It is hard to see how a second whistleblower will matter to the ongoing investigation into President Donald Trump's conversation with Ukraine's president, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said Monday.
"It's hard for me to see what a second whistleblower would change, now that the president has released his transcript," Cotton told Fox News' Brian Kilmeade's radio show.
He added he does not see what Democrats are seeing in terms of an impeachable offense in relation to the telephone call between the two national leaders.
"Now that the transcript is public, anyone can read it and see that there was no quid pro quo in that phone call," Cotton said. "He certainly didn't do anything related or even say anything related to U.S. military aid to Ukraine."
Cotton also commented on Trump's announcement about withdrawing American troops from the Syrian border with Turkey.
"I don't have all the facts about what the president is planning to do, or what he discussed with (Recep Tayyip) Erdogan, the president of Turkey," Cotton said. "If we focus on what our core interests are, one of the most important interests is that those [ISIS] prisoners that are being held in Northern Syria not be released."
Cotton added he hopes Erdogan has given Trump a firm commitment, if he does take control of the prisoners, he will not let them go.
"The second thing we don't want is for Iran to expand its footprint inside of Syria in a way that threatens our interests, or threatens Israel's interests," Cotton said.
He said he is also concerned about the Kurdish forces which fought with the United States to defeat ISIS.
"This, though, is part of what happens after 2014 when the Obama administration decided that they didn't want to work with a broader coalition or put more troops temporarily in Syria to defeat ISIS, because we all knew that the Syrian Kurds were a sworn enemy of the government in Turkey," Cotton said. "I hope that if the president is going to move forward with withdrawing those troops from that area that we don’t see widespread bloodshed. I can’t imagine that Turkey wants to invade and occupy a large section of Syria, but they have always, for 40 years, viewed those forces as a threat to them."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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