Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), a member of the House Judiciary Committee, has come out in favor of the House introducing articles of impeachment against President Trump following reports Trump pressed Ukraine’s government to open an investigation into one of his political opponents.
Johnson, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, is the first Democrat from Georgia to publicly voice support for removing Trump from office. Until Tuesday, he was one of the few remaining holdouts from the House Judiciary Committee who had not publicly voiced support of impeachment.
He now joins a new wave of Democrats who are calling for an impeachment inquiry or articles of impeachment in light of the Ukraine scandal. {mosads}
Johnson indicated that reports Trump and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani sought to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to open a corruption investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son has led him to come out in support of introducing articles of impeachment.
“Attempting to coerce a foreign government into digging up dirt on a political opponent, then trying to cover it up by unlawfully refusing to turn over the whistleblower complaint to Congress, crosses a red line,” Johnson said in a Tuesday statement, adding that he finds this “profoundly troubling.”
“President Trump’s repeated obstruction and flagrant disregard of his oath of office demands the issuance of Articles of Impeachment.”
The Georgia Democrat had previously said that while he believed the president had committed impeachable offenses, he stressed the importance of protecting moderates who may be facing a tough election in 2020.
Johnson also pointed to the refusal of acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Joseph Maguire to pass along a whistleblower complaint that intelligence community Inspector General Michael Atkinson had deemed both a credible and urgent concern.
Maguire and the DNI general counsel have argued that the complaint does not fit within the intelligence community whistleblower statute — something Atkinson has forcefully pushed back against.
While Congress has not been briefed about the nature of the whistleblower complaint, multiple reports have matched The Washington Post’s reporting that the allegations relate to Trump’s conversations with Zelensky.
Trump has admitted that he raised these matters in his discussions, but he has denied that he withheld financial aid to Ukraine as a means to pressure them into opening the investigation. Rather, the president said Tuesday that he withheld the aid as a way to push European nations to contribute more to help Ukraine combat Russian aggression.