U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, on Friday said she supports an impeachment investigation of President Donald Trump.
“Up to this point, I have been opposed to pursuing impeachment because it will further divide our already badly divided country,” she said in a prepared statement.
“However, after looking carefully at the transcript of the conversation with the Ukrainian president, the whistle-blower complaint, the Inspector General memo, and President Trump’s comments about the issue, unfortunately, I believe that if we do not proceed with the inquiry, it will set a very dangerous precedent. Future presidents, and anyone in positions of power in the government, will conclude they can abuse their position for personal gain, without fear of accountability or consequences,” she said.
Gabbard, a Democratic candidate for president, said a president can’t be allowed to abuse his or her power.
“If we allow the president to abuse his or her power, then our society will rot from top to bottom,” Gabbard said. “We will turn into a banana republic, where people in positions of power — from the president all the way down to the traffic cop — will feel it’s OK to abuse their power with no consequences.
“This is not the kind of country that any of us wants to see,” she said.
“So it is unfortunate, but necessary, that I’m speaking in support of the inquiry into the president’s alleged abuse of power in relation to his interactions with Ukraine leaders. This inquiry must be swift, thorough and narrowly-focused,” said Gabbard. “It cannot be turned into a long, protracted, partisan circus that will further divide our country and undermine our democracy.”
Gabbard joins other members of the Hawaii delegation to endorse the impeachment inquiry.
Hawaii U.S. Sens. Brian Schatz and Mazie Hirono and U.S. Rep. Ed Case endorsed the impeachment inquiry process.
“The president is breaking statutory and constitutional law every day, and he is abusing his inherent power as president with regularity, enthusiasm and, most troublingly, impunity,” Schatz said.
“He and his legal team argue that a sitting president’s authorities are so vast that they literally transcend the law. They argue that Congress has a remedy for this criminality and defiance — the impeachment process. If that is their view, so be it,” said Schatz.
Hirono had this to say:
“I commend Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats for opening a formal impeachment inquiry that will lay out for the American people whether Donald Trump committed high crimes and misdemeanors.
“From Day 1 of his presidency, Donald Trump has been motivated by two things: protecting himself and making money. Speaker Pelosi is right to hold this dangerous chief executive accountable,” Hirono said.
Case said this:
“The allegations that the president pressured a foreign country to investigate a domestic political opponent and withheld foreign assistance as leverage, to go with his Director of National Intelligence’s refusal to produce the whistle-blower’s complaint and independent Inspector General’s report to Congress as required by law, go to the core of this or any president’s constitutional duties and our national security.”
State Sen. Kai Kahele, a democratic candidate for Hawaii’s 2nd Congressional District, said Thursday he stands with Gabbard, Schatz, Hirono and Case.
“The president’s abuse of power has compromised the integrity of our democracy and put our national security and election security at risk,” he said. “Now is the time for Congress to fulfill its constitutional duty to serve as a check and balance on this administration.”
•••
Bill Buley, editor-in-chief, can be reached at 245-0457 or bbuley@thegardenisland.com.
Well looks like ‘THEY’ have gotten to Tulsi. Now she joins the ranks of Crazy Mazie and friends
Secondhand information that are allegations only, does not justify such an inquiry.
Tulsi is participating in the opposition’s effort to disenfranchise all of us who voted for Trump.
Those of us who voted for Trump see clearly that the effort to trash our votes began before Trump was elected. In other words, we voted for Trump because we could see clearly how the establishment, career politicians, were engrossed in their own politics for their own benefit and we knew Trump was our last and best chance of beating the establishment back.
The establishment is relentless with their lies and theatrics, and because of this we supporters of the Constitution and the sovereignty of our nation against the Marxist One World Order will back our President with all of our might!
Game on.
Bidens, here we come. Obama, Hillary…the servers, the deals…we are ready to back any inquiry into those.
Tulsi is now defending the indefensible. A morally corrupt deep state establishment built on disdain for this country and self interest. it is the intention of those of us who support Trump to disable the machine she has just thrown her weight behind.
Trump Landslide 2020!
So you’re very confident that the inquiry will find nothing – then that can only help Trump. If it does find something, it can save this country. Why complain?
Aloha Kakou,
When we read this article about Tulsi wanting a SWIFT INQUIRY, we thought she was calling for investigation into why Joe Biden’s son with reported considerable experience with a Drug Disorder, was flown on our Official Vice President plane Air Force 2, while his father Vice Pres Biden was our active Vice President and somehow arranged for his drug disordered son to be put on the Board of Directors of the Ukraine’s largest utility company at a $500,000 salary and in apparent exchange for that Ukraine received economic benefit so long as the Ukraine prosecutor was fired for investigating why our Vice President’s son’s was given this high paid foreign utility company job, even though the V.P.’s son had no utility experience nor was he a Ukrainian. Are there any Ukrainians on our KIUC Board of Directors? Let’s hope not, especially at a $500,000 salary.
Next, we thought Tulsi was wanting an inquiry into why then Vice President Biden while in office flew his same drug disordered son to China 5 times on our Vice Presidential official airplane wherein his son was gifted $1.5 Billion dollars from the Chinese government’s own bank…? $1,500,000,000…that’s 1,500 piles of cash in $1 Million dollar piles. That would fill Kauai’s State Building in LIHUE with cash…can you imagine if Kaua’i was given $1.5 Billion dollars, that could build a double decker freeway from Haena to Mana…or ____________ (fill in the blank).
