A big nothing burger? Donald Trump calls the Democrats’ formal impeachment inquiry ‘a big hoax’

Article By Jessica Miller // EEW Magazine // News & Politics

President Donald Trump asked the leader of Ukraine to “look into” Joe Biden, Trump’s potential 2020 reelection rival, according to a transcript of a summer phone call.

That very call is now at the center of Democrats’ impeachment probe, but Trump is calling it a “big hoax,” as Americans, weary from all the political-back-and-forth, are asking, is this a big nothing burger?

Trump, 73, pressed Volodymyr Zelenskiy, new president of the East European nation, to work with U.S. Attorney General William Barr and Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer. At one point in the July conversation, Trump said, “I would like for you to do us a favor.”

The president’s request for such help from a foreign leader set the parameters for the fourth impeachment investigation of an American president in the nation’s history.

Trump spent Wednesday meeting with world leaders at the United Nations and met with Zelenskiy, 41, the man at the center of the controversy.

U.S. President Donald Trump, accompanied by first lady Melania Trump, speaks to the media at the United Nations (U.N.) General Assembly on September 24, 2019 in New York City. (Credit: Getty)

In a light-hearted appearance before reporters, Zelenskiy said he didn’t want to get involved in American elections, but added, “Nobody pushed me.” Trump chimed in, “In other words, no pressure.”

If Zelenskiy himself is denying any untoward behavior by the president, is there really anywhere left to go from here?

The initial response to the transcript unsurprisingly highlighted the deep divide between the two parties: Democrats said the call amounted to a “shakedown” of a foreign leader, while Trump—backed by the vast majority of Republicans—dismissed it as a “nothing call.”

The call is one part of a whistleblower complaint about the president’s activities that led Democrats to move ahead with an impeachment inquiry of the Republican president on the cusp of the 2020 campaign.

The decision to impeach was made before Democrats ever saw the transcript of the call that the unidentified whistleblower admittedly never personally heard.

The House and Senate intelligence committees took their first look at the whistleblower’s complaint late Wednesday. Republicans kept largely quiet, but several Democrats called the classified account “disturbing.”

Some from both parties want it to be made public. Congress is also seeking an in-person interview with the whistleblower.

One option Pelosi is considering, pressed by some lawmakers, is to focus the impeachment inquiry specifically on the Ukraine issues rather than the many others Congress has already been investigating.

Pelosi announced the impeachment probe Tuesday after months of personal resistance to a process she has warned would be divisive for the country and risky for her party. But after viewing the transcript on Wednesday, Pelosi declared: “Congress must act.”

Trump has all but dared Democrats to move toward impeachment, confident that the specter of an investigation led by the opposition party will bolster rather than diminish his political support.

“It’s a joke. Impeachment, for that?” Trump said during a news conference in New York. He revived the same language he has used for months to deride the now-finished Mueller investigation into election interference—a big nothing burger—declaring impeachment the “single greatest witch hunt in American history.”

Republicans largely stood by the president and dismissed the notion that the transcript revealed any wrongdoing by Trump.

This might be a premature assessment, but I’d say from the early looks of things, there’s nothing to see here people.

The Associated Press contributed to this post.

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