Passing an impeachment resolution 232-196, Democrats officially opened impeachment proceedings against 73-year-old President Donald Trump. Republicans can no longer complain about the illegitimate back-door hearings, giving House Democrats, led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and House Judiciary Chairman Jerold Nadler (D-N.Y.), all the time needed to line up their impeachment case against the 45th president. Democrats think they have legitimacy now when Republicans reject the entire proceedings as a continuation of the Russian hoax witch-hunt. Pelosi and Schiff like to cite the Founding Fathers who’d be turning in their graves watching Democrats turn the Constitution on its head. “The times have found us,” declared Pelosi, justifying today’s actions to start formal impeachment proceedings.
Democrats have looked to impeach Trump the day took office Jan. 20, 2017. They believe, as Trump’s 2016 rival 72-year-old former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton did, that Trump was not a legitimate president. Hillary said Sept. 26 that Trump is an “illegitimate” president because he conspired with Russian to win the 2016 presidential election. Hillary—and most Democrats—reject the March 23 Mueller Report that indicated that neither Trump nor anyone connected with his campaign conspired with Russia to win the 2016 election. Special Counsel Mueller spent 22-months, $30 million with 19 seasoned prosecutors looking into Trump’s alleged ties with Russia. Before Mueller released his findings March 23, Pelosi, Schiff and Nadler all agreed to accept Mueller’s verdict. After his findings, Democrats rejected Mueller’s Report because there was no grounds for impeachment..
Unable to get impeachable offenses from Mueller, Pelosi, Schiff and Nadler scoured the Mueller Report for anything missed, alleging Trump committed “obstruction of justice.” When that didn’t fly, House Democrats identified a “whistleblower” who said Trump tried to extort Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky July 25 for information about Hunter Biden, former Vice President Joe Biden’s 50-year-old son, work on Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings board. While his father chaired an anti-corruption task force for former President Barack Obama, his son earned millions from Joe’s contacts in Ukraine. Democrats contend that Trump tried to interfere in the 2020 presidential election, threatening to withhold Ukraine’s military aid if Zelensky didn’t provide dirt on the Bidens. But it’s clear that Trump wanted information on Hunter’s role on Burisma Holdings board.
Spending weeks interviewing witnesses behind closed doors, Democrats now contend that they’ll make the impeachment hearings public, as long as Republicans comply with Democrat subpoenas. Democrats contend that Trump abused his Article 2 powers, using a foreign government to dredge up dirt on a political rival. Yet Joe Biden is not the Democrats’ nominee, he’s one among 20 candidates seeking the nomination. Getting partisan witness statements to corroborate their case, Democrats deprived Trump of due process, getting only statements from cooperating witnesses. Republicans have not had a chance to cross-examine Democrat witnesses or present their own witnesses. Saying Democrats have “an infatuation with impeachment,” House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) said the Democrat impeachment proceedings resembled a Soviet-era show trial.
Building their impeachment case on partisan witness statements, Pelosi, Schiff and Nadler continue to deliver on the 2020 Democrat strategy of impeaching Trump. Even if it blows up in the Senate, Democrat strategists still believe impeachment hurts the president’s reelection chances. Republican can’t fathom that such a partisan process has been incorporated into the Constitution’s impeachment provision. Founders like Alexander Hamilton warned in the Federalist Papers about a partisan mob using impeachment to overturn a Democratic election. “There will always be the greatest danger that the decisions [impeachment] will be regulated more by comparative strength of parties, than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt,” Hamilton said. If Democrats’ close-door impeachment proceeding aren’t a naked partisan display to get rid of Trump, then what is?
Democrats’ impeachment resolution in the House drew not one Republican vote, attesting to its partisan nature. When it comes to a Senate trial, Democrats can expect the same kind of partisan outcome, rejecting lengthy and time-consuming process, sucking the oxygen out of any productive Congressional work. Calling Democrats’ impeachment proceedings “unfair, unconstitutional and fundamentally un-American,” White House Communication Director Stephanie Graham called the process another partisan witch- hunt. “The greatest Witch Hunt in American History,” Trump tweeted today. Trump sees no difference between the latest Democrat effort to remove him from office than from the FBI’s three-year-long counterintelligence probe and 22-month-long Mueller Special Counsel investigation. “We take no joy in having to move down this road,” Schiff said, pretending he’s doing it for the country.
