Bucshon not changing his mind on impeachment

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(NETWORK INDIANA)    Indiana Congressman Larry Bucshon says the impeachment hearings haven’t changed his mind about keeping President Trump, and predicts all House Republicans will follow suit.

A parade of State Department officials testified President Trump ordered military aid to Ukraine to be held up unless Ukraine announced an investigation of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. Fiona Hill, who had been Trump’s senior director of European and Russian affairs on the National Security Council, criticized the campaign as a “domestic political errand” operating outside normal foreign policy channels.

Bucshon says what he heard in last week’s testimony wasn’t politics, but a stand against corruption. He notes Trump isn’t a fan of foreign aid in the first place, and argues Trump was trying to confirm Ukraine’s new president, elected as a reformer, was serious about confronting the country’s long record of corruption.

Biden’s son Hunter served for five years on the board of the Ukrainian energy firm Burisma, whose founder has been accused of self-dealing, money laundering and embezzlement. There’s been no evidence of wrongdoing by either Biden.

Bucshon slammed Democrats last month for holding closed-door hearings. Those witnesses ended up testifying again publicly, but Bucshon complains Republicans still weren’t allowed to call Hunter Biden to testify. He says Republicans should have had the chance to establish a basis for Trump’s concerns.

Democrats are expected to call an impeachment vote before Christmas, but Bucshon says he’s not sure that will happen, because

he’s not convinced Democrats have the votes. He says he’ll vote no. If, as he predicts, all Republicans do the same, Democrats could afford a maximum of 18 no votes from their own ranks.

There are four vacancies in the House, meaning it takes 216 votes to pass articles of impeachment. Democrats hold 233 seats, and Michigan Independent Justin Amash, who quit the Republican Party in June, had called for impeachment hearings even before the Ukraine call, on the basis of the Mueller report on Russian election interference. He’s said he’ll support impeachment over the Ukraine machinations.

Two Democrats were the only House members in either party to break ranks on last month’s vote establishing rules for the impeachment inquiry.