'Special Report' All-Star panel on White House release of unredacted text of Ukraine call
What was learned from the rough transcript of President Trump's phone call with Ukraine's leader?
KEENE, N.H. – Sen. Elizabeth Warren spotlighted her longstanding calls for the impeachment of President Trump at a campaign event on Wednesday, emphasizing, “I hope we do this and I hope we do this quickly.”
But, she also appeared to unintentionally swipe at a rival Democrat vying for the White House – former Vice President Joe Biden – over his family’s role in the Ukraine controversy that led the House of Representatives to launch a formal impeachment inquiry into Trump.
Taking questions from reporters following a town hall event in the first-in-the-nation presidential primary state of New Hampshire, the Massachusetts Democrat was asked if she would allow her vice president’s child to serve on the board of a foreign company if she were president. Warren quickly answered, “no.”
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When asked why, she said, in a rare moment where she appeared flustered: “I don’t know. I have to go back and look at the details.”
The "details" to which Warren was referring are from the two ethics plans she's unveiled to tackle corruption in government. Her campaign later clarified to the Washington Post that the plans wouldn't prevent any child of a vice president from serving on such a board.
Warren’s comments came hours after the White House released a transcript of Trump’s call from this past July with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The readout showed that the president asked Zelensky to investigate unsubstantiated allegations regarding the Biden family’s dealings with Ukraine. However, the transcript did not suggest Trump leveraged U.S. military aid to Ukraine to obtain a “promise” of an investigation.
Biden’s son Hunter served on the board of a Ukrainian natural gas company owned by one of the country’s oligarchs while Biden served in then-President Obama’s administration. The then-vice president pushed in 2016 for the dismissal of a Ukrainian prosecutor who was looking into corruption at that company. The prosecutor – who also had been widely accused of overlooking corruption in his own office – later was dismissed.
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Trump on Wednesday emphasized that there was no quid pro quo during his call with the Ukrainian president, saying, “I didn’t do it.” Trump spoke with reporters one day after House Democrats kicked off their formal impeachment inquiry. They’re investigating whether the Republican president broke the law by allegedly asking a foreign nation to interfere in the 2020 election by asking for Ukraine’s assistance in investigating the Bidens.
Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren speaking at a campaign event in Keene, N.H., on Wednesday. (Fox News)
Warren kicked off her event – in front of a crowd estimated at 900 people by her campaign – by emphasizing, “nobody’s above the law... not even the president.” And, she repeated her call that “it is time for impeachment now.”
The Massachusetts senator was one of the first 2020 Democrats to call for Trump’s impeachment. She did it this past spring, citing findings from then-Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia report.
Asked if she had any confidence that the GOP-controlled Senate would take action if the House impeached Trump, Warren told reporters, “I don’t know what the Senate will do under (Majority Leader) Mitch McConnel’s control, but right now we have to do what is right regardless of the politics.”
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She continued, “Donald Trump had established he believed that he was above the law, and that’s what the Mueller report shows, that he obstructed justice, and he was not held accountable by our Congress. So, he came back in the summer and did it again, inviting a foreign government to interfere in the 2020 election.”
Warren’s stop in New Hampshire came a day after a new poll indicated that she held a slight two-point advantage over Biden in the crucial primary state.
Fox News' Tara Prindiville contributed to this report.
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