Just a handful of Republican lawmakers have rebuked Trump's calls for Ukraine and China to interfere in the US election

Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters with President of Finland Sauli Niinisto in the White House on October 2, 2019.

• Just a handful of GOP lawmakers have condemned President Donald Trump's attempts to pressure multiple foreign countries, including Ukraine and China, to investigate his political opponents.
• "The Republicans are very unified," Trump said on Friday, after asserting that he would "win" a potential impeachment trial in the majority-Republican Senate.
• On Friday, Sen. Mitt Romney issued one of the most critical statements about Trump's behavior, describing the president's calls for foreign interference in the US election as "wrong and appalling."
• A few other Republican lawmakers have warned that the president's behavior may have crossed an ethical line, but none have endorsed House Democrats' impeachment inquiry.
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Just a handful of GOP lawmakers have condemned President Donald Trump's attempts to pressure multiple foreign governments, including the Ukrainian and Chinese authorities, to investigate his political opponents.

"The Republicans are very unified," Trump said on Friday, after asserting that he would "win" a potential impeachment trial in the majority-Republican Senate.

A trove of text messages released on Friday revealed that top US diplomats believed Trump was using $391 million in US military aid to Ukraine as leverage to pressure the country to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden. On Thursday, Trump publicly called on China to initiate an investigation into the Bidens, shortly after asserting the US's "tremendous power" in its ongoing trade negotiations with the country.

Trump has responded to Democrats' impeachment inquiry by denying all charges that he pressured Ukraine or engaged in a quid pro quo, called all investigations into his conduct a "witch hunt," accused the whistle-blower of being a spy, and suggesting his impeachment would lead to civil war.

Sen. Mitt Romney, a former GOP presidential candidate and nominee, issued perhaps the most strongly-worded rebuke of Trump's actions, describing the president's calls for Ukraine and China to interfere with the US election as "wrong and appalling" in a Friday tweet.

"When the only American citizen President Trump singles out for China's investigation is his political opponent in the midst of the Democratic nomination process, it strains credulity to suggest that it is anything other than politically motivated," Romney wrote. "By all appearances, the President's brazen and unprecedented appeal to China and to Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden is wrong and appalling."

Sen. Ben Sasse also condemned the president's comments on China in a Thursday night statement, but simultaneously called the Democratic impeachment inquiry a "partisan clown show."

"Americans don't look to Chinese commies for the truth," he said.

Rep. Mark Amodei of Nevada, a swing state, said he supports the congressional oversight process, but recently backtracked on comments suggesting he was the first Republican to endorse the House impeachment inquiry.

"Using government agencies to, if it's proven, to put your finger on the scale of an election, I don't think that's right," Amodei told reporters late last month of Trump's call with the Ukrainian president. "If it turns out that it's something along those lines, then there's a problem."

Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio called Trump's call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky "not OK."

"Concerning that conversation, I want to say to the President: This is not OK. That conversation is not OK," Turner said late last month.

Rep. Will Hurd of Texas, a former CIA officer who announced his retirement from Congress in August, called Trump's request of China "terrible" and the text messages among top diplomats "damning," but has warned against moving forward with an impeachment inquiry.

Read more: Trump brought up Joe Biden during a June phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping

Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois said he supports the oversight process.

"I want to know what happened," Kinzinger said. He's also called Trump's threat of civil war "beyond repugnant."

And Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington said the "allegations are serious and efforts to get all of the facts demand continued transparency."

A few other Republicans have issued more tepid criticism of the president's behavior.

Rep. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican, said "it showed poor judgment to make these contacts to Ukraine" and that the president is reacting to criticism in a way that's unnecessarily divisive.

"I think our president could do better," Bacon said this week. "He's part of the animosity that gets spread out there. But he's also the recipient of a lot of it, as well."

Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst have said the CIA whistle-blower should be protected and kept anonymous under the law, rejecting Trump's determination to find out the whistle-blower's identity.

"This person appears to have followed the whistleblower protection laws and ought to be heard out and protected," Grassley said. "We should always work to respect whistleblowers' requests for confidentiality."