Republicans On Trump-Ukraine Call: This Is Fine

WASHINGTON ― It is one of the most stunning revelations about the Donald Trump presidency: Trump asked a foreign leader to investigate a political rival, and he even seemed to suggest that the reward for doing so would be $400 million in military assistance. “I think it’s within his scope of responsibility as the chief executive in the fiduciary to make sure that, when we’re providing foreign aid to countries, that they are doing their part to root out graft and corruption.” When we pressed Arrington on whether that meant he believed the foreign aid Trump had held up was tied to the “corruption” that Trump speaks about on the call ― namely, Joe Biden’s son’s involvement with a Ukrainian energy firm and the dismissal of a certain Ukrainian prosecutor ― Arrington said he didn’t know if Trump said anything connecting the money to a corruption investigation. “I’m just saying it’s appropriate for him to make sure that the country that we’ve decided to support with foreign aid does everything in their power to put controls in place.” - Rep. Jodey Arrington Of the more than two dozen Republicans that HuffPost asked Wednesday afternoon whether they were troubled by anything in that phone call, a number of them reported they hadn’t read the White House readout of the conversation. He’s being congratulatory, he was expressing the support for the new government and for the Ukrainian people.” - Sen. Ron Johnson “I didn’t see anything that ties him in there, that incriminates him in any way.” Sen. James Inhofe Sen. Lindsey Graham said it didn’t matter that the president said “we do a lot for Ukraine” and “I would like you to do us a favor” while withholding promised military assistance. “I think they need to go all the way back to the Obama administration, that’s where it started.” - Rep. Steven Palazzo Perry disputed that Trump was asking about a political opponent.