So what do Reps. Don Bacon, Jeff Fortenberry and Adrian Smith have to say about the Whistleblower report charging President Trump with trying to solicit the Ukranian government to interfere with the 2020 election?
How about Sens. Ben Sasse and Deb Fischer?
According to the Omaha World-Herald, Bacon said it’s not good for Trump or any U.S. official to talk about political opponents with a foreign leader because doing so leaves them open to attacks. But he saw nothing illegal in Trump’s conversation.
“There was no quid pro quo,” he told the newspaper. “I found it rather innocuous, by and large.”
Fortenberry said the Justice Department found no violation of campaign finance laws in the transcript.
Rep. Adrian Smith reiterated previous criticism that the impeachment inquiry represents a rush to judgment
Sasse said “Many Republicans are rushing to circle the wagons and declare that there’s nothing bad in the transcript — that isn’t true,” Sasse told the World-Herald. “But there are also Democrats who had already decided they were going to impeach the president yesterday before they had any actual facts in front of them and I think that’s disastrous for the public health.”
Fischer released a statement, saying “I read the full unredacted transcript of President Trump’s phone call with the Ukrainian president and, contrary (to) what we were led to believe, there was no ‘smoking gun.’ The conversation was as the president portrayed it.”
Innocuous, you say? No smoking gun?
The Whisleblower complaint said “multiple White House officials with direct knowledge” described to the whistleblower the details of the phone call between Trump and Ukranian president Volodymyr Zelensky, in which Trump requested a favor from Ukraine by digging into allegations against former Vice President Joe Biden — potentially the 2020 Democratic nominee.
According to the nine-page complaint, the White House officials were “deeply disturbed by what had transpired in the phone call” and White House lawyers were consulted out of concern that the president used his office for his own personal gain.
The whistleblower complaint says that there were approximately a dozen officials in the room during the phone call, which Trump made from the White House situation room. The officials included a mix of policy officials and duty officers, the complaint said, and participation was not reduced because it was seen as a “routine” call, according to the Hill.
Maybe Neberaska’s GOP delegation just needs more time to let the facts sink in. But that hasn’t worked before.
