Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., on Sunday criticized the House’s impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump calling the attempt to determine whether the President tied foreign aid to Ukraine to a probe into his political rivals a “red herring”, Fox News informed.
He also blasted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., for turning the impeachment proceedings a “political weapon.”
Speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” Kennedy dodged a question by Chris Wallace on whether Trump was asking Ukraine to investigate corruption or to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, and instead called out Pelosi for politicizing the impeachment process.
“Speaker Pelosi is acting in a manner that is insincere, even by the standards of Congress,” Kennedy said. “She is turning impeachment into a routine political weapon.”
Kennedy proceeded to criticize House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff’s move to ban Republicans from calling witnesses in the impeachment inquiry and “not allowing the President to defend himself.”
Many Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee stated that the President is welcome to testify before the committee during the impeachment hearings.
On the issue of whether there was quid pro quo between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky when the President asked his Eastern European counterpart to look into the Ukraine business dealings of Biden and his son Hunter, Kennedy made his feelings clear.
“The quid pro quo is a red herring,” he said. “President Trump asked for an investigation of possible corruption by someone who happens to be a political rival. The matter, if proven, would be in the national interest.”
The impeachment inquiry into Trump began when a whistleblower reported that Trump had pushed Zelensky to launch a public investigation into the Biden family’s dealings in Ukraine — specifically, why the former vice president pressured former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to fire a top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings.
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