President Trump went after the House Judiciary Committee after they passed two articles to impeach him for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress on Friday morning.
The vote, which went down party lines, was only the fourth of its kind taken by the committee. The affirmative vote will result in the articles being sent to the House floor for a vote, which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said will take place next week.
The president addressed the process for the first time since the vote took place in the Oval Office while he was addressing reporters. Trump reiterated a lot of the arguments he’s used previously — calling the investigation “a hoax” and “a witch hunt,” while continuing to label his phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a “perfect phone call.”
Trump also repeated his attacks against the alleged whistleblower Eric Ciaramella and wondered where he went and why he didn’t testify in the House Intelligence Committee hearings. Ciaramella, 33, a career CIA analyst, was Ukraine director on the National Security Council during the end of the Obama administration and remained there during the early months of the Trump administration when he was briefly acting senior director for European and Russian affairs.
“We’re dealing with a lot of corrupt people. There was nothing done wrong. To use the power of impeachment on this nonsense is an embarrassment to this country,” Trump added.
The White House released a statement calling the House Judiciary Committee’s vote a “desperate charade” in a statement released prior to the president’s comments.
