After a whistleblower complaint, the House of Representatives of the United States decided to officially move forward and make an impeachment inquiry on President Donald Trump. This impeachment inquiry began because of a reported conversation between President Trump and the Ukranian President, Volodymyr Zelensky.
The complaint from the whistleblower, along with the release of a readout of a call between the two presidents was what caused the House of Representatives to launch their impeachment inquiry. According to both the whistleblower complaint and the call readout, President Donald Trump was trying to persuade the Ukranian President into investigating Joe Biden and his family before the 2020 election.
This was already a very delicate matter, but it became even worse when, after being refused, Trump decided to pressure Ukraine by saying that he may withhold military aid to the country. Ukraine has been in conflict with Russia since March 2014 and has been receiving support from the United States since the very beginning -- whether it be military support or diplomatic support.
The complaint of the whistleblower also accuses the White House of trying to make the conversation between the two presidents classified, in order to cover it up and keep it hidden.
Although President Trump says that he did indeed speak with President Zelensky, he maintains the statement that the conversation he had in July was nothing except “a very friendly and totally appropriate phone call.” Along with this, he also argues that he did no wrong during the call.
....You will see it was a very friendly and totally appropriate call. No pressure and, unlike Joe Biden and his son, NO quid pro quo! This is nothing more than a continuation of the Greatest and most Destructive Witch Hunt of all time!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 24, 2019
To prove his innocence, Trump authorized for the transcript of his complete conversation with the Ukranian leader to be declassified and looked over, without any redactions. Unfortunately for him, the Democrats seem to still be more interested in the fact that he withheld military aid to Ukraine prior to his calls with President Zelensky.
Interestingly, the whistleblower scandal has lead to its first resignation from the Trump administration already. Kurt Volker was the US special representative for Ukraine negotiations, and on Friday the 27th of September he resigned from that position. Although the reason for his resignation has not yet been made clear, the timing makes it quite obvious that it is related to the issue between President Trump and Ukraine.
Kurt Volker, a special U.S. envoy to Ukraine, has resigned amid an uproar over President Donald Trump’s dealings with the Eastern European nation, a U.S. official has confirmed. https://t.co/8mN4WirQFs
— The Associated Press (@AP) September 28, 2019
Another very interesting point is the response from the Republican Party on this entire issue has mainly been silence. One would assume that the Republicans would step up to protect and support one of their own, especially if it’s their President. However, that is not the case.
Only the top Republican on the committee, Rep. Devin Nunes, asked questions to Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire. Maguire was questioned quite abrasively in order to find out what exactly he had to do with the news that was leaked.
Nunes said to him, “Somebody is leaking this, and it’s likely coming from the agencies that you oversee.”
Maguire responded, “Ranking member, I lead the intelligence community. We know how to keep a secret… as far as how that got into the hands of the press, I really do not know sir. I just know that it’s all over the place, and as you said, it’s been reported by different media for the past several weeks. Where they get their information from, I don’t know.”
Nunes also questioned him about the need to make the complaint public asking, “Are you aware of any cases like this that were put into the spotlight? Would this be the way to handle it out in public like this?”
To which Maguire responded that indeed he has not ever heard of any other complaints being handled this way and that this case was quite unique because even prior cases similar to this one never implicated the President of the United States.
Besides all of this, there have been few developments on the Trump Impeachment Inquiry. Currently, the next step is for the House of Representatives to vote on passing the decision to the Senate. Should that happen, even if the Senate does not impeach (which they most likely won’t) it would be a great symbolic victory for the Democrats.
