Efforts by US Democratic lawmakers to investigate and impeach Republican President Donald Trump have been a waste of time and tax=payer money and will fail to have any positive outcomes, a former US Senate candidate says.
The Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, the highest ranking Democrat in Congress, instructed the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday to draft articles of impeachment against Trump.
House Democrats launched an impeachment inquiry against Trump in September after the unknown whistle-blower alleged Trump pressured his Ukrainian counterpart to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who had served as a director for Ukrainian energy company Burisma.
Democrats are looking into whether Trump abused his power by withholding $391 million in US security aid to Ukraine as leverage to pressure Kiev to conduct an investigation that would benefit him politically.
Trump was also under investigation by US then special prosecutor Robert Mueller from May 2017 to March 2019 to determine if Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia in the 2016 US presidential election.
Mueller’s investigation found that Russia meddled in the 2016 election to help Trump, and led to criminal convictions of several former campaign aides. But Mueller concluded that he did not have enough evidence to prove there was a criminal conspiracy between Trump and Russia.
“In terms of his impeachment hearing, much of it is a farce,” said Mark Dankof, who is also a broadcaster and pastor in San Antonio, Texas.
“The Russiagate investigation was a 32 million dollar expenditure where Robert Mueller came up with absolutely nothing that would stick to Trump,” Dankof told Press TV on Friday.
“I think this Ukrainegate investigation being conductef by Pelosi…is just an extention of the Russiagate,” he added. “It seems to that in terms of Ukrainegate that all of the criminality…. involves Democrats, high-level Democrats.”
Three House committees are writing a report detailing their findings in Trump’s impeachment inquiry, which is expected to serve as the basis for an impeachment resolution, or “articles of impeachment”.
Impeachment begins in the House. If the lower chamber of Congress approves articles of impeachment, a trial is then held in the Senate. House members act as the prosecutors; the senators as jurors; the chief justice of the Supreme Court presides.