Democratic Presidential candidate Rep. Tuli Gabbard said last week that the transcript of President Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian president Zelensky fails to present a “compelling” case for the president’s impeachment.
“Most people reading through that transcript are not going to find that extremely compelling cause to throw out a president that won an election in 2016,” Gabbard said.
“I think what most people will see is, ‘Hey, this is another move by Democrats to get rid of Donald Trump,’ further deepening the already hyper-partisan divides that we have in this country,” the Hawaiian congresswoman added.
Gabbard, before the release of the transcript, had cautioned the Democrats against initiating an impeachment inquiry, warning that the move would be “terribly divisive” for the country.
But despite all of that, Gabbard has repeatedly said that she believes Trump is simply “unfit to serve this country as president”.
“I just think it’s so important for our country to be able to move forward to bridge these divides, [such] that it be the American people that make this decision,” Gabbard said.
Gabbard’s words followed Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s formal initiation of an impeachment inquiry against President Trump on Tuesday, where she claimed the Trump had “seriously violated the constitution.”’
“This week, the president has admitted to asking the president of Ukraine to take actions which would benefit him politically,” Pelosi said.
Following Speaker Pelosi’s announcement, the Trump administration responded by releasing a five-page transcript of the conversation between Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky.
Trump also denounced the impeachment inquiry as a “witch hunt”.
President Zelensky, in response to the inquiry, said: “I don’t want to be involved in democratic open elections of USA. You heard that we had a good phone call. It was normal. We spoke about many things. I think, and you read it, and nobody pushed me.”
“Nobody can put pressure on me because I am the president of an independent state,” Zelensky added. “The only person by the way who can put pressure on me … is my son, who is 6 years old,” said the Ukrainian head of state.
Despite all of this, Democrats – with their win by any means necessary attitude – remain relentless and continue to contend that President Trump’s conversation with Zelensky only supports their case for impeachment.