US Senator Mike Rounds says he’s read the White House provided transcript of the phone call between President Donald Trump and the President of Ukraine.
“What I read in the transcript did not amount to anything that would lead to, or should lead to an attempted impeachment,” Rounds says.
Rounds says he has not read the report that came from the whistleblower. An unclassified version of the whistleblower’s complaint was made public Thursday.
Rounds says the Democratically controlled house should have waited until the Republican-controlled senate intelligence committee reviewed classified information about the call. He says the Senate Intelligence Committee works well on a bi-partisan basis.
“To us, we just felt that the Senate Intelligence Committee was handling it more appropriately,” Rounds says. “We’re going to wait and have the intelligence committee tell us what the next moves should be on our part. What I read when the report came out… I think if the house would have waited until they actually would have seen that report, there probably would have been less of a desire on their part to have continued at that time with an impeachment process.”
Rounds says he’s unsure how the house will proceed. Congress is heading into a two-week recess.