Tester talks in Havre about impeachment investigation

The question of if President Donald Trump should be impeached or not is not a question along party lines, but is a question of keeping the country safe from foreign powers influencing the United States democratic system, U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., said at the 2019 Pasma-Peck Democratic Dinner Sunday.

Tester was the keynote speaker at the event, where several Democratic candidates from across the state spoke on their campaign in the coming election in 2020.

See as story about the candidates in Tuesday's edition of the Havre Daily News.

Tester said that he did not intend to speak about the impeachment at the dinner, but after seeing the U.S. House passing a resolution for a formal impeachment inquiry Thursday, he thought it was something that needed to be addressed.

He said at the dinner that a partial release by the White House of the phone conference in question indicated one clear message.

"If you read this and read it not as a Democrat, not as a Republican, but as an American, it is very obvious," he said.

Trump is being investigated for  asking a foreign country, Ukraine, to investigate political rivals, particularly Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden's son, Tester said. He added that last fiscal year Congress passed an appropriation for $400 million to go to the Ukraine to help fend off Russian troops, and Trump held the funding until September of this year. 

Tester said that other things Trump has done during his presidency, including the trade war, tax reform and his policy separating children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border, have nothing to do with the impeachment. 

The impeachment is not about vetoing tariffs, it isn't about stealing documents from the Democratic National Committee or bad policies, it is about putting the county's democratic system at risk, Tester said.

"This impeachment is about whether a sitting president of the United States asked a foreign country to interfere with political enemies and influence our elections," Tester said. "No quid pro quo, no quid pro quo, just if he asked a foreign government, in this case Ukraine, to influence our elections."

The Constitution of the United States is an extremely important document and the country's founding Fathers, within the Federalist Papers, discuss the threat of foreign powers influencing the country's political system, he said.

"Our forefathers were concerned about the interference back then. The question is, as some on the other side think, we shouldn't worry about it today, and I think they are wrong," Tester said. "What do you think?"