Donald Trump became the third president in U.S. history to be impeached on Wednesday after the House voted on two articles of impeachment against him. But while Democrats largely aligned against the president, Trump had an unlikely supporter in Russian President Vladimir Putin .
The Eastern European leader said that Democrats had “fabricated” their impeachment against Trump and he believed that the U.S. president would not be removed from office.
According to the Moscow Times , Putin spoke at his annual year-end news conference, slamming the impeachment process as a political maneuver and expressing support for Trump. He echoed the opinion of a number of Americans who believe that Trump will be acquitted in a Senate trial.
“It’s unlikely they will want to remove from power a representative of their party based on what are, in my opinion, completely fabricated reasons,” said Putin. “This is simply a continuation of the (U.S.) intra-political battle where one party that lost an election, the Democratic Party, is trying to achieve results using other methods and means.”
Putin went on to say that he believed progressives couldn’t nail Trump on colluding with Russia, so they made up the idea of him placing pressure on Ukraine in order to benefit his run for re-election.
“They first accused Trump of a conspiracy with Russia. Then it turned out there wasn’t a conspiracy and that it couldn’t be the basis for impeachment. Now they have dreamt up (the idea) of some kind of pressure being exerted on Ukraine.”
Putin went on to criticize the U.S. for what he perceives to be hostile behavior toward Moscow’s proposals to extend an arms control treaty that would limit the nuclear arsenal each country could hold.
Putin said that he hasn’t received a response to his proposals, which means that if the treaty isn’t extended, the two largest nuclear powers in the world could amp up a new arms race.
“And that, in my view, would be bad,” Putin said.
The Russian State television recently raised eyebrows after jokingly suggesting that Trump is a “puppet” for Russia and that the country would offer him asylum if he was impeached and removed from office. As The Inquisitr previously reported, the tightly controlled government network Rossiya 1 called Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov Trump’s puppet master. At the same time, the Russian Embassy in the UK posted an image of a meeting between Lavrov and Trump, with the Russian minister standing behind the U.S. president in what some have called a position of power.
FM #Lavrov : We have no doubt that President Trump @realDonaldTrump sincerely believes in good relations with Russia. Ties based on balance of interests, pragmatism and mutual benefit are good for US businesses, US people and the world at large. pic.twitter.com/AC3wFdcPu9
— Russian Embassy, UK (@RussianEmbassy) December 14, 2019