Klobuchar says whistleblower document "smoking gun"
Senator Amy Klobuchar says, "I personally think that that document is a smoking gun. You have a president that calls up a foreign leader and basically tells him to sic his country on finding dirt on an opponent on an upcoming political election at the same time, a few days before, weeks before, he has frozen some of the aid to that country."
The Democratic presidential candidate told the audience at at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin Texas Saturday that she sees Republicans distancing themselves from Trump. "But there are a lot of Republicans that quietly for years now have been voicing their discontent and their concern about things that the President does, immigration, you name it. But many of them, unlike Senator Flake, won't rise to the occasion and talk about it."
Some moderate Democratic lawmakers who a week ago had little interest in talking about an impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump say they are now optimistic they can sell it to voters at home during a recess of the U.S. Congress over the next two weeks.
Representative Susan Wild was among a number of Democrats from highly competitive "swing" seats in the House of Representatives who changed her mind to back an impeachment probe against Trump. She expects to hear about it at a town hall meeting next week in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
Wild says her district is about equally divided between Democrats and Republicans, including Trump voters. But she doesn't appear worried.
"I don't think I have to convince them. I think the facts will convince them," Wild told Reuters on Friday. Her office email and phone calls have been running 11-to-one in favour of an impeachment inquiry, a "marked contrast to the kind of communications that we've gotten the last few months from our constituents," she said.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a formal impeachment inquiry against Trump on Tuesday. She had resisted demands for such a probe for months, but reversed course after reports that Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a July 25 telephone call to investigate his political rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who did work for a Ukraine gas company.