Complaining they can’t get a fair trial in the Senate, Democrats forget they refused to let Republicans challenge their impeachment inquiry leading to two articles of impeachment against 73-year-old Donald Trump. Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) played the pot-calling-kettle-black, blasting Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for saying his wasn’t “impartial” regarding the outcome of the trial. McConnell, as do all other Senate Republicans, said he’ll vote to acquit Trump. Once House Democrats approved two articles of impeachment, one about abuse of power and the other about, obstruction of Congress Dec. 17, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to send the articles to the Senate. Since then, she’s blamed Republicans for creating a “sham” trial in the U.S. Senate. Pelosi and other Democrats take no responsibility for their partisan, one-sided impeachment proceeding.
Pelosi thinks she can control the media narrative that now blame the GOP for fixing the outcome of any trial. But Pelosi, House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and House Judiciary Chairman Jerold Nadler (D-N.Y.) carefully planned their impeachment proceeding with extreme prejudice toward convicting Trump. All three told the press on repeat occasions that they had an uncontestable, unassailable, bullet-proof case against Trump. Yet once they approved articles of impeachment, they want to add witnesses and new documents to their case. McConnell told Democrats an emphatic, “no!” McConnell told Schumer it’s not the Senate’s job to clean up a “shoddy” work product from the House, where the two articles approved do not rise to the level of impeachable offenses. While accusing Trump of “bribery” and “obstruction of justice,” House Democrats deliberately kept the articles ambiguous.
Getting instructions from 78-year-old Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe, Pelosi withheld the articles from the Senate before taking her Christmas break. Retired Harvard law professor 82-year-old Alan Dershowitz said Tribe’s instructions to House Democrats was unconstitutional. Democrats want it both ways: Controlling a partisan, one-sided impeachment hearing and expecting the Senate to acquiesce to their demands. Pelosi says she wants a “fair trial” but didn’t give Trump fair impeachment proceedings leading to the Dec. 17 articles. McConnell stated for the record that impeachment was a political process, especially the one against Trump. Not one Republican joined Democrats’ impeachment articles, not because of blind loyalty to Trump but because Democrats’ impeachment case was not convincing. Pelosi wants to call the shots but knows she’s doomed in the GOP-controlled Senate.
Democrats insist they did their job protecting the Constitution impeaching Trump. Yet recent polls show that the easily influenced American public no longer backs removing Trump from office. “Hypocritical to argue this is a solemn constitutional duty and POTUS is an imminent threat to democracy and then sit on the articles. No one is fooled,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tx.), Senate’s No. 2 man. Schumer insists that he can’t get a fair trial in the Senate but said nothing when the Democrat-controlled House refused to allow Trump to present his own witnesses or cross-examine Democrats’ cherry-picked witnesses designed to make Trump look guilty. McConnell told Schumer that it’s not proper for Democrats to demand the Senate play by their rules because they’re trying to control the outcome. Senate Republicans had no say in House’s partisan impeachment proceedings.
Pelosi’s trying to save face knowing that Trump beat her at her own game. As long as Pelosi, Schiff and Nadler controlled the narrative in the House, they could pound their chest before approving impeachment articles. Once they got what they wanted, they realized they had nothing, other than the most partisan, one-sided work product. When McConnell calls the House articles “shoddy,” he’s not kidding, knowing they won’t get traction in the Senate. “I have confidence in Nancy Pelosi. I think what she has done and said is consistent,” former Vice President Joe Biden said yesterday. Biden would love to see Trump tossed from office but knows his former GOP Senate colleagues won’t go along with Democrats. Some Democrats worry that Trump’s using Democrats’ impeachment frenzy against them in the 2020 presidential election. Recent polls have started to turn in Trump’s favor.
Democrats are starting to get “cold feet” according to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Graham agrees 100% with McConnell that Democrats can’t move the goalposts, must stick with their House impeachment case against Trump for an up-or-down vote. When the House and Senate return from their holiday recess Jan. 4, 2020, Pelosi will be forced to send the articles over to the Senate. Holding the articles much longer will convince an already skeptical public that the impeachment process has been purely political, not based on legitimate Constitutional grounds. Pelosi and Schumer don’t have too many options left other than sending the articles to the Senate for an up-or-down vote. Both face the ugly reality that they’ll be forced to run against Trump in 2020 with a wind at his back, watching the U.S. economy continue to boom.
