President Trump lashed out at the House impeachment inquiry Wednesday, again dismissing it as a “witch hunt” and “joke” and insisting he didn’t watch any of the nearly six-hour proceedings.
“You’re talking about the witch hunt, is that what you mean? Is that what you’re talking about? I hear it’s a joke,” Trump answered a reporter during a White House press conference with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“I haven’t watched for one minute because I’ve been with the president, which is much more important, as far as I’m concerned.”
He then ripped the whistlebower, whose complaint about a July 25 call Trump had with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky in which he asked for probes into Joe Biden, his son Hunter and the 2016 elections, sparked the inquiry.
“This is a sham and shouldn’t be allowed. It was a situation that was caused by people that shouldn’t have allowed it to happen. I want to find out who is the whistleblower, because the whistleblower gave a lot of very incorrect information, including my call with the president of Ukraine, which was a perfect call and highly appropriate,” Trump said.
The president also said he had no recollection of calling his ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland, a day after the July 25 call while Sondland was in Kiev for meetings.
“I know nothing about that. First time I’ve heard it. The one thing I’ve seen that Sondland said was that he did speak to me for a brief moment, and I said no quid pro quo under any circumstances, and that’s true,” he said. “I don’t recall. No, not at all. Not even a little bit.”
Trump said that he had a productive meeting with Erdogan about fighting ISIS, the Syrian conflict and treatment of US former Kurdish allies.
Meanwhile, the White House offered some alternative programming, tweeting a video in which Trump said he was the victim of a “scam” of historic proportions.
“What’s going on now is the single greatest scam in the history of American politics,” said Trump in the 37-second clip, which does not refer to the impeachment hearings but was released once they were in full swing.
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