Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump is about “much more serious set of charges” than anything related to President Bill Clinton’s impeachment.
Clinton was asked how Trump’s impeachment situation differs from Clinton’s impeachment.
“This is a much more serious set of charges than anything that was ever put forward against Bill and I think the American people got that. This is a very different time,” Clinton said during a PBS interview.
“And, as a former secretary of state, I just want Americans to stop and think, why are we allowing this president to, in effect, undermine our sovereignty, turning over foreign policy to foreign governments, what he just did with the Kurds, empowering Turkey and Russia against our staunchest allies in the Middle East?” she added.
Clinton continued, “Why are we sitting silently by and watching this president do Vladimir Putin’s bidding? I mean, there is no happier man in the world right now than Putin. Why are we watching this unfortunate trade battle with China now being infected with his plea that China investigate Biden?”
The House of Representatives voted to impeach Clinton in 1998 but the Senate did not convict him.
“The president provided perjurious, false and misleading testimony to the grand jury regarding the Paula Jones case and his relationship with Monica Lewinsky,” read one charge. “The president obstructed justice in an effort to delay, impede, cover up and conceal the existence of evidence related to the Jones case.”
The 2016 Democratic presidential nominee argued that “this is no longer just about the crazy stuff he [Trump] says and does that everybody shrugs at or worries about.”
“This is a direct threat to the national security of America and I think that’s what has gotten people’s attention. So, certainly among Democrats, but now increasingly among self-identified independents, and even growing numbers of Republicans are saying, wait a minute, this must go forward,” she said about the impeachment inquiry.
Clinton was also asked if she thinks there is an “optical problem” with former Vice President Joe Biden given that his son Hunter was on the board of directors of an energy company in Ukraine while his father was vice president.
“This is the goal of the Trump strategy. It is to raise questions. There is no evidence that either one of them did anything wrong. Could there be a question of judgment about his son? Well, that’s fair game but there is absolutely no evidence, and there will not be any evidence, that Joe Biden did anything wrong,” she said.
“Enough with these wild, unfounded conspiracy theories, using the help of foreign governments to interfere in our elections and to undermine people who have been in the public eye for a long time and I hope that the American public rejects this, as they should,” she added.
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