House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) is facing questions about whether he would have handled former President Donald Trump’s 2019 impeachment differently in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
During a press conference on Tuesday, a reporter asked, “Given where we are right now, what re-thinking have you done on President Trump’s withholding of military aid to Zelenskyy as he pressured him to investigate Joe Biden and Hunter Biden? And would you have done anything different in 2019 if you had known the importance of Zelenskyy in Ukraine in this moment today?”
“If you look at that conversation, President Zelenskyy had called President Trump to thank him for the leadership that he provided,” Scalise responded. “In fact, when Zelenskyy got elected, he said he modeled his campaign after President Trump’s. And ultimately, he got the relief money that he was asking for.”
He then pivoted to attack President Joe Biden, as he said, “[Biden] bragged about how he withheld a billion dollars in aid to Ukraine…because he said he wanted a prosecutor to get fired.”
Additionally, Scalise insisted that Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had a “really good relationship.”
In 2019, Trump was impeached by the House on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress after he allegedly withheld aid to Ukraine to pressure officials there to investigate the Bidens. However, he was acquitted on both charges by the Republican-controlled Senate.
Scalise’s comments about Joe Biden refer to a 2018 video clip that surfaced of him discussing his efforts to get a Ukrainian prosecutor fired for allegedly not investigating corruption while he was vice president.
Biden said he withheld $1 billion in loan guarantees to pressure Ukrainians to fire a top prosecutor.
“I looked at them and said: ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a b****. He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time,” Biden said.
Conservatives claimed Biden pushed for the prosecutor to be fired to protect his son’s job. However, fact-checkers have labeled that claim false.