House GOP lawmaker: Trump conversation with Ukraine leader ‘not OK’

Rep. Michael Turner (R-Ohio), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said on Thursday that President Trump’s conversation with Ukraine’s leader, during which Trump urged him to open an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden, was “not OK.”

Turner openly criticized Trump as he began his questioning of acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire at a House Intelligence Committee hearing concerning a whistleblower complaint about Trump’s July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

{mosads}”I’ve read the complaint and I’ve read the transcript of the conversation with the president and the president of the Ukraine. Concerning that conversation, I want to say to the president: This is not OK. That conversation is not OK. And I think it’s disappointing to the American public when they read the transcript,” Turner said.

Shortly before the start of Thursday’s hearing, the Intelligence Committee released a declassified version of the whistleblower complaint detailing Trump’s interactions with Ukraine’s president.

 

The complainant said “multiple White House officials with direct knowledge” described details of the phone call with Zelensky, including that “the president used the remainder of the call to advance his personal interests. Namely, he sought to pressure the Ukrainian leader to take actions to help the president’s 2020 reelection bid.”

The complaint also said that White House officials were “deeply disturbed by what had transpired in the phone call.”

Trump has acknowledged that he raised investigating whether Biden was involved in pressuring a Ukrainian prosecutor to drop an investigation of an energy company of which Biden’s son Hunter was a board member. Biden has denied completely the allegations pushed by Trump and Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer.

Trump has denied that he withheld military aid to Ukraine as leverage in pressing for an investigation of the Bidens.

A partial transcript of the phone call released by the White House on Wednesday shows that Trump brought up Biden and said that he would have Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr call the Ukrainian leader and “get to the bottom of it.”

“There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it … It sounds horrible to me,” Trump said, according to the memo.

 

GOP lawmakers have largely stood by Trump and dismissed Democrats’ calls for impeachment in the wake of the whistleblower complaint.

But a handful have expressed concern with the allegations, including Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas), another member of the Intelligence Committee.

“There is a lot in the whistleblower complaint that is concerning. We need to fully investigate all of the allegations addressed in the letter, and the first step is to talk to the whistleblower,” Hurd, a former CIA officer who is not seeking reelection, tweeted at the start of Thursday’s hearing.