President Trump Reacts to House Launching Impeachment Inquiry

President Trump Reacts to House Launching Impeachment Inquiry
President Donald Trump attends a meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi (not pictured) in New York on Sept. 24, 2019. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
Janita Kan
9/24/2019
Updated:
9/24/2019

President Donald Trump weighed in on the House’s announcement on Sept. 24 that they have formally launched an impeachment inquiry into the president, accusing House Democrats of pursuing another “witch hunt.”

“Such an important day at the United Nations, so much work and so much success, and the Democrats purposely had to ruin and demean it with more breaking news Witch Hunt garbage. So bad for our Country!” Trump wrote on Twitter following House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) announcement on Tuesday afternoon.

“Pelosi, Nadler, Schiff and, of course, Maxine Waters! Can you believe this?” he continued. “They never even saw the transcript of the call. A total Witch Hunt!”

“PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT!” he concluded.

White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham shared a statement Sept. 24, commenting on the Democrats’ attack on the president.

“Americans deserve elected officials who focus on key issues to improve the lives of families, strengthen our communities, grow our economy, and keep our country safe. In President Donald J. Trump they have someone who has not only focused on those goals, but delivered results,” the statement reads.

“In a far departure from all of the work and results of this President, House Democrats have destroyed any chances of legislative progress for the people of this country by continuing to focus all their energy on partisan political attacks. Their attacks on the President and his agenda are not only partisan and pathetic, they are in dereliction of their Constitutional duty.

“The Trump Administration will continue to be vigorous in laying out the facts and standing up for the many forgotten men and women who elected him.”

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday afternoon after meeting with the House Democrats caucus, Pelosi announced that the House is “moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry,” alleging that Trump “seriously violated the Constitution.”

“This week, the president has admitted to asking the president of Ukraine to take actions which would benefit him politically,” Pelosi said. She alleged that Trump’s presidency “revealed dishonorable facts of the president’s betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of national security and betrayal of the integrity of our elections.”

Pelosi had publicly resisted the move despite other top Democrats pushing for it in legal filings and in the media. Calls by Democrats to impeach the president were stalled after former special counsel Robert Mueller was unable to back up claims of Russian collusion.

But recent claims published in the Wall Street Journal that Trump allegedly pressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a July phone call to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, were seen by some as a new opportunity for impeachment.

Earlier in the day, Trump announced that he has authorized the release a “fully declassified and unredacted transcript” of the phone call with Zelensky.

“You will see it was a very friendly and totally appropriate call. No pressure and, unlike Joe Biden and his son, NO quid pro quo!” Trump wrote on Twitter.

The Ukrainian government has denied the reports that Trump had engaged in improper conduct during the call.

“I know what the conversation was about and I think there was no pressure,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko told Ukrainian media outlet Hromadske. “This conversation was long, friendly, and it touched on many questions, sometimes requiring serious answers.”

Trump said in a separate post late Tuesday that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had received permission from the Ukraine Government to release the transcript of the telephone call with Zelensky.

“Secretary of State Pompeo recieved permission from Ukraine Government to release the transcript of the telephone call I had with their President. They don’t know either what the big deal is. A total Witch Hunt Scam by the Democrats!” Trump wrote.

In a separate tweet, Trump posted a compilation video of Democratic lawmakers saying that would like or support the impeachment of the president.

More than 180 House Democrats said they support launching an inquiry into impeachment charges.

Following the announcement, many congress members and members of the Trump administration reacted to the news of the inquiry.

“Speaker Pelosi has officially surrendered the gavel to “the squad” Make no mistake—radical leftists intent on undoing the will of the American people have taken control of the former party of JFK,” said Kayleigh McEnany, Trump’s 2020 campaign national press secretary.
Similarly, Brad Parscale, the Trump 2020 campaign manager, said that since Democrats can’t beat Trump on his policies, they have to use different tactics.
“They’re trying to turn a Joe Biden scandal into a Trump problem. The misguided Democrat impeachment strategy is meant to appease their rabid, extreme, leftist base, but will only serve to embolden and energize President Trump’s supporters,” he said in a statement.

Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.) also took to Twitter to weigh in on the announcement, saying that the “decree changes absolutely nothing.”

“Speaker Pelosi’s decree changes absolutely nothing. As I have been telling Chairman Nadler for weeks, merely claiming the House is conducting an impeachment inquiry doesn’t make it so. Until the full House votes to authorize an inquiry, nobody is conducting a formal inquiry,” Collins wrote.

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) made similar comments in a statement on Twitter.

“So we are all clear what’s happening: House Democrats are supposedly beginning an impeachment inquiry, and building it on an anonymous secondhand complaint they haven’t seen... which describes a call transcript that they haven’t read. You can’t make it up,” Meadows wrote.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in a statement that Pelosi’s “much-publicized efforts to restrain her far-left conference have finally crumbled.”

“House Democrats cannot help themselves. Instead of working together across party lines on legislation to help American families and strengthen our nation, they will descend even deeper into their obsession with relitigating 2016,” he said.

“This rush to judgment comes just a few hours after President Trump offered to release the details of his phone conversation with President Zelensky. It comes despite the fact that committee-level proceedings are already underway to address the whistleblower allegation through a fair, bipartisan, and regular process.

“It simply confirms that House Democrats’ priority is not making life better for the American people but their nearly three-year-old fixation on impeachment,” he added.

Meanwhile, Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) went further to call for impeachment proceedings.

“I called for impeachment five months ago, the day after the Mueller report came out,” she said. “Trump continues to commit crimes because he believes he’s above the law. If Congress does nothing to respond, he’ll be right. We must begin impeachment proceedings—now.”
During Pelosi’s announcement, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer posted a Twitter message saying that the Senate unanimously passed a resolution calling for the whistleblower complaint to be handed over to Congress.
Epoch Times reporter Jack Phillips contributed to this report.