U.S. Democratic Representative in Charleston, Joe Cunningham, said he needs to hear directly from the whistleblower, whose allegations have now spurred an impeachment investigation by President Donald Trump.
This means that he is not ready to join the impeachment movement, even after declaring that he wanted to hear the acting director of National Intelligence, Joseph Maguire, testify on Thursday about how he handled the whistleblower’s complaint.
“We need to be careful not to anticipate the evidence and be as deliberate and judicious as possible during this process, while keeping track of the facts they lead to,” said Cunningham in a statement on Thursday afternoon.
“Congress must work to fully investigate all details of this report and we must listen to the whistleblower directly,” he said.
Cunningham’s statement came hours after the launch of the nine-page complaint that allegedly put pressure on the President of Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, one of Trump’s Democratic political rivals.
The freshman legislator elected last year as the first Democrat to represent the first district in nearly 40 years, is following a rigid political line as a Democrat representing the chair. He urged his fellow members of the House to assess the facts of the case objectively.
Cunningham’s stance puts him in the minority among House Democrats. An NBC News count on Thursday, and mirrored by other news sources, found 221 House Democrats and an independent U.S. representative, Justin Amash, currently in favor of some kind of impeachment action against Trump.
A majority vote would be necessary for the impeachment investigation to proceed. In the House, the majority is 218 votes or more.
Maguire testified before the House Intelligence Committee for three hours on Thursday.
Cunningham’s Thursday message follows his comments on Tuesday, when he avoided signing Mayor Nancy Pelosi’s request for an impeachment inquiry.
He said releasing the whistleblower’s complaint was the right step in the process.
“I am excited because the report of the whistleblower and the record of the president’s connection with the Ukrainian president are now public,” he said. “Each day brings new revelations that are of concern from a national security perspective – including allegations that White House officials tried to hide a call record by moving it to a separate system used for highly confidential national security information.”
Congressman Cunningham, D-Charleston, said on Thursday that he needed more information before joining his Democratic colleagues in the House to move forward with an impeachment inquiry. (File / AP Photo / J. Scott Applewhite)
While Cunningham asked for additional details, the other South Carolina Democrat in Congress announced that he had already made up his mind.
Majority leader in the House, Jim Clyburn, D-Columbia, said the whistleblower’s complaint showed that Trump “sought to promote his own political interest” during the phone call with the Ukrainian president.
“Instead of putting the national security of the United States first, President Trump put himself first. The House must complete its impeachment investigation with all deliberate speed to resolve this abuse of presidential powers that has an enormous influence on the future of our republic, “said Clyburn.
Meanwhile, state Republicans have characterized the whistleblower’s denunciation as a political ploy.
US Deputy Jeff Duncan, R-Laurens, called the disqualified report “nothing more than lewd rumors, conjectures and rumors along with press clips of someone without any direct knowledge of the situations described”.
Duncan also said the efforts are a Democratic-led attempt to remove Trump from office “because they failed to do so with their collusion with Russia”, referring to the findings of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether the Trump’s campaign coordinated with Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election.
US Representative Ralph Norman, R-Rock Hill, said the Congressional hearing revealed partisan motives. Norman criticized US Congressman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., For paraphrasing the transcript of Trump’s connection with the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, rather than reading it literally.
“How stupid does he think the American people are?” Norman tweeted.
US Senator Lindsey Graham, RS.C., said the transcript shows that there was no money exchange and suggested that Democrats “bought a pig with a coup”.
Graham then asked the House of Representatives to vote on an impeachment inquiry.
“If you believe that this complaint has put the public in grave danger, are you under no obligation to vote to open an impeachment investigation? Americans deserve to see their position and evaluate their judgment, ”said Graham.
Talk to Caitlin Byrd at 843-937-5590 and follow her on Twitter @MaryCaitlinByrd.