U.S. Rep. Sean Maloney supports Trump impeachment query
"These allegations go to the heart of the oath I took," Maloney said Tuesday. "There comes a time to put your country first."
U.S. Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (NY-18) on Tuesday expressed his support for impeachment proceedings after reports that President Donald Trump had a phone conversation with the president of Ukraine in which he discussed investigating former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
The House is moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry. "We’re going to hold the President accountable," said Maloney.
Maloney is a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and occupies a seat Trump narrowly won. New York's 18th Congressional District includes Orange and Putnam counties in addition to parts of Westchester and Dutchess counties. Maloney released the following statement:
“I have had a high bar for putting the country through an impeachment inquiry, especially so close to an election. But these allegations go to the heart of the oath I took. There comes a time to put your country first. Unless the Intelligence Committee immediately receives both the whistleblower complaint, and the recordings of any calls – and they dispel these charges – I am prepared to pursue an impeachment inquiry of the President. The old Trump song and dance won’t cut it this time.”
In a series of tweets on Tuesday, he said:
"This has nothing to do with the Mueller report, nothing to do with the 2016 elections. This is new information, and it’s our job to act accordingly. Impeachment is a last resort."
"Unless the president can dispel these allegations, we must pursue impeachment. He’s left us with no choice -- we can’t allow him to ride roughshod over the Constitution."
"No American president, Democrat or Republican, can muscle a foreign leader, threatening withdrawal of the U.S. military, to kneecap a political opponent. I'm pleading with my Republican colleagues to take this seriously."
"We have never been in a place like this before. It has nothing to do with the Mueller report, it has nothing to do with the 2016 election ... this is new information & it could not be more serious."
Nick Langworthy, chair of the New York GOP, blasted Maloney and U.S. Antonio Delgado (NY-19), both Democrats, for "joining the impeachment mob."
"The radical left’s endless obsession with trying to take out President Trump and derail his agenda will be rejected by the voters who want their representatives to focus on making their lives better, not their own power," he said in a statement. "This reckless decision will rightfully go down as the one that cost them their seats.”