WASHINGTON, D.C. — Representative Mike Turner offered a critical take of President Trump’s recent call with the Ukrainian president, before describing calls for impeachment as “really an assault on the electorate, not just this president.”
- GOP Rep. Turner said Trump call is ‘disappointing'
- Acting DNI said whistleblower 'acted in good faith'
- GOP Rep. Wenstrup said Trump did nothing wrong
Turner, a Republican who represents Ohio’s 10th District, started his five minutes of questioning during Thursday’s House Intelligence Committee hearing by addressing Trump directly.
“I want to say to the president: This is not OK,’” Turner said. “That conversation is not OK, and I think it’s disappointing to the American public when they read the transcript.”
Turner’s criticism came shortly after Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire said the whistleblower who filed a complaint that prompted Democrats to launch an impeachment inquiry acted appropriately.
“I want to stress that I believe that the whistleblower and the inspector general have acted in good faith throughout,” Maguire said. “I have every reason to believe that they have done everything by the book and followed the law.”
But that statement of faith didn’t stop the other Ohio Republican on the committee, Brad Wenstrup of the 2nd District, from questioning the credibility of the whistleblower’s claims laid out in this 9-page complaint released Thursday morning.
Wenstrup asked Maguire to confirm that the inspector general had not read the White House notes of Trump’s call with the president of Ukraine before deeming the complaint credible — which Maguire confirmed.
But Wenstrup first criticized Rep. Adam Schiff, the committee’s Democratic chairman, for his opening statement.
“Unfortunately today, many innocent Americans are going to turn on their TV and the media is only going to show that section of what the chairman had to say,” Wenstrup said. “But I’m also glad to know that many Americans have seen this movie too many times and they’re tired of it.”
Spectrum Washington reporter Taylor Popielarz caught Wenstrup briefly after the hearing to ask about a larger point mentioned in the complaint — that Trump asked the Ukrainian president to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden.
“Are you concerned that the president was asking a foreign leader to investigate a political opponent?” Popielarz asked.
“What I saw was two presidents who are trying to clean out corruption within their countries,” Wenstrup said.
No Ohio Democrats serve on the House Intelligence Committee, so they didn’t have a chance to question Maguire.
Rep. Tim Ryan, who’s running for president and represents the 13th District, tweeted that Trump is “running the White House like the mafia.”
Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown said in a statement that the president “tried to get a foreign government to undermine American democracy.”
Despite an impeachment inquiry just being launched, Congress is expected to leave for a two-week recess on Friday.
October 7 Editor's Note: The link previously attached to the White House's transcript of the phone call between former President Donald Trump and the president of Ukraine was not working. The link has been updated.