President Donald Trump on Tuesday morning said he is fighting the current impeachment inquiry to protect the future of the presidency.
His comment came after a federal judge ruled that former White House counsel Don McGahn must comply with a subpoena for his testimony issued by the House Judiciary Committee.
Federal District Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, ruled on Monday evening that McGahn must appear before Congress but has the ability to “invoke executive privilege where appropriate” during his appearance. The Trump administration has signaled that it will appeal the ruling.
Trump noted that McGahn already said the president did nothing wrong after House Judiciary Democrats stated they wanted him to testify as former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation was being conducted. Mueller said earlier this year that Trump may have engaged in actions that qualify for obstruction of justice, but he found that his campaign didn’t collude with Russia during the 2016 election. Trump, meanwhile, has said that the current impeachment inquiry, led by some of the same Democrats who promoted the Russia collusion “hoax,” is an unprecedented “witch hunt.”
“John Bolton is a patriot and may know that I held back the money from Ukraine because it is considered a corrupt country, & I wanted to know why nearby European countries weren’t putting up money also,” Trump said, referring to the Democrats’ claims that Trump abused his power by allegedly withholding foreign aid to Ukraine in exchange for investigations that would benefit him politically, which the president and Ukrainian officials have denied.
He would also “love to have [Secretary of State] Mike Pompeo, [Energy Secretary] Rick Perry, [Chief of Staff] Mick Mulvaney and many others testify about the phony Impeachment Hoax.”
“It is a Democrat Scam that is going nowhere but, future Presidents should in no way be compromised. What has happened to me should never happen to another President!” Trump wrote.
