ordered a freeze of nearly US$400 million in U.S. aid to Ukraine, which the administration only later released.

Trump has denied he did this to get leverage or blackmail Zelenskiy. Federal election law prohibits candidates from accepting foreign help in an election.

Following the scandal, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the House of Representatives is moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry of Trump, adding the “the actions revealed the dishonorable fact of the President's betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of our national security and betrayal of the integrity of our elections." 

Under the U.S. Constitution, the House has the power to impeach a president for “high crimes and misdemeanors” and the Senate then holds a trial on whether to remove the president from office. No president has ever been removed from office through impeachment. Democrats currently control the House and Republicans control the Senate.

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