Trump ‘serious threat’ to US constitution values: Author

US President Donald Trump is a “serious threat” to the values of the American constitution since he attempted to tarnish the reputation of former Vice President Joe Biden by asking Ukraine to help dig up dirt on his possible 2020 Democratic rival, says an American investigative journalist and author.

David Cay Johnston, founder of the news organization DCReport from New York, made the remarks in the Friday edition of Press TV’s The Debate program while commenting on a recent scandal concerning Trump’s request on the phone from the Ukrainian leader to smear Biden, a front-runner for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, and his son, Hunter, over their financial dealings.

During the July 25 call, Trump reportedly urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy about eight times to work with his lawyer Rudy Giuliani to investigate government corruption involving Biden and his son.

“There are important issues that are going on here but fundamentally Donald Trump is violating federal law by soliciting things of value from foreign governments and going after people who are his political opponents,” Johnston told Press TV. "He didn’t order investigations into anybody else, just the Bidens."

“We have law enforcement forces here in the US, if Donald Trump thinks that Hunter Biden and his father committed a crime then the justice department should be charging them, that’s not what he is doing,” he added.

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Johnston accused the US president of lying “as easily as he breathes,” and said he continues to engage in the “gaslighting” of people.

The American investigative journalist also called Trump a “lifelong career criminal,” after detailing a number of his past offenses, including income tax fraud and the Trump University.

Noel Fritch, a Conservative consultant from North Carolina, was the other panelist invited to The Debate program, who censured as “total projection” the Dems’ impeachment inquiry into Trump and likened it to the Russsian meddling "hoax” in the 2016 US presidential election.

“If the democrats in the United States are accusing someone of something, it is they — the Democrats — who are guilty of doing it,” Fritch added.

The Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, announced on September 24 the opening of a formal impeachment inquiry into Trump, saying he betrayed his oath of office by seeking help from a foreign power to hurt his Democratic rival.

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The White House, then, released a memo of the July call between the presidents in which Trump encouraged Zelensky to look into Biden, the Democratic presidential front-runner.

Trump has denied wrongdoing and called the the inquiry "bulls---," accusing Democrats of triggering the process only because he defeated them in 2016.

According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll on Tuesday, nearly half of Americans -- 45 percent -- believe Trump should be impeached, a figure that increased by 8 percentage points during the past week as more people learned about the scandal.

The poll findings reflect several other recent surveys, which have shown that support is increasing among Americans for an impeachment inquiry into Trump.

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