Washington: US President Donald Trump has said that the impeachment inquiry against him is a scam and called for investigations against Democratic Congressional leader Adam Schiff, who is initiating the proceedings against him.
"The impeachment inquiry is a scam. The conversation that I had with the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was a very good conversation. It was a very cordial, very good conversation," Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday. Democrats in the US House of Representatives are examining whether there are grounds to impeach Trump, a Republican, based on a whistleblower's account that said he asked Ukrainian President Zelenskiy in a July 25 phone call to help investigate Democratic political rival Biden Trump said the ones trying to initiate impeachment process against him saw the whistleblower report before knowing about the content of the conversation between him and the Ukranian President.
"The mistake they made -- the opponents, the opposition, the Democrats, the radical Left, deep state, whatever you want to call them -- they came out with a whistleblower report before they saw the conversation," he said. "Had they waited one day, Nancy Pelosi wouldn't have made a fool out of herself, and she would have been able to say what I said. Because when she saw it, she said that this is not what the whistleblower said. I had a very, very congenial, nice conversation with a man that I like. And he ran on corruption," Trump said.
Trump demanded that chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff be investigated. "He made a speech. And his speech was a fraud. Everything he said was a fraud. He went out as though I wrote it. He defrauded the American people. He defrauded the Congress. He defrauded himself and his family," he said. Trump also slammed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
"Nancy Pelosi knew all of this stuff. I mean, she's as guilty as he is because she knew all of that. She knew everything about it but didn't do anything," he said. "They should really be looked at very strongly because what they did is unthinkable. What they did to this country is unthinkable. It's lucky that I'm the President, because I guess -- I don't know why -- a lot of people said very few people could handle it. I sort of thrive on it. You know why? Because it's so important that we get to the bottom," he said.
Trump said one can't impeach a President for doing a great job. "You can't impeach a President for having the lowest unemployment numbers that we've had in 51 years. You can't impeach a President for tax cuts and regulation cuts and creating the strongest economy in the world. We have the strongest economy in the world," he said, calling impeachment against him a scam.
By Lalit K Jha/PTI
