A House Republican admitted twice during an interview with CNN Friday morning that various aspects of President Trump’s call with Ukraine and the White House’s handling of the situation should “probably” be investigated further.
But he was quick to go after Democrats for “overreacting” and also pushed for a similar investigation into Joe Biden, whom Trump has baselessly accused of meddling in Ukraine on behalf of his son.
When Rep. James Comer (R-KY) was asked how he could characterize Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukraine into investigating Biden as not “improper,” Comer said that Democrats need to “slow down,” but offered: “certainly this is something that is probably worth investigating a little further.” He made similar remarks about the White House’s decision to immediately lock up records of the Ukraine call in a password-protected server and suggested it was a “fair question” for Congress to ask what “role” Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani plays in government.
“Okay, let me ask you this — if this call was entirely okay, a ‘beautiful call,’ as the President has said, why did White House officials immediately after take the extraordinary step of putting the record of that call in a code word protected system?” CNN’s Jim Sciutto asked.
“Well, I think that’s a good question. I think that is a question that the trump administration needs to answer,” he said. “Certainly, that is something that I’m confident will be asked, as the Democrats press forward with their quest to try to impeach the President. But one of the things that I think I’ll hear when I’m back home in Kentucky next week is that, ‘why are they constantly, they being the Democrats, constantly trying to find something new on President Trump?'”
Most Republicans have been slow criticize the Ukraine call, which is now at the center of Democrats’ impeachment inquiry. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) has called the call troubling, but most have suggested that there was no quid-pro-quo, casting the call as relatively harmless.
However the White House memo on the call blatantly shows that Trump asked for a “favor” after the Ukrainian president brought up the fact that Ukraine would like more of a certain type of defense weapon.
GOP Rep: Trump admin "needs to answer" for why it stowed Ukraine call record in password-protected vault pic.twitter.com/jxeVxSo9HH
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) September 27, 2019
