Alwaght- US President Donald Trump late on Saturday labeled impeachment inquiry against him as the "greatest scam in the history of American politics".
"The Democrats want to take away your guns; they want to take away your health care; they want to take away your vote; they want to take away your freedom; they want to take away your judges; they want to take away everything," he said in a video post. "Our country is at stake like never before," he warned.
He then retweeted more than 20 video posts from the Republican National Committee's opposition research team, which largely showed Republicans criticizing the earnestness of the impeachment process, downplaying the seriousness of the allegations and questioning the integrity of the anonymous whistleblower.
US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Saturday that public opinion is now on the side of the impeachment inquiry against Trump following the release of new information about his conversations with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Pelosi this week announced her support for an investigation after the surfacing of a whistleblower complaint that said Trump appeared to solicit a political favor from Ukraine’s president aimed at helping him be re-elected next year.
Pelosi for months took a cautious approach in weighing the calls of other Democratic House members to launch impeachment proceedings against Trump, which grew louder after former Special Counsel Robert Mueller testified on July 24 about his probe of Trump and Russian interference in the 2016 election.
“In the public, the tide has completely changed; it could change now - who knows - but right now after seeing the complaint and the IG (Inspector General) report and the cavalier attitude the administration had towards it, the American people are coming to a different decision,” Pelosi said at a journalism event hosted by the Texas Tribune news website.
She added that her resistance to holding an impeachment inquiry quickly evolved from urging that fellow Democrats remain cautious of the political fallout ahead of next year’s elections to full steam ahead as details emerged of Trump’s dealings with Ukraine’s leader.
“A president of the United States would withhold military assistance paid for by taxpayers to shake down the leader of another country unless he did him a political favor - that is so, so clear,” Pelosi said.
In a July 25 telephone call between Trump and Zelenskiy, the U.S. leader asked his counterpart to launch an investigation of Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who had served on the board of a Ukrainian energy company.
Trump defended his conversations with Zelenskiy, saying the Democrat account of the call was fictitious.
The scattershot posts reveal some of the pressure that Trump and his administration are likely feeling as the Democrats push on with their impeachment inquiry into his alleged misuse of office and alleged attempted cover-ups.
Congressional committees have subpoenaed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, compelling him to turn over Ukraine-related documents, investigating whether Trump jeopardized national security and the integrity of US elections.
Next week, they will interview five State Department officials, including former ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. Yovanovitch was reportedly fired for resisting Trump's efforts to pressure Kyiv to probe his Democratic rival Joe Biden.
