As Republicans and conservative media outlets continue to maintain that President Donald Trump did nothing wrong in his conversations with the President of Ukraine, Democrats are pushing back against that narrative.
“Because all facts to point to fact that the President of the United States was strong-arming another foreign leader to directly meddle in our election process,” Third District Representative Ron Kind of LaCrosse told WRDN radio on Thursday. “And then he attempted to cover it up. By hiding the phone conversation – they call it ‘deep cover’ in the White House, where you separate that from other recordings. They were withholding the whistle blower complaint for well over a month, when they were required by law to turn it over within seven days.”
In an interview with WOMT radio on Wednesday, Sixth District Representative Glenn Grothman insisted the impeachment inquiry in the House is not about election interference, but rather a liberal sting on the President.
“You look at the anger or the enthusiasm at which people are trying to establish sanctuary cities or defunding ICE. President Trump is really the only thing holding the line on our borders so people are going to try and get him out of there,” Grothman said.
Grothman added that “it appears as though that the former vice president’s son enriched himself considerably, and Joe Biden may have weighed in on public policy. And we’ll see to the degree which President Trump talks about it. I think it’s surprising it’s gone this long for people to find out.”
However, the Washington Post reported on Thursday that a former top Ukrainian prosecutor believed that Hunter Biden did not violate any laws in Ukraine.
“He was withholding military aid,” Kind said. “Aid that the Congress had already passed and appropriated, and the president directed his chief of staff Mick Mulveany to not release that military aid. And then there were certain communications to the Ukrainian president that he has to ‘play ball.'”
Republican U.S. Senator Ron Johnson, who chairs the Senate committee on homeland security and has traveled to Ukraine numerous times, told the Journal Sentinel on Thursday that he did not believe that military aid to Ukraine was withheld by the president to pressure that country to investigate the former vice president.
“I’ve been involved in (Ukraine). I’ve heard directly from (Ukrainian President Zelensky), had direct contact with the president. I never got any sense at all there was any kind of pressure (on Zelensky). I just put the best construction on the call. I know how President (Trump) talks. That’s who he is,” said Johnson
Democratic U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin, in a WRN interview on Wednesday, said that there have already been plenty of reasons to investigate President Trump up to this point, including his possible role in Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
“In that instance, the President hasn’t been held to account. Now he is, again in plain sight, asking a foreign power to interfere into the 2020 elections.”
Baldwin added that Republican claims that the House inquiry will hold up legislation in Congress are misleading, because the House has already sent plenty of legislation to the Senate, where Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has decided to not bring it out for votes.
WOMT, WRDN & WRN’s Raymond Neupert contributed