House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy continued his verbal assault on a Democrat-led impeachment investigation into President Trump, alleging that some members of their own ranks are troubled by the direction party leadership is taking them.
“I had a Democrat come to me today to tell me â he even questioned if he should stay a Democrat or reregister,” McCarthy said Wednesday evening on Fox News. “He said, ‘This is not the party I know.'”
The California Republican did not name the Democratic lawmaker. The Washington Examiner has contacted the minority leader’s press office for clarification. The leader has a press conference scheduled for Thursday morning.
The House Intelligence Committee, led by Chairman Adam Schiff, held the first public impeachment hearings this week, soliciting testimony from acting U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent.
The two men are said to have some knowledge of what a whistleblower alleges to be an abuse of power by Trump, specifically during a July 25 phone call between him and the president of Ukraine. During the call, Trump is said to have used foreign aid as a way to pressure the country to investigate a political rival.
Led by McCarthy, congressional Republicans not on the House Intelligence Committee spent the day Wednesday live-tweeting their disdain for the proceedings and deriding a “sham” investigation, which they argue has no merit.
“They are so afraid to face the president in the election; theyâre trying to frame him,” McCarthy said Wednesday morning.
Inside the hearing room, Republicans highlighted Taylor and Kent’s a lack of firsthand knowledge of the whistleblower’s allegations.
“We got six people having four conversations in one sentence, and you just told me this is where you got your clear understanding,” Republican Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, a late addition to the committee, said as he grilled Taylor. “I’ve seen church prayer chains that are easier to understand than this.”
Wednesday’s testimony increased scrutiny on another foreign diplomat, U.S. ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, who Taylor and Kent testified spoke with Trump sometime after the July call about “investigations” Trump wanted carried out by Ukrainian officials into the family of Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden.
Sondland is scheduled to testify before the committee next week.
In the meantime, McCarthy and the rank-and-file members beneath him have closed ranks around the president, who has said he did nothing wrong during a “perfect” call with Ukraine.
“You have 31 Democrats who sit in seats that President Trump carried last election,” he said. “If they listened to their voters, they probably won’t vote for this.”
