Putin says Trump was impeached for ‘far-fetched’ reasons

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that United States President Donald Trump was impeached for “far-fetched” reasons, calling the move by Democrats a continuation of their fight against the Republican leader.

“The party that lost the (2016) election, the Democratic Party, is trying to achieve results by other means,” Putin said at his annual news conference in Moscow.

He likened Trump’s impeachment to the earlier U.S. probe into collusion with Russia, which Putin played down as groundless.

Former special counsel Robert Mueller concluded earlier this year that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election in a “sweeping and systematic fashion.”

Trump on Wednesday became only the third American president to be impeached.

The historic vote in the House of Representatives split along party lines over a charge he abused the power of his office by trying to enlist the president of Ukraine to investigate a political rival ahead of the 2020 election.

The House also approved a second article that he obstructed Congress in its investigation.

Noting the Republicans have a majority in the Senate, where a trial of Trump will be conducted, Putin said: “they will be unlikely to remove a representative of their own party from office on what seems to me an absolutely far-fetched reason.”

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