Further not a word has been said about where that $1.5 Billion dollar Chinese gift to Joe Biden’s son went. NOT A WORD, so far as been told to us. Let’s hope it did not go for more drug disorder. Or, was income tax paid on that $1.5 Billion, or did the son get a Vice Presidential Exemption…?
This is too weird…all of our Hawaii Federally elected officials want this inquiry over President Trump trying to get information that may show Biden is corrupt and unfit to run, much less be elected as our next President. This is a classic “shoot the messenger”.
Tulsi, We want to know if Biden is corrupt, and if it takes President Trump to provide weapons to Ukraine to protect themselves from ongoing Russian paid for communist attacks against the Ukraine, then so be it. In this day and age old system…you want information? You pay for it. Our own government works like that all over the world every day with our tax dollars…as not all that is not accounted for either.
Thank you Mr. Trump for standing up for tiny Ukraine trying to remain a democracy in the face of massive Russia trying to make it communist…sort of like these young and a few very old U.S. Democrats trying to make America a Socialist country…”Back in the USSR” sung to the tune of the United Soviet Socialist Republic. S-O-C-I-A-L-I-S-T…ask for it for free.
Vote Tulsi and we too can be Socialist along with the Democrat girl scout group headed by AOC, and the “pout pouri” other 3.
We used to have more respect for Tulsi, but now she is willing to skip over Biden’s looking corrupt for Trump trying to investigate Biden, and the Democrats using Biden’s Run for office as an excuse to give him a corruption exemption and pin the Democrats Donkey Tail on the Stand Up Elephant in the room.
Please Mr. Trump do what you can to protect the democratic tiny country of Ukraine from becoming a Socialist communist country, after all the Democrats got us into and lost Vietnam to Communism, and while you are at it, please find out about the $1/2 million dollar Ukraine utility company job for Biden’s Son and the whopping $1.5 Billion Dollars gift his son got from China while his father Joe Biden was Vice President.
Is it posible some of that $1.5 Billion is paying for Biden’s Presidential Campaign ?
Is that legit with campaign spending laws we hear so much about?
We need to find out, Tulsi, do your job and find out please…!
And our Hawaii Federal officials are complaining about Trump making money off his being President? Did ya ever stop to think how Presidents Clinton with his and Hillary’s multi hundreds of millions of dollars foundation got the money while Hillary was Secretary of State, and Hillary ‘s destroyed 33,000 official emails, and Obama going from a house in the Suburbs of Chicago to a multi million dollar mansion near D.C., and what do those X-Presidents get paid for a single speech to rich men’s clubs…?
It all boils down to…”It’s Capitalism” and that’s just how things are…so let’s get on with making the economy good for all willing to work, and to heck with the socialists wanting a free ride from the workers.
Capitalism…where you have the right to give up your food stamps, your free housing (HUD), your free Medical Dental Vision, your FREE college tuition, while the rest of us have been working to support your free life…and thank God that Capitalism gives you the right to work and spend your hard earned dollars on what you want for yourself not for a Free ride by the socialists.
How dare Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren tell people they can live For Free, while they themselves are career politicians living off the tax payers.
We may have lost our best President when George Washington died.
And Donald Trump is clearly not a politician, and is rarely politically correct, he’s a businessman hustler, something we’ve needed for a very long time. Make AMERICAN Families have better incomes, not war funerals for their sons and daughters.
Donald Trump the businessman President is doing things different like a businessman should and what we need for the business of America COMPETING with the rest of the world.
Did the Russian Hoax give birth to a Ukraine Hoax? So far the only people making money off all this shibai is Biden’s son and the news channels and their talking heads.
We’re not going to say anything about the orange hair.
Just unsubscribed from Tulsi’s fundraising emails. Disappointed after contributing to her campaign. Also just found out that “intelligence community” changed whistleblower form to no longer demand firsthand knowledge. Coincidence or Trump railroad attempt?
The evidence against Trump doesn’t come from a nameless Whistleblower, it comes from Trump’s own admissions. Confirmed by his lawyer.
As for the Bidens, they have done nothing wrong. Verified by even the WSJ and Ukraine. Trump and Giuliani were trying to manufacture a scandal by making it up. They are still trying.
Tulsi and the Democrats are not impeaching Trump. He impeached and convicted himself.
If Donald Trump isn’t reelected in November of 2020 our Country will cease to exist as we know it, and all classes of people will suffer. Especially all the little idiot Democrat snowflakes who whine and snivel for a living. They will be the first to feel the pain and anguish after their orchestrated collapse of our once Great Nation! “Free” stuff leads to “no” stuff for all but the very elite Socialist/Democrat politicians who will control the masses at their own expense. Politicians who will become wealthy beyond imagination! Just ask Hillary, Obama, Biden, Pelosi, and Bernie. The least among them is worth multiple millions and the great Hillary is worth over $150,000,000! From a politician’s salary? These are the most corrupt and evil leaders in the free world, and Trump is the only thing standing in their way! We love and respect everything you’re trying to do for our wonderful Country President Trump. Hang in there, we are behind you 100%!
Typical democrat
Jumps on closest bandwagon for publicity…….sad