Republican Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz said President Trump should welcome testimony from top aides in his administration if they have information that could undermine the impeachment push from Democrats.
“I think it would inure to the president’s advantage to have people testify who could exculpate him,” Gaetz said Sunday on ABC’s This Week. “We want to preserve an executive branch where there are out-of-the-box strategy sessions.”
Gaetz, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, warned there could be a chilling effect on presidential administrations if Trump’s top aides are compelled to disclose their private conversations with the president.
“If everyone’s always worried … you’re engaging in conversations about an upcoming challenge that that’s going to be read out verbatim to the Congress and the country; I think it could impair the kind of creativity and out-of-the-box thinking that we want to see in the executive,” Gaetz said.
The impeachment investigation, led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democratic leadership, centers on a July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, during which Trump pressured the foreign leader to investigate a political rival.
Trump has repeatedly claimed he “did nothing wrong” during a “perfect” call with Ukraine, from which he “wanted nothing.”
The president’s defenders on Capitol Hill, such as Gaetz, have dismissed the allegations against Trump as partisan and unjustified.
