Donald Trump’s White House says the drive to impeach him for asking Ukraine’s president to investigate a political rival is a “sham,” and the desire to oust him is limited to “a very small group of Washington politicians” who want to override the will of 2016 electorate.
“This is an echo chamber impeachment,” Trump’s senior advisor for strategy Tony Sayegh told reporters on Thursday, arguing that Democrats in Washington know they won’t be able to defeat Trump “on the merits” in 2020, so they’re focused on removing him and undermining his legitimacy.
Shortly after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Thursday announcement that her committee chairmen will draft articles of impeachment against Trump, a pair of White House officials charged with countering the ouster presented their case to a group of reporters. To Sayegh and former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, whose current title is “Special Advisor to the President,” impeachment is being driven by a small cadre of politicians, “coastal elites” and their “their allies in the media.”
“There’s a whole country in between New York and L.A.,” Sayegh said. “And that part of the country doesn’t think impeachment is important to them.”
Sayegh and Bondi say Americans care more about economic opportunity, lower prescription drug prices, funding the military and approving a new trade agreement between the United States, Mexico and Canada than they do about impeachment, and they’ll be peeved if government business “grinds to a halt” over an issue that doesn’t affect their daily lives. They contend there will be “a significant price to pay at the ballot box” for Democrats who “take their eye off the ball of serving the people,” especially for the 31 Democratic members of Congress who represent districts that Trump won in 2016.
“This has been a completely unfair process from day one,” Bondi declared. “They have said the President is guilty until proven innocent, and that’s not how our country works.”
Pelosi had a different take on the matter earlier in the day, telling reporters the impeachment drive “isn’t about politics, partisanship, Democrats and Republicans….It’s about the Constitution of the United States, the oath of office we take to protect and defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic. It’s about the president not honoring his oath of office.”
“The facts are uncontested: the President abused his power for his own personal, political benefit at the expense of our national security, by withholding military aid and a crucial Oval Office meeting in exchange for an announcement of an investigation into his political rival,” Pelosi added.
She said Democrats in the House of Representatives are focused on passing legislation to reform Medicare and allow the government to negotiate for lower drug prices, expand voting rights, and address insider training. The Democrat-controlled House has passed 275 bipartisan bills, said Pelosi, and the Republican-controlled Senate hasn’t addressed them.
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