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Republican congressman Devin Nunes on Sunday dismissed government officials who are concerned about Rudy Giuliani's foreign policy in Ukraine, condemned the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump and called members of the media "freaks."
In an appearance on Fox News' Life, Liberty & Levin on Sunday afternoon, Nunes, a ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, told host Mark Levin that Trump "was very clear on foreign policy."
The president is "very supportive of having a strong defense," Nunes said, "but I think that made a lot of Republicans, including myself back in the day [think], 'Does this guy really know what's going on here? Some of these global institutions, like NATO, really does serve a purpose.'"
"But thank God, look at what he's done," he continued, praising the president. "He doesn't want our State Department and Defense Department working with these European countries and others that are part of NATO unless they have a plan to get to two percent. This whole talk about bribery, corruption, a quid pro quo, the president ran on these issues."
"As far as he was concerned Ukraine is a corrupt country, it's been a corrupt country, there was no signs out there and there are still very few signs that Ukraine is on the mend, you essentially just had a change of a candidate supported by some oligarch and now it's a candidate supported by a new oligarch," the California congressman added, before claiming that the impeachment inquiry into Trump "really makes no sense."
Throughout the week, three officials testified before Congress in the first round of public impeachment hearings. State Department official George Kent and top U.S. Ukraine diplomat Bill Taylor testified on Wednesday and former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch appeared on Friday. During the open hearings, these witnesses reinforced allegations and revealed new evidence of a quid pro quo made by Trump in pressuring Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate the family of former Vice President Joe Biden.
"The president had every right, as a matter of fact, Congress actually stipulates that we can't be giving money to corrupt countries," Nunes said on Sunday. "These ambassadors were upset that the president somehow was going around them. Well, tough. Tough."
"We kept coming out, saying look we understand there's a policy disagreement, people in the State Department didn't like that the president had a special envoy, they didn't like that the EU investor was going over to Ukraine, they didn't like that Rudy Giuliani was investigating what was happening in Ukraine, but tough luck," the congressman continued. "The president gets to make those calls."
"It's like a cult down there and you've got all these media freaks that are sitting just a hundred feet outside, waiting for every word," he concluded.
During Yovanovitch's lengthy testimony on Friday, she told the House Intelligence Committee that Trump and Giuliani had been attempting to smear her since 2018 after she declined to allow the president's personal lawyer to utilize the U.S. embassy to obtain dirt on Biden.
