Rep. Chris Stewart continued his full-throated defense of President Donald Trump during Wednesday’s public impeachment hearing, saying the readout of the call between Trump and the Ukranian president did not show any evidence of wrongdoing.
Stewart, wrongly referring to the memo about Trump’s phone call as a “transcript,” said the document undermined the Democratic claims of wrongdoing.
“There is one sentence in one phone call. That is what this entire impeachment proceeding is based upon,” said Stewart. “If your impeachment case is so weak that you have to lie and exaggerate about it, to convince the American people that they need to remove this president, you’ve got a problem.”
Stewart has repeatedly offered up this line of defense to push back against the impeachment inquiry into President Trump. Trump has repeatedly referred to the phone call as “perfect.” The phone call in question was the subject of an anonymous whistleblower complaint that touched off the current impeachment inquiry.
The House Intelligence Committee heard testimony Wednesday from Ambassador William Taylor and deputy assistant secretary of state George Kent about President Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukraine into digging up damaging information about his political rivals to boost his re-election campaign.
Stewart made it clear he wasn’t buying any of the allegations that President Trump abused his power during any of his interactions with Ukraine.
“The American people have been lied to again and again on this. We first heard a lot about quid pro quo. And then many people realized that was meaningless. They said let’s go for the fences, let’s talk about extortion, let’s talk about bribery, cover-up, and obstruction, for which there is zero evidence of any of that,” said Stewart.
Video clip below via C-Span:
