Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson is in the hot seat after admitting that President Trump blocked him from telling Ukraine that U.S. military aid was on the way. The president is accused of temporarily withholding aid until Ukraine investigated Joe Biden and his son.
Sen. Johnson said he heard that President Trump was considering not allowing military support to be sent to Ukraine and called Trump on August 31 in an effort convince him otherwise. Johnson said the president dismissed his proposal.
During a constituent stop in Manitowoc on Friday, Sen. Johnson defended Trump's request for Ukraine to investigate his potential 2020 political opponent Joe Biden.
"If there's evidence of some potential crime where there may be evidence in some other country to really call for a cooperation, there's nothing per se wrong with that," said Johnson.
But Johnson says he wasn't on board with President Trump's plan to withhold funds from Ukraine.
"I don't care about Biden's campaign, but I do care about corruption," said Trump.
Trump said several times this week that he wants Ukraine to investigate meddling in the 2016 election and whether former Vice President Joe Biden withheld sending funds to Ukraine until a prosecutor who was investigating his son was fired.
Meet The Press host Chuck Todd told TODAY'S TMJ4 that he believes Johnson's admission of that phone call with the president gives house democrats further evidence for their impeachment inquiry.
"This isn't circumstantial evidence, this is basically filling in the blanks, this is the tic toc, this is the Nixon tapes," Todd said.
Johnson serves on the U.S. Foreign Affairs Committee and even traveled to Ukraine last month.
UW-Milwaukee political professor Mordecai Lee said Johnson could be an important piece to this unraveling controversy.
"I still can't imagine that the president is going to get impeached, but after today, after Sen. Johnson's example, you really start wondering if maybe there is 'there' there," he said.
President trump ultimately allowed for U.S. Military aid to be sent to Ukraine. He denies withholding the funds for the country to investigate the Bidens.
