House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday, with a straight face, demanded that the Senate conduct a “fair” trial of the articles of impeachment passed by the House on Wednesday.
Here’s how “fair” her proceedings were in the House:
- In May 2018 and again in March of this year, Pelosi said that impeachment was improper unless there was a “bipartisan” consensus.
- On September 24, 2019, Pelosi announced that the House was beginning an impeachment inquiry. She did this by herself without allowing the House to vote on the decision as had been done in every previous impeachment inquiry in history.
- The impeachment “inquiry” was based on a claim from an anonymous “whistleblower” who claimed that President Trump had demanded political favors from a foreign government in exchange for monetary aid. The “whistleblower” had no personal knowledge or information about his claims and based them entirely on what he had been told by others.
- Pelosi made the announcement of the start of any impeachment inquiry the day before the transcript of the call by President Trump that was the subject of the inquiry was to be released.
- Also the day before the transcript was released, Democrat House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, while sitting as chair of a committee meeting, read a document that he falsely claimed was a transcript of the call and that falsely presented President Trump as illegally demanding political favors from a foreign government. The document Schiff read was entirely fabricated. He literally made it all up.
- Working based solely on the decision of Nancy Pelosi but without House authorization, the Democrats conducted their “inquiry,” which consisted of secret interviews with hand-picked “witnesses” without any Republican participation.
- During this unauthorized “inquiry,” Rep. Schiff stated that he had never met the “whistleblower” and didn’t know his identity, and he assured the public that we would hear from the “whistleblower” during the “inquiry.”
- It was later revealed that the whistleblower had met with Rep. Schiff’s staff weeks before making his claims public. Once again, Rep. Schiff was caught in a bold-faced lie when he claimed he had never met the “whistleblower” and didn’t know his identity.
- The fact that Schiff’s staff had coordinated with the “whistleblower” prior to his claims being made public explains why those claims went publicly immediately after President Trump was exonerated by a partisan investigation into fabricated charges that he had colluded with Russia during the 2016 campaign. Having failed to set Trump up for impeachment with the fake Russia hoax, the Democrats had the “whistleblower” scheme in their desk drawers ready to go.
- Five weeks into this unauthorized investigation, Pelosi finally allowed the House to vote on rules for a formal impeachment inquiry.
- These rules deprived the president and House Republicans of fundamental due process rights that had been guaranteed in all prior impeachment proceedings in American history, including the right to rebut one’s accusers, challenge the evidence produced, and understand the scope of the investigation.
- Also, under these rules, the Democrats continued to conduct secret witness interviews which the president and House Republicans were not allowed to attend.
- Furthermore, the investigation was conducted not by the House Judiciary Committee, as was done in all prior impeachments, but by the House Intelligence Committee, chaired by the same Rep. Adam Schiff who had previously publicly defamed President Trump by reading a fake “transcript” of Trump’s call and who publicly lied about never having met the “whistleblower” or knowing his identity.
- The impeachment inquiry was conducted by the Intelligence Committee not only to allow hyperpartisan and dishonest Rep. Schiff to be in control, but also to ensure that the Democrats’ investigation could be conducted in secrecy under the rules of the Intelligence Committee and in a secure room in the House basement to which only select Democrats were allowed access.
- After several weeks of secret interviews in which neither the president nor House Republicans were allowed to participate, Schiff finally announced public hearings. During these hearings, he repeatedly interrupted Republicans and blocked them from raising legitimate defenses against the largely undefined charges against the president.
- The House Republicans also were prohibited from subpoenaing or calling any witnesses in the president’s defense.
- Unlike every other impeachment proceeding in American history, the president and his legal team were prohibited from participating in – or even attending – these hearings.
- At the hearings, every single witness but one admitted that they had never spoken with President Trump and never received any instructions from him. They admitted that their testimony consisted entirely of what they had “heard” or “believed.” None of this testimony would ever be permitted in any court of law.
