- President Donald Trump took a victory lap on Thursday after Senate Republicans voted to acquit him of the two charges against him following a bitter impeachment trial.
- „It was evil, it was corrupt, it was dirty cops,“ Trump said of his impeachment trial. „It was leakers, liars, and this should never, ever happen to another president, ever.“
- „If this happened to President Obama, a lot of people would have been in jail for a long time already, many, many years,“ Trump added.
- The president also singled out Utah Sen. Mitt Romney – the lone Republican who sided with Democrats to convict and remove Trump from office – and accused him of using religion „as a crutch.“
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President Donald Trump on Thursday gave a speech to celebrate the Republican-controlled Senate voted to acquit him of both charges against him following a bitter impeachment trial.
Trump framed his impeachment as a „war,“ accused Democrats of treating him „unbelievably unfairly,“ and blamed „dirty“ intelligence officials, including former FBI Director James Comey, for the way he was treated.
„It was evil, it was corrupt, it was dirty cops,“ Trump said. „It was leakers, liars, and this should never, ever happen to another president, ever. I don’t know if other presidents would have been able to take it.“
„If this happened to President Obama, a lot of people would have been in jail for a long time already, many, many years,“ Trump added.
Fact check: Trump is correct that what he went through was a unique occurrence in American history. The FBI has never investigated another presidential campaign for conspiring with a foreign government to tilt a US election in one direction. Ultimately, the former special counsel Robert Mueller found that although the Trump campaign did not conspire with Russia to swing the 2016 election in his favor, the campaign enthusiastically welcomed Russia’s interference and expected to benefit from it.
Trump is also the first US president to publicly call for multiple foreign powers to investigate or damage his political rivals. In July 2016, he asked Russia to recover the 30,000 emails that were missing from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s email server.
And beginning last year and continuing into the present, Trump called for Ukraine and China to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, over unfounded allegations of corruption.
The president on Thursday also targeted Rep. Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and the lead House prosecutor in Trump’s impeachment trial.
„A corrupt politician named Adam Schiff made up my statement to the Ukrainian president. He brought it out of thin air. Just made it up,“ Trump said.
Fact check: Trump was referring to Schiff’s characterization of his July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. During the call, Trump repeatedly asked Zelensky to investigate the Bidens and a bogus conspiracy theory suggesting Ukraine interfered in the 2016 US election.
Schiff was paraphrasing the call when he first described it. He said as much before detailing „the essence of what the president communicates,“ and not „the exact transcribed version of the call.“
The president has repeatedly targeted Schiff and the intelligence community whistleblower who lodged a formal complaint last summer that helped initiate the impeachment inquiry.
Late last month, Trump warned that Schiff „has not paid the price, yet, for what he has done to our Country!“ and said he was corrupt and „probably a very sick man.“
„The whistleblower is a disgrace to our country. A disgrace. And the whistleblower, because of that, should be revealed,“ Trump told reporters in November.
Fact check: The whistleblower used legal channels to report their concerns about the president. The acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, testified that the whistleblower did not violate the law and that their identity is protected under a federal statute.
The president has said Schiff is guilty of treason and the whistleblower is guilty of espionage. Both crimes are punishable by death.
On Thursday, Trump individually praised Republican lawmakers for supporting him throughout his impeachment.
He also took time to single out Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, the lone Republican senator who voted with Democrats to convict and remove Trump from office for abuse of power.
The president accused Romney of using his religion „as a crutch.“
„But you know, he’s a failed presidential candidate, so things can happen when you fail so badly running for president,“ Trump said.
Romney sent shockwaves through Washington when he announced on Wednesday that he would vote to oust the president from office.
„Corrupting an election to keep oneself in office is perhaps the most abusive and destructive violation of one’s oath of office that I can imagine,“ Romney said. He also said he expected to face harsh blowback from members of his own party for his decision to break ranks.
„Does anyone seriously believe that I would consent to these consequences, other than from an inescapable conviction that my oath before God demanded it of me?“ he said.
On Wednesday, the Senate voted 52-48 to acquit Trump of the abuse of power charge and 53-47 to acquit him of the obstruction charge.
For weeks, the president’s lawyers have claimed the impeachment process against Trump was a partisan „sham.“ The White House was also known to have been courting some Democratic swing votes before the final vote, like Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, in hopes of a bipartisan acquittal.
But in the end, Manchin sided with the rest of the Senate Democratic caucus to call for Trump’s removal.
Meanwhile, Romney’s vote to convict made Trump’s impeachment the first time in US history that a member of the president’s own party voted to remove him from office, resulting in a bipartisan vote for conviction. It was also the first time that the entire opposing party voted to convict the president.
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiWWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmJ1c2luZXNzaW5zaWRlci5jb20vdHJ1bXAtcHVibGljLXN0YXRlbWVudC1hZnRlci1pbXBlYWNobWVudC1hY3F1aXR0YWwtMjAyMC0y0gFdaHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYnVzaW5lc3NpbnNpZGVyLmNvbS90cnVtcC1wdWJsaWMtc3RhdGVtZW50LWFmdGVyLWltcGVhY2htZW50LWFjcXVpdHRhbC0yMDIwLTI_YW1w?oc=5
2020-02-06 18:18:35Z
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