Despite just 10 days ago Saying he saw no reason to support the impeachment of the president of the United States because he “did not see a clear quid pro quo” based on a transcript of a call between President Donald J. Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, a 67-year-old man from the Ohio area announced “with great sadness” that he now supports impeachment after hearing Trump’s acting chief of staff speak on the subject on Thursday.
“Uh, Ana, this has been a very difficult 24 hours for me,” John Kasich, the Republican Party’s 2016 presidential candidate, told CNN with a note of sadness in his voice. “The impeachment issue is really important to me, and when I heard what Mulvaney, the president’s chief of staff, said, it really hit home for me.”
“I’ll tell you why. Withholding military aid, essential military aid, to a country like Ukraine that has Russian troops on its territory that are under constant threat, withholding it so that a political operation can take place, ‘Investigate this thing around the server, we’ll withhold aid until you do that,'” the Ohio governor continued. “To me, that’s completely inappropriate. It’s an abuse of power. Now, I know there are presidents who will withhold aid because they have political differences. But that’s not a political difference.”
“And, uh, so in my opinion, look, I’ve argued with people on the air about whether there’s such a thing as quid pro and whether that’s grounds for impeachment? Now I believe that there is. I say that with great sadness. It’s not something I really wanted to do. I mean, I voted to impeach Bill Clinton and that was really hard. It was incredibly hard. But in my opinion, that kind of behavior cannot be tolerated. And action will have to be taken.”
Today on CNN, @JohnKasich he said that if he were a member of the House of Representatives, he would vote for impeachment @realDonaldTrump. photo:twitter.com/P7vbpwwHBF
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) October 18, 2019
After a press conference Thursday, media outlets surmised that Mulvaney had admitted to a quid pro quo. This morning, he vehemently denied those claims.
via Leah:
He said the media was “misinterpreting” his comments to the press “to promote a partisan and political witch hunt against President Trump.”
“Let’s be clear, there was absolutely no quid pro quo between Ukrainian military aid and any investigation into the 2016 election,” Mulvaney said. “The president never told me to withhold any money until the Ukrainians did something about the server.”
