THE WHITE HOUSE – Over 300 intelligence professionals from the 17 United States intelligence agencies of the Intelligence Community (IC) penned a public statement this morning decrying President Donald Trump’s alleged extortion of Ukraine to undermine his main political rival, Joe Biden.
The statement read in part:
“The revelations of recent days, however, demand a response. Specifically, all of us recognize the imperative of formal impeachment proceedings to ascertain additional facts and weigh the consequences of what we have learned and what may yet still emerge. We applaud those Members of Congress, including Speaker Pelosi, who have now started us down that necessary path.”
It continued:
“President Trump appears to have leveraged the authority and resources of the highest office in the land to invite additional foreign interference into our democratic processes. That would constitute an unconscionable abuse of power. It also would represent an effort to subordinate America’s national interests—and those of our closest allies and partners—to the President’s personal political interest.”
It concluded:
“To be clear, we do not wish to prejudge the totality of the facts or Congress’ deliberative process. At the same time, there is no escaping that what we already know is serious enough to merit impeachment proceedings. From there, the facts—and nothing but the facts—should dictate how Congress holds the President to account and signals to the world that our foreign policy and national security are not for sale.”
Prior to this week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi opposed impeachment, dismissing it as a political trap. Now, the IC members’ letter comes as a Hill-HarrisX survey poll surveying those for impeachment shooting up 12 points since a June poll to 47%, while those opposed falls 3 points to 42% since June. Meanwhile, 11 percent of those surveyed in the new poll said they weren’t sure or didn’t know. The Hill-HarrisX survey polled 1,001 voters; the margin of error was 3.1 percentage points.
