President Donald Trump attacked the Democratic lawmaker spearheading the impeachment inquiry on Monday as congressional committees subpoenaed his personal lawyer, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, for documents related to his dealings with Ukraine.
As Trump lashed out at Democratic congressman Adam Schiff, suggesting he should be arrested for “treason,” a new poll showed a growing number of Americans support removing the president from office for abuse of power.
Trump also attacked the whistleblower whose complaint about his phone call with the leader of Ukraine led to the opening of the impeachment probe in the Democratic-led House of Representatives.
“We are trying to find out about a whistleblower, when you have a whistleblower that reports things that were incorrect,” the president told reporters.
The whistleblower, reportedly a CIA officer, raised concerns in a report to his or her superiors about the July 25 phone call during which Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate his potential 2020 White House opponent Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who served on the board of a Ukrainian gas company.
Giuliani was at the center of the effort to get Ukraine to conduct a probe of the Bidens, who have not been officially accused of any wrongdoing.
Schiff, chairman of the Intelligence Committee, and the chairmen of two other Democratic-led House committees issued a subpoena to Giuliani asking him to turn over Ukraine-related documents by October 15.
“The committees are investigating the extent to which President Trump jeopardized national security by pressing Ukraine to interfere with our 2020 election,” the chairmen said in a letter to Giuliani.
“Our inquiry includes an investigation of credible allegations that you acted as an agent of the President in a scheme to advance his personal political interests by abusing the power of the Office of the President,” they said.
Trump told reporters on Monday that the call with Zelensky was “perfect” and the whistleblower “reported a totally different statement.”
In fact, the rough transcript of the call released by the White House matched the whistleblower’s account.
AFP
