South Carolina Republicans go on offensive for first public impeachment hearings
Republican congressman from South Carolina scoffed at their Democratic counterparts and sounded off on social media as the first public impeachment hearings began Wednesday.
Acting U.S. Ambassador to the Ukraine William Taylor and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent testified to the U.S. House’s Intelligence Committee Wednesday morning about an alleged request by Trump for Ukrainian officials to reopen an investigation into one of his political opponents in exchange for U.S. aid.
Several Republicans in South Carolina’s congressional delegation — including U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham and Reps. Jeff Duncan, Joe Wilson and Ralph Norman — remained skeptical, tweeting their disapproval of the impeachment inquiry.
Duncan called the impeachment inquiry “a sham” and said Democrats have long held a vendetta against the president. He said he believed Democrats leaked information from previous, closed-door hearings to create a “selective narrative” to shape the impeachment inquiry.
“This has, for a long time, been a verdict looking for a crime,” Duncan tweeted.
Wilson accused Democrats of wasting taxpayer dollars to hold the hearings.
“Democrats continue to mislead the American people by carrying on with this impeachment inquiry and wasting taxpayer dollars,” Wilson tweeted.
Norman expressed doubts about Intelligence Committee Chairman U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff’s assertion that he did not know the identity of the whistleblower.
“Schiff: ‘I do not know the identify of the whistleblower,’” Norman tweeted. “Riiiiiight.”
After he vowed not to watch the hearings, Graham shifted his focus to one of Trump’s strongest political opponents, former Vice President Joe Biden, now a Democratic presidential candidate.
The Seneca Republican echoed unfounded allegations that the Delaware Democrat got a prosecutor fired after the prosecutor launched an investigation into natural gas company Burisma, where Hunter Biden sat on the board.
Graham questioned whether the whistleblower, whose report spawned the impeachment inquiry, helped Biden in allegedly removing the prosecutor in the Burisma case. The senator implied the whistleblower’s interests align with Biden’s.
This story was originally published November 13, 2019 at 12:45 PM.
