“I think to a certain degree, whether you like who the president is or not, is not as important as the fact that he is the president.”

Gov. Mike Parson

KANSAS CITY, Mo., — In light of the Sept. 26 whistleblower news concerning President Donald Trump’s conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky about former Vice President Joe Biden, Gov. Michael L. Parson and U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt commented Friday about the situation at the Missouri Press Association’s 153rd Convention in Kansas City.

“I think to a certain degree, whether you like who the president is or not, is not as important as the fact that he is the president,” Parson said Sept. 27. “There is a certain process to go through to eliminate that — the election process.”

Parson became governor of Missouri in 2018 in response to former governor Eric Grietens, who stepped down in the face of threatened impeachment.

“I think if you start doing impeachments of everyone who gets elected governor, you need to have facts in place and be ready to back it up,” Parson said.

Republican Sen. Roy Blunt commented later about the intelligence director and White House Administration. Blunt is on the committee to investigate the situation.

“I think there aren’t that many facts to put together here. It is a very narrow question, and it will divide quickly, will polarize very quickly,” he said. “But I am hopeful we can put everything together pretty quickly and I think we need to talk to the Justice Department next. There is a lot of concern, was that the right place to be acting for DNI to go for legal advice.”

Blunt believes the House of Representatives, which is controlled by the Democrats, will move forward with the impeachment processes before the facts are in.

“I don’t think the facts really matter here,” Blunt said. “They are ready to go in and move forward with the impeachment effort that many wanted to do since the election, since the Democrats have had control of the House.”

If the House moves forward with impeachment, Blunt said it may affect the investigating committee.

“If we are not done with the investigating part before the House acts — if they act, we probably have to quickly say if the jurors and judges do this, we need to stop being the investigators,” Blunt said.

The senator also argues that presidential conversation maybe should be more private.

“If you recall very early on there was a leak of what he had said to the Australian Prime Minister, as I recall it was too pointed by diplomatic standards,” Blunt said. “I don’t recall that ever happening before. Then the Mexican president, that was leaked.”

Blunt said it is a problem.

“We will determine whether the whistleblower should have blown the whistle or not, whether someone told the whistleblower, and should have blown the whistle. But if the concern is they have tried to hold presidential conversations more tightly than they have in the past, the answer might be that they need to hold them more tightly than they have in the past.”

Blunt said people seem to be unusually willing to talk about what the president and the foreign leader has talked about and the people don’t benefit from that.

“If for instance in terms of the president asking foreign leaders to do things that are good for our country, they do that all the time,” Blunt said. “I am sure the president had a number of conversations with the Prime Minister of Japan in the process of getting him to sign the Japanese Trade Deal that week. This would really be good for us and we think it would be good for you, let’s get this done.”

Blunt added that he had doubts about the president’s ability to speak to foreign leaders from the beginning.

The Missouri Press Association’s Convention and Trade Show was held at the Harrah’s North Kansas City Hotel and Casino in Kansas City, Mo.