House Judiciary Chairman 72-year-old-Jerold Nadler (D-N.Y.) sarcastically invited 73-year-old President Donald Trump to testify before his committee while he drafts articles of impeachment. There’s nothing Trump could say to convince Nadler, one of his biggest Capitol Hill critics, to wave off the inexorable march to impeachment. Before House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) found a “whistleblower” Sept. 25 who claimed Trump violated his oath of office asking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to dig up dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden and his 50-year-old son Hunter, Nadler was ready to impeach Trump on “obstruction of justice.” Nadler worked for months cherry picking Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Final Report, trying to find anything impeachable. When nothing turned up, suddenly Schiff found a whistleblower.
Schiff claims he had no contact with the whistleblower until he received the complaint, detailing a phone call with Zelensky and Trump, where Trump tried to cajole Zelensky to digging up dirt on the Bidens in exchange for $391 million in military aid. House Democrats insist that Trump coerced Zelensky, even though Zelensky himself denied Sept. 25 that Trump “pushed” him for anything. But Zelensky’s word apparently doesn’t count for House Democrats, who’ve convinced themselves that Trump committed “bribery,” if not treason. Nadler invited Trump to attend his Dec. 4 meetings, where his committee will decide whether or not to draft articles of impeachment. Nadler would like nothing more than to let Democrat lawyers cross-examine Trump under oath in a nationally televised hearing. Nadler’s invitation hopes to dismiss Trump’s claims that he was deprived of due process.
Nadler knows that Trump isn’t about to take him up on his offer, something he wants to set the record straight. When Trump cries hoax-and-witch-hunt, Nadler wants to set the record straight that he gave Trump his due process. “At base, the president has a choice to make: He can take this opportunity to be represented in the impeachment hearings, or he can stop complaining about he process. I hope that he chooses to participate in the inquiry, directly or thorough counsel, as other presidents have done before him,” Nadler said. Nadler knows Trump won’t participate in a process he considers outrageous. He’s denied any wrongdoing in his July 25 call with Zelensky, and won’t change too many Democrat minds about how Joe and Hunter Biden engaged in corruption. Nadler wants Trump to listen to his definition of high-crimes-and-misdemeanors, the Constitution’s grounds for impeachment.
Nothing’s going to change Nadler’s mind about Schiff’s Final Report that established grounds for Trump’s impeachment. Inviting Trump to attend his nationally televised hearing would be suicide, whether he’s innocent or not. Schiff insists that Trump violated his oath of office, engaged in bribery and betrayed the American public. How’s he going to defend that to a Democrat-controlled committee that’s already convicted Trump of high crimes-and-misdemeanors? “We will also discuss whether the House’s exercising its authority to adopt articles of impeachment,” Nadler wrote, proving that the fix is in. Cherry picking witnesses in open session, Schiff made his best case for impeachment. While Schiff insists he has everything he needs for impeachment, a recent CNN poll showed that two weeks of public hearings did nothing to change voters’ opinions of impeachment.
Giving Trump a deadline of 6 PM EST (2300 GMT) Sunday, Dec. 1 to schedule his appearance at the Dec. 4 hearing, Nadler puts on record he was giving Trump a chance for due process. Schiff expects all committees, Intel, Judiciary and Oversight to submit their impeachment reports by Dec. 3. Moving forward with the Dec. 4 Judiciary hearing, it looks like Schiff is done with his interviews. Nadler knows there’s no way Trump’s going to attend a hearing in which he’s confronted with all his crimes as defined by Democrat committees. Nadler fully expects to draft articles of impeachment that will be sent to the Republican-controlled Senate for trial. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Nov. 19 it’s “inconceivable” there’s 67 votes to remove Trump from office. All the months of House Democrats’ closed-and-open-door hearings don’t mean anything in the Senate.
Once Nadler receives Schiff’s Final Report, he’ll start debating and drafting articles of impeachment in the Senate Judiciary Committee. House Democrats have made up their minds on impeachment long ago, perhaps the day he beat former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Nov. 4, 2016. Far from objective, House Democrats have practically stood on their heads to convict Trump of high-crimes-and-misdemeanors. If the public’s any gauge of impeachment hearings, it shows a highly partisan exercise designed to remove Trump from office. Democrats hope that impeaching Trump hurts his credibility with 2020 voters enough to give the Democrat nominee the best chance of winning. Seeing Democrat actions as a “hoax” and a “witch-hunt,” Trump wants no part of Democrat hearings. Once Nadler turns over impeachment articles to the Senate, it will end quickly.
