President Trump said he’s happy with the way the impeachment trial is going thus far because his administration has not released “materials” that would hurt his cause.
“When we released that conversation all hell broke out with the Democrats,” Trump said. “Because they said, ‘Wait a minute, this is much different than [what Adam Schiff] told us.’ ”
The president continued, “So, we’re doing very well. I got to watch [the impeachment trial] enough. I thought our team did a very good job. But honestly, we have all the material. They don’t have the material.”
Trump made the stark admission while attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
When asked about the impeachment trial, Trump initially spoke about what he usually refers to as the “perfect call” with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. In that phone conversation, on July 25, 2019, Trump reportedly asked Zelensky to investigate the Bidens eight times.
The Trump administration has exerted executive privilege while ignoring subpoenas for documents and have directed individuals not to respond to subpoena requests since the beginning of the impeachment process. For comparison, the Clinton administration turned over more than 90,000 pages of documents and material during its impeachment.
Usually, the Trump administration either refuses to explain their stonewalling or excuses their lack of cooperation away by bashing the investigation, calling it illegitimate or a witch hunt. But here, rather astonishingly, Trump seems to be flatly admitting to withholding evidence.
SgtRockyWalrus on January 22nd, 2020 at 17:32 UTC »
And there it is. I knew he’d go and say something during the trial that completely undermines his case.
I also know it won’t matter. It absolutely should, but it won’t. Too many Americans are too blinded and their Republican politicians take full advantage of the stupidity.
ianrl337 on January 22nd, 2020 at 16:51 UTC »
Uh, the articles of impeachment were for obstruction for withholding evidence during previous hearings. Can't they now start a whole new investigation into obstruction for withholding evidence on the impeachment investigations just based on this tweet? It's like someone said he couldn't be that stupid and he went with 'hold my beer'
ThrowThemUnderTheBus on January 22nd, 2020 at 16:48 UTC »
Noted. And since this is now public knowledge it should be added to the Democrats case over the next three days.
This is an abuse of power.