1-31-20 grothman says quid pro quo not impeachable offense

Republican congressman Glenn Grothman is siding with the president’s legal team that a quid pro quo regarding the president’s dealings with Ukraine is not an impeachable offense.    Grothman was responding to new revelations by former  national security advisor John Bolton that he personally heard  president Trump say he wanted military aid withheld from Ukraine until it investigated the Bidens-the abuse of power charge in the first article of impeachment. “I don’t think anything raises to that (impeachment) level regardless,”  Grothman told AM 1170s Between the Line program.  “When you have Democrats so out in front who have wanted to impeach him from day one you’ve got to say what is the motive here?  I”m not sure if there was a quid pro quo or not.  We’ll have to see when the details come out and that doesn’t rise to the level of impeachment.”   Grothman says he also  questions whatever Bolton says.  “John Bolton, by the way, is kind of part of the swamp.  Eventually president Trump probably ill-advisedly hired him and eventually realized what he was about and fired him.”  Retired Ripon College political scientist Marty Farrell says its interesting to see how the defense of president Trump’s dealings with Ukraine have shifted.   “They (Republicans) spent a lot of time arguing the problem with the impeachment articles from the House, the main problem with them,  was they had no direct evidence the president was ordering a quid pro quo,”  Farrell said.  “Now we have the exerpt from the Bolton book saying that he heard it directly from the president’s mouth.”   Farrell notes the General Accounting Office has said the withholding of the funds did break the impoundment act.  That law was enacted back in the Nixon era when president Nixon was trying to expand executive power and not spend money congress had appropriated.