Fox News correspondent Geraldo Rivera said Democrats’ allegations against President Trump in the impeachment trial are “probably true” but don’t amount to a crime.
“I believe that everything the Democrats allege is probably true. Everything they allege. I concede everything that the Democrats allege, except the hunting of the ambassador,” Rivera told Mediaite in an interview published Tuesday.
“I believe that the whole effort to get Ukraine to investigate Biden was seedy. None of it was criminal. If there was a crime, they would have spelled it out. I firmly believe no crime, no conviction in the impeachment trial,” he added.
Still, Rivera, who has known Trump for decades, echoed the president’s attacks on impeachment, referring to it as a “witch hunt.”
“I didn’t vote for him last time, and I may not vote for [him] this time. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to let the Democrats get away with what I consider to be a very lame and hypocritical and partisan witch hunt,” he said.
“I totally agree with him that he is being and has been from the first second of his tenure hounded and harangued and harassed and hunted by the hypocritical Democrats who all assume high ground that they don’t deserve because they had it out for him since the second he won the election,” Rivera continued.
The House impeached Trump in December, alleging he abused his power when he sought to press Ukraine to investigate his political rival, Joe Biden.
Amid the Senate trial, Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton’s forthcoming book sent shock waves through Washington. A manuscript of the book said Trump made security aid to Ukraine conditional on an investigation into Biden.
Trump lawyer Alan Dershowitz argued Monday that the president did nothing wrong.
“If the president, any president, were to have done what the Times reported about the content of the Bolton manuscript, that would not constitute an impeachable offense,” he said.
