Andy McCarthy doesn't believe Ukraine call rises to level of high crimes and misdemeanors
Previous impeachment inquiries were triggered by actual felony violations or allegations of egregious abuse of power, says Fox News contributor Andy McCarthy, former assistant U.S. attorney.
Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew McCarthy said Wednesday that the events surrounding a phone call between President Trump and the president of Ukraine do not reach the threshold that warrants impeachment.
“There’s a lot of feeling around even trying to articulate high crimes and misdemeanors and I think that’s relevant,” McCarthy told “The Daily Briefing with Dana Perino,” adding that impeachment controversies surrounding past presidents "were all triggered by either actual felony violations or allegations of concrete abuses of power that were egregious and everybody knew what they were investigating when they were launched."
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A source familiar with the matter told Fox News that an intelligence community whistleblower had no firsthand knowledge of Trump's July conversation with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. Trump, who has been accused of trying to pressure Zelensky to investigate the family of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden in exchange for releasing military aid, authorized the release of a memorandum of the conversation, which was made public earlier Wednesday.
The transcript shows that Trump sought a review of Biden family dealings in the Eastern European country — but the document does not show Trump explicitly leveraging military aid as part of a quid pro quo
The contents of the call, as well as the whistleblower complaint, could throw cold water on Democrats' explosive suggestions that the president improperly threatened to withhold $400 million in aid to Ukraine unless it investigated Biden and his son, Hunter.
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Republicans had predicted over the weekend that such an impeachment inquiry could backfire on Pelosi, and administration officials have said Trump was concerned only with broader corruption in Ukraine.
Fox News’ Alex Pappas, Gregg Re and John Roberts contributed to this report.
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