Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., said Friday she is ready to vote for President Donald Trump's impeachment after hearing testimony Thursday from Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union.
"I think what we learned from the ambassador is that he was like the enabler," Speier told CNN's "New Day." "It was like the drunk who tells you that you should go out and buy him another bottle of bourbon, and you do it."
Sondland testified he knew his actions were wrong, "but he went ahead and did them anyway," Speier said. "He was one of those many people within this administration that knows something is wrong but does it anyway."
In Sondland's case, the idea of the July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukraine's president went from having "no preconditions to a call with conditions that he talks about corruption, to a call that he talks about both Bidens and the 2016 election," Speier said. "The president kept ratcheting up what the conditions were before he would have a conversation."
Meanwhile, Speier said Republicans should recognize the Trump administration is in a "death spiral," including with Acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney's turnaround after commenting on a quid pro quo with Ukraine.
"They keep twisting the truth, the whistleblower's truth, and it is not serving them well," Speier saidc. "The fact that he blurted out 'get over it' suggests to all of us what we need to know: This is an administration that is going into a death spiral. And it's time for the Republicans in Congress to recognize the corrupt enterprise that is going on in the White House and call it out."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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