Allegations against Biden 'not credible,' testified US official now touted by Trump
Republican lawmakers looking to defend President Donald Trump against allegations of impropriety in the House impeachment inquiry are increasingly pointing to closed-door testimony from senior diplomat Kurt Volker, insisting his version of events means Trump never engaged in an improper "quid pro quo" when he pressedUkraine's new president to investigate allegations against Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.
"The definitive account on all of this is the one from Ambassador Volker," one of Trump's staunchest allies, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told reporters on Wednesday morning.
Around the same time, Trump tweeted a "thank you" to Volker for his testimony, a transcript of which was released by the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday.
But whatever Volker's testimony means for Trump's possible impeachment, the career diplomat's account explicitly undercuts the specific allegations against Biden that Trump and his allies have been pushing online and on TV for months.
"No evidence was brought forward to support (the allegations)," Volker, Trump's special envoy to Ukraine until two months ago, testified under oath. "I thought they were very self-serving and not credible."
Biden has publicly recounted how, as the Obama administration's point man on Ukraine when he was vice president in 2016, he pressured Ukraine's leadership to fire the prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin. Biden even threatened to withhold nearly $1 billion in U.S. aid if Shokin wasn't removed.
"When Vice President Biden made those representations … he was representing U.S. policy at the time," Volker testified, adding that the policy being executed by Biden "was widely understood internationally to be the right policy."
Republican lawmakers looking to defend President Donald Trump against allegations of impropriety in the House impeachment inquiry are increasingly pointing to closed-door testimony from senior diplomat Kurt Volker, insisting his version of events means Trump never engaged in an improper "quid pro quo" when he pressedUkraine's new president to investigate allegations against Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.
"The definitive account on all of this is the one from Ambassador Volker," one of Trump's staunchest allies, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told reporters on Wednesday morning.
Around the same time, Trump tweeted a "thank you" to Volker for his testimony, a transcript of which was released by the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday.
But whatever Volker's testimony means for Trump's possible impeachment, the career diplomat's account explicitly undercuts the specific allegations against Biden that Trump and his allies have been pushing online and on TV for months.
"No evidence was brought forward to support (the allegations)," Volker, Trump's special envoy to Ukraine until two months ago, testified under oath. "I thought they were very self-serving and not credible."
Biden has publicly recounted how, as the Obama administration's point man on Ukraine when he was vice president in 2016, he pressured Ukraine's leadership to fire the prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin. Biden even threatened to withhold nearly $1 billion in U.S. aid if Shokin wasn't removed.
"When Vice President Biden made those representations … he was representing U.S. policy at the time," Volker testified, adding that the policy being executed by Biden "was widely understood internationally to be the right policy."
MSN
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