He says ‘the facts speak for themselves.’
Washington DC (KM). A majority of Democrats in the US House of Representatives voted to impeach President Donald Trump on Wednesday night, including 6th District Representative David Trone (D-Md). “Unfortunately, it was sad day for the country. It’s not why I came to Washington, that’s for sure,” he says. “But the facts were simple. The President abused his power. He attempted to bribe the President of Ukraine for his own political benefits, and obstructed Congress.”
The House passed two articles of impeachment against President Trump, accusing him of abuse of power, and obstructing Congress. The US Constitution says after a President is impeached, he will be put on trial before the US Senate. If he’s convicted by a two-thirds majority in the Senate, the President is then removed from office.
Trump becomes the third President to be impeached. Presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton were impeached, but were not removed from office. The House Judiciary Committee in 1974 approved articles of impeachment against President Richard Nixon, but he resigned before the full House of Representatives took a vote.
Trone says President Trump refused to turn over documents requested by Congress, and would not let anyone from his administration testify before Congress.
Republicans have charged that Democrats are using impeachment to reverse the results of the election of 2016, when Trump won over Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Trone disputes that. “The 2016 election is done and gone,” he said. “We had an election. Whether there was some interference or not, it doesn’t matter one bit. That election is finished, in the rear view mirror. What the impeachment was about was abuse of power aimed at the 2020 election.:
The abuse of power charge against President Trump is based on a phone call he had with the President of Ukraine in the summer, where he asked that leader to begin an investigation into Democratic Presidential Candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter in return for receiving military aid which had already been approved by Congress. Defenders of the President say the aid was eventually provided to Ukraine.
Trone indicated in an interview with WFMD News that voting for impeachment was not something he wanted to do, but felt he had to in order to uphold his oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. He says he would have preferred working on such issues as funding to battle the opioid problem and granting money to the National Institutes of Health to find a cure for Alzheimer’s.
But Trone hopes Americans remember what was accomplished by Congress this week outside of impeachment. He says legislators passed a budget. “First, of all, we got $1.5-billion for state opioid response grants. They’ll go to Governor Hogan. And Governor Hogan will send those around the state to help with the addiction crisis in America. So that’s a big deal,” he says.
Another accomplishment, says Trone, was a 3.1% pay raise for federal workers. “Often, we don’t respect our federal workers who work really hard and do a tough job. And they ought to have a certainty of not being put out of work. Government shutdowns can never happen again. They deserve a pay raise. And we add 12-weeks of parental leave,” he says.
And $250-million was added to the Head Start program. “Head Start really needs this money,” Trone says. “It all aimed at the area of adverse childhood experiences, such as mom and dad with opioid addiction, etc.”
Regarding impeachment, Trone says “the facts just speak for themselves,” says Trone. “The President’s own phone call, the transcripts he released. It just spelled it right out there . I don’t understand how anyone can read the President’s transcripts any differently.”
By Kevin McManus