indica News Bureau-
Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, one of the Democratic candidates for president, has come out in support of the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump in the House of Representatives.
In a statement, Gabbard, representative of Hawaii’s second district and the first Hindu candidate for the presidency, said, “Up to this point, I have been opposed to pursuing impeachment because it will further divide our already badly divided country.
“However, after looking carefully at the transcript of the conversation with the Ukrainian President, the whistle-blower complaint, the Inspector-general memo, and President Trump’s comments about the issue, unfortunately, I believe that if we do not proceed with the inquiry, it will set a very dangerous precedent.”
Not just future presidents but almost anyone in any position of power in the government would conclude that they could abuse their position for personal gain, without fear of accountability or consequences, she said.
“If we allow the President to abuse his power, then our society will rot from top-down,” Gabbard said. “We will turn into a banana republic, where people in positions of power—from the president all the way down to the traffic cop—will feel it’s OK to abuse their power with no consequences.
“This is not the kind of country that any of us want to see.”
She called for a “swift, thorough and narrowly focused” inquiry, saying it should not be turned into a long, protracted partisan circus that would further divide the American people and undermine the country’s democracy.
Gabbard, who met Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he visited the United States last week and whose run for the Democratic nomination has been the subject of some speculation with funding by American Indian citizens linked with India’s Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, said her campaign would remain focused on “how we can stop engaging in regime change wars, stop the new Cold War and nuclear arms race, and invest the money wasted on those wars and weapons to meet the needs of the American people”.
She said it was important not to let a protracted impeachment process to further divide the country and distract it from important issues that must be at the center of the debate in the 2020 campaign.
