Democrats: Trump Asked Foreign Power to ‘Attack’ Our Elections

Committee chairman Adam Schiff arrives at a hearing featuring Acting Director of National
Win McNamee/Getty Images
Hannah Knudsen

Democrat lawmakers on Thursday reacted to the release of the “whistleblower” complaint fueling their party’s latest impeachment effort, calling it a “bombshell.” The Democrats accused President Trump of acting like a mob boss, and declared that the complaint proves the existence of a “coverup.”

The House Intelligence Committee released a redacted version of the “whistleblower” complaint prior to Acting National Intelligence Director Joseph Maguire’s appearance before the committee.

The document confirms reports that the “whistleblower” did not have firsthand knowledge of the conversation between Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky.

As Breitbart News reported, “Allegations in the complaint seem to be distortions of exaggerations of information in the transcript itself, which the White House released Wednesday,” and continued:

For example, the whistleblower claims that Trump “praised Ukraine’s Prosecutor General, Mr. Yuriy Letsenko.” Trump appears never to have mentioned Letsenko, and his reference to a prosecutor (“I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down”) was a reference to former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin. Shokin was investigating Burisma Holdings, on whose board Hunter Biden served, at the time Joe Biden demanded he be fired, under threat of withholding $1 billion in American aid.

The complaint also revealed that the “whistleblower” relied heavily on reporting from outlets such as the New York Times, the Hill, and ABC News, among others.

The unredacted transcript released by the White House on Wednesday showed no such “pressure” from the president, no quid pro quo, and no lawless behavior, as several GOP lawmakers pointed out. Nonetheless, numerous Democrat lawmakers are reacting to the release of the complaint, claiming that it proves the existence of a coverup, and likening the president to a mob boss.

“Mob bosses are smarter & more subtle in their threats than Trump was talking to Zelensky,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) wrote:

“If Senate Republicans aren’t seriously alarmed by this whistleblower report, then something is deeply wrong,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) tweeted, falsely accusing Trump of asking a foreign power to “attack our free and fair elections”:

Rep. André Carson (D-IN) declared that the “whistleblower” complaint shows the administration’s wrongdoing and abuse “clear as day.”

“Now that the whistleblower’s complaint has been released, all Americans can see in plain view the extent of the Administration’s wrongdoing,” he tweeted.

“What’s written can’t be muddied by gaslighting, false equivalencies, or spin from the President and his allies,” he added. “The abuse is clear as day”:

Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) claimed to have found confirmation of quid pro quo within the complaint.

“The White House’s attempts to hide this from Congress amounted to an illegal coverup, and show knowledge of guilt,” Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) concluded:

“Having read the whistleblower complaint, I am even more worried about what happened,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) wrote, in part:

Rep. Val Demings (D-FL) also claimed that the complaint showed the existence of a coverup.

“They knew the President had violated his oath of office,” she said of White House officials:

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