HARTFORD – Amid a whistleblower complaint about President Trump’s call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and holding of U.S. military aid to Ukraine, U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Monday at a press conference in Hartford called out the Trump administration for pressing the Ukrainian government to interfere in the 2020 U.S. elections and laid out what steps he’s taking in Congress to address this. Last week, after news broke of the whistleblowers complaint, Murphy again sent a letter to the Chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee U.S. Senator Jim Risch (R-Idaho) to open an investigation into the matter. Last May when reports broke of Rudy Giuliani traveling to Ukraine to ask the government to officially investigate Hunter Biden, son of former Vice President Joe Biden, Murphy called on Risch to open a Senate query.
Murphy also gave an update on the latest state of play in his negotiations with the White House on expanding background checks.
“This is unacceptable in a democracy. No president of the United States can use his office, can use the national security apparatus of this country to try to interfere in an election to try to destroy his political opponents. This cannot happen in this country, and if it is indeed true, Congress can't allow it to stand,” Murphy said.
“What is happening now is that [President Trump] is admitting that he pressed the Ukrainians to conduct these political investigations, because he thinks he can get away with it. The president thinks he can act with impunity. I don't think it really matters whether there was a quid pro quo. I don't think it really matters whether the president explicitly told the Ukrainians that they wouldn't get their security aid if they didn't interfere in the 2020 elections. There is an implicit threat in every single demand that a United States president makes of a foreign power, especially a country like Ukraine that is so dependent on the United States,” Murphy continued.
“The whistleblower’s complaint needs to be sent to Congress. There is no discretion allowed by the administration on the matter of whether this whistleblower complaint is sent to Congress. The law commands the administration to send serious whistleblower complaints to Congress, and the executive branch needs to do that ASAP,” Murphy added.
Full transcript of Murphy’s opening remarks are below:
“Good morning. Thank you very much for joining me here today. My name is Chris Murphy. I have the honor of representing Connecticut in the United States Senate, and I wanted to say a few brief words today about the new crisis enveloping the country surrounding the president's attempts to use a foreign government to try to manipulate the 2020 elections. I'm happy at the conclusion of these remarks to answer other questions, including those about the status of background checks negotiations with the White House, as well.
“I think this is the most serious moment of the Trump administration to date. The president is openly admitting to having asked a foreign government to interfere in the 2020 elections. The president has admitted to pressing the new president of Ukraine to investigate one of his political opponents. And he has also dispatched his political fixer, Rudy Giuliani, to try to close the deal.
“This is unacceptable in a democracy. No president of the United States can use his office, can use the national security apparatus of this country to try to interfere in an election to try to destroy his political opponents. This cannot happen in this country, and if it is indeed true, Congress can't allow it to stand.
“I had heard several months ago that the new Ukrainian president was deeply concerned and confused about the pressure he was getting from the Trump administration to commence an investigation against the Biden family. And so I went to Ukraine several weeks ago to meet with a new president to talk to him about these concerns. Indeed, once I got on the ground there, I heard about how confused the entire new Ukrainian administration was about the nature of these demands they were getting from the Trump administration to conduct this political investigation, and that they worry that the aid that was being cut off to Ukraine by the president was a consequence for their unwillingness, at the time, to investigate the Bidens. They were unwilling to conduct this investigation because there was no merit to it. The Ukrainian prosecutors saw no reason to investigate and every media outlet that looked at the charges that the president was leveling, were deemed to be false. And so I heard when I was in Ukraine, from the president directly, his concern about why the aid was being cut off to Ukraine. The president also told me he had no interest in interfering in a U.S. election.
“What is happening now is that [President Trump] is admitting that he pressed the Ukrainians to conduct these political investigations, because he thinks he can get away with it. The president thinks he can act with impunity. I don't think it really matters whether there was a quid pro quo. I don't think it really matters whether the president explicitly told the Ukrainians that they wouldn't get their security aid if they didn't interfere in the 2020 elections. There is an implicit threat in every single demand that a United States president makes of a foreign power, especially a country like Ukraine that is so dependent on the United States.
“Every time the American president asks a foreign country to do something that foreign country knows that if they don't do it, there are likely going to be consequences. And so it doesn't matter whether the president specifically linked the investigation of his political opponent to the withholding of the aid.
“Even if he simply asked a foreign power to interfere in our elections that would be unacceptable in and of itself. We just spent a year trying to figure out if the president invited the Russians to interfere in the 2016 elections. Had the Mueller investigation uncovered a phone call between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in which Donald Trump asked Vladimir Putin eight different times to interfere in the 2016 election, that would be the smoking gun that Republicans and Democrats had been waiting for.
“And so the question is, does it really matter that that phone call simply occurred with a different country? I'm going to give some real thought over the next few days about what to do about this. I think it's important for us to get as much information as we can. The whistleblower’s complaint needs to be sent to Congress. There is no discretion allowed by the administration on the matter of whether this whistleblower complaint is sent to Congress. The law commands the administration to send serious whistleblower complaints to Congress, and the executive branch needs to do that ASAP.
“I know the obvious question is whether the [U.S. House of Representatives] should proceed with impeachment proceedings, I have been reluctant to recommend impeachment to the House for a few reasons. One of which is that I, you know, haven't been convinced that senators should be providing recommendations to the House on what is essentially their sole prerogative. But, I'm going to give some serious thought to my position on this matter in the coming days. Because I don't know how I live in a country, I help lead a country that allows a president of the United States to openly admit to this kind of corruption and get away with it.
“So I will leave it there, and I'm happy to also answer some questions on the status of background checks negotiations as well.”
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