A member of the House Intelligence Committee has now revealed some more of the reasoning held by those behind the ongoing investigation into President Donald Trump’s attempt to get Ukraine to dig up dirt on the Bidens that could be useful for Trump’s re-election campaign. Appearing on CNN after his panel participated in a joint subpoena demanding documents from the White House covering Trump’s relationship with Ukraine, Rep. Denny Heck (D-Wash.) said that if the Trump administration doesn’t comply, they’ll take that as an act of obstruction and de facto admission of the president’s guilt.
Explaining a next step following the White House refusing to comply with their subpoena — a defiance the Trump team has already said they intend to follow through with — Heck insisted:
‘Defiance of this act constitutes obstruction of a legitimate congressional inquiry in pursuit of impeachment and as a consequence of that we will assume or infer that he is not innocent of whatever it is that we’re out to verify with the documentation. There is no other reason for him to withhold it, to hide it, unless of course he’s guilty.’
Watch:
.@RepDennyHeck explains the “incredibly damning” evidence facing Trump:
“The call report, the President’s own words, in which he said… ‘I need you to do us a favor, though,’ and that combined with what Ambassador Taylor said about it being crazy to withhold security assistance” pic.twitter.com/Fj90ySt1nC— OutFrontCNN (@OutFrontCNN) October 4, 2019
Of course, we don’t need much further information to determine that the president really is guilty. In a call record of a phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that the White House themselves released, Trump can be read bluntly pressuring the Ukrainians to investigate the Bidens, even saying the Ukrainians should get in touch with his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General Bill Barr to further the inquiry — which is founded on zero evidence.
Just the other day, Trump stood right outside the White House and flatly said he thinks Ukraine should investigate the Bidens and even added that China should as well considering the family earned some money there. In a callback to the time during the 2016 campaign season when he said Russia should try and find missing emails from Hillary Clinton, Trump is now blatantly using the powers of the presidency to try and harm a political opponent. Does he have any concept at all of the boundaries of power associated with the presidency?
Despite the ample public evidence, House Democrats are continuing with their probe to find out the scope of what happened. Committee chairs including House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Oversight and Reform Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) and Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) wrote with the aforementioned subpoena:
‘We deeply regret that President Trump has put us — and the nation — in this position, but his actions have left us with no choice but to issue this subpoena.’
The language echoes that which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has used about their decision to move forward with a formal impeachment inquiry in the first place. Besides subpoenaing the White House directly, as part of that inquiry they’ve also already subpoenaed Rudy Giuliani, and they’ve heard from former U.S. Special Envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker, who helped the team connect with the right people to procure the dirt.
Featured Image via screenshot
