Pelosi Says Trump Was Disloyal to Oath of Office on Ukraine

(Bloomberg) -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said President Donald Trump’s actions raise a “compelling national security issue” that will be the focus of an impeachment inquiry in Congress.

“We have to stay focused as far as the public is concerned, that the president of the United States used taxpayer dollars for a shake down” of a foreign leader, Pelosi said in an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Friday.

Pelosi said that Trump appeared to have been disloyal to his oath of office in “jeopardizing our elections” by asking a foreign leader to dig up dirt on a political rival.

She also said Trump is “undermining our national security by withholding funds that Congress in a bipartisan way has passed,” in reference to reports the administration held up military aid to Ukraine on the president’s directive.

Pelosi said that the probe will be focused in the House Intelligence Committee under Chairman Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, due to the focus on the events in relation to Ukraine recounted by an intelligence community whistle-blower. She said the investigation will move “expeditiously” but “not hastily.”

“This is no cause for joy,” Pelosi said, adding that it’s “a sad time for our country.”

Emboldened Democrats

Democrats pursuing Trump’s removal from office have been emboldened by the whistle-blower complaint released on Thursday that alleges Trump abused his power when he asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden in a July 25 phone call.

On Thursday, Trump used a closed-door gathering with U.S. diplomats in New York to attack the elder Biden and disparage the whistle-blower complaint, according to a video obtained by Bloomberg News.

“We’re at war,” Trump said at the event on Thursday. “I want to know who’s the person, who’s the person who gave the whistle-blower the information? Because that’s close to a spy.”

Pelosi said she’s hopeful that lawmakers in Congress can put political divisions aside. “At this time Democrats and Republicans would have to put country before party,” she said.

Barr ‘Rogue’

Trump isn’t the only official in the administration that Pelosi said had made missteps. She said of Attorney General William Barr, “He’s gone rogue.”

“Where they are going is a cover up of the cover up,” Pelosi said of the U.S. Justice Department led by Barr. “To have a Justice Department go so rogue -- well, they have been for a while -- just makes matters worse.“

Specifically, she was referring to the delayed delivery of the whistle-blower complaint to Congress based on advise from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel -- made to Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph McGuire -- that it didn’t have to be given to lawmakers.

Barr himself was mentioned by Trump in the July call with Zelenskiy, one focus of the complaint, as someone he would have contact Zelenskiy regarding getting information about the Bidens.

To contact the reporters on this story: Billy House in Washington at bhouse5@bloomberg.net;Caitlin Webber in Washington at cwebber4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Elizabeth Wasserman, Ros Krasny

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