Photo: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images
Less than 24 hours after his impeachment on Wednesday night, President Donald Trump received support from a familiar foreign ally.
On Thursday, Russian president Vladimir Putin said Trump, 73, was impeached because of “far-fetched” reasons and echoed the Republican rallying cry that Trump’s impeachment is simply the Democrats’ answer to losing the 2016 election.
Vladimir Putin.Mikhail MetzelTASS via Getty
Both Trump and Putin have denied allegations of collusion during the 2016 election and U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the matter failed to convince Congress to open up an impeachment investigation.
Impeachment discussions were tabled until a CIA whistleblower tipped off U.S. officials to Trump’s pressure on Ukraine earlier this year, leading House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to give in to Democratic calls for Trump’s impeachment and open an investigation into the administration’s foreign affairs.
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images
Trump will now face a trial in the Republican-controlled Senate, where he’ll likely be acquitted of the impeachment charges.
“They will be unlikely to remove a representative of their own party from office on what seems to me absolutely far-fetched reasons,” Putin said Thursday, the AP reported.
The Russian leader also backed Trump’s theory that Democrats are fabricating and exaggerating evidence in order to impeach the U.S. president, saying they’ve “invented some sort of pressure on Ukraine.”
Trump’s trial in the Senate is expected to begin in early January.
source: people.com
