- Russian President Vladimir Putin defended President Donald Trump on Thursday after the US House of Representatives passed a historic impeachment vote.
- Trump, who has faced intense scrutiny over his relationship with Russia, was impeached for pressuring Ukraine to investigate his political rivals.
- “This is an example of partisan infighting,” Putin said. “The party who lost the election, [the Democrats], is using other methods to achieve their goals.”
- He continued: “They accused him of plotting with Russia, and when that turned out not to be true, they made up pressure on Ukraine.”
- The response would not be out of place coming from the Trump campaign, which has argued that a refusal to accept the 2016 result is the real reason for impeachment.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin rushed to defend President Donald Trump after Trump on Wednesday night became only the third US president in history to be impeached.
During a blockbuster annual press conference on Thursday, Putin was asked about the vote that saw Trump impeached by the House of Representatives on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
Putin dismissed the charges as “made up,” according to The Moscow Times.
And in an echo of Trump’s own defense against impeachment, Putin then further claimed that the proceedings were part of a partisan bid to unseat Trump.
Putin said:
"I am not so sure his presidency is ending. This is an example of partisan infighting. The party who lost the election, [the Democrats], is using other methods to achieve their goals. They accused him of plotting with Russia, and when that turned out not to be true, they made up pressure on Ukraine. If you want to support Ukraine, give them money, but not at our expense."
The question was put to Putin by Dmitry Simes, head of the Washington-based think tank Center for the National Interest, according to CNN.
According to the special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian 2016 election interference, the organization advised Trump's campaign on Russia. Analysts say the Kremlin carefully vets who gets to speak to Putin at the conference.
Both Trump and his Republican allies have used the same argument as Putin: that Democrats launched the impeachment bid in an attempt to make up for their loss in 2016.
Trump in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday rejected the impeachment process, framing it as a response to 2016.
"Your chosen candidate lost the election in 2016, in an Electoral College landslide (306-227), and you and your party have never recovered from this defeat," he wrote (though he in fact won only 304 electoral votes after defections).
Earlier this year, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who had a pivotal role in impeaching Bill Clinton in the 1990s, wrote on Twitter that Democrats "began their campaign to impeach President Trump on Nov. 9, 2016 - the morning after he was elected."
Since taking office, Trump has faced intense scrutiny over his relationship with Putin.
https://twitter.com/RT_com/status/1207607558694981632?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
US intelligence agencies have found that Russia launched an extensive campaign to undermine the 2016 presidential election in a bid to aid Trump's candidacy.
Trump has in the past lavished praise on Putin and cast doubt over the findings of the US intelligence agencies over Russia's role in the 2016 election.
His impeachment stems from a July 25 phone call with Ukraine's president, in which he asked the country to investigate the 2020 Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden as well as an unsubstantiated conspiracy that Ukraine interfered in the election and framed Russia in a bid to help the Democrats.