- The one witness who testified that he had spoken with President Trump admitted that Trump had expressly and repeatedly told him not to engage in any quid pro quo. He admitted that “no one on this planet” had ever told him to engage in any quid pro quo.
- During this “inquiry,” House Democrats demanded that certain administration officials appear to testify. President Trump instructed them not to do so on the basis of executive privilege, which has been recognized since the beginning of our republic as a legitimate and legal way to ensure the confidentiality of advice given to the president by his advisers.
- House Democrats attempted to coerce the president out of asserting his legal privilege by threatening to impeach him for exercising his legitimate constitutional powers.
- Despite the lack of any witnesses with personal knowledge supporting any charges against the president, Schiff had his staff prepare a report recommending impeachment and referred the matter to the House Judiciary Committee.
- The House Judiciary Committee conducted exactly one hearing at which they did not hear from any witnesses with any knowledge whatsoever about the charges against President Trump. They heard from John Dean, who had been convicted for corruption during the Watergate scandal and has spent his entire life since attacking Republicans in order to seek his version of redemption. And they heard from a panel of four cherry-picked “legal scholars,” all of whom had donated large amounts of money to Trump’s opponent in 2016 and to other Democrats over the years, and three of whom were known to be leftist ideologues.
- The one witness permitted to the Republicans was Jonathan Turley, a very liberal but intellectually honest Democrat who nevertheless warned that if the Democrats impeached President Trump for asserting his legitimate executive privilege, it would be the House Democrats themselves who would be abusing their constitutional powers.
- On the basis of the Intelligence Committee hearings that exonerated the president and the one hearing in the Judiciary Committee that had nothing to do with the investigation, the Judiciary Committee, on a strict party-line vote, approved two articles of impeachment.
- The first article accused Trump of “abuse of power” for allegedly committing actions that the one and only witness with actual firsthand knowledge had testified under oath the president had never done.
- The second article accused Trump of “obstruction of Congress” for asserting his legitimate executive privilege. They did this despite having been warned by Democrat legal scholar Jonathan Turley that this article of impeachment was illegitimate and constituted an abuse of power by the House Democrats themselves.
- The House Rules Committee then met and approved rules for debate on the articles of impeachment by the full House. The Democrats knew that throughout the impeachment “inquiry” they had deliberately violated numerous House rules designed to assure the rights of the minority party. So, they included in their rules for debate on the articles of impeachment provisions that automatically declared out of order any challenge to the articles on the grounds that the Democrats had repeatedly violated their own rules.
- The House then had a floor “debate” on the articles of impeachment that gave all 435 members a total of six hours to state their case regarding both articles. This meant that most members were allowed less than one minute each to address what might be the most consequential votes they would ever cast.
- Both articles passed the House on a strict party-line vote. Not one of the 197 Republicans in the House voted for either article. Three Democrats voted with Republicans against at least one article.
- One of those Democrats was so appalled by what the Democrats had done to our president that he announced on Thursday that he is switching parties and becoming a Republican. This has never happened in any other impeachment proceeding in American history.
- Democrat Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who is also running for president, voted “present,” stating that impeachment should never be handled in a partisan manner and that her own party’s extremely partisan handling of the impeachment inquiry had left her unable to cast a fair and informed vote on the articles. This too has never happened in any other impeachment proceeding in American history.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has stated unequivocally that these articles of impeachment are baseless and were passed through an appalling and illegitimate process that lacked any modicum of due process.
He said that the Senate will dispose of these articles accordingly.
Having been the personal architect of that entire appalling and illegitimate process, Nancy Pelosi now states that she will withhold transmitting the articles of impeachment to the Senate until the Republican majority assures that the trial on these articles of impeachment will be “fair.”
She actually said that with a straight face.
House Democrats repeatedly proclaimed that they had to move fast to impeach the president because he is a threat to continue to abuse his powers and must not be allowed to remain in office one minute longer than necessary.
Now that they’ve impeached the president, those same Democrats are now saying that they want to hold off on transmitting the articles of impeachment to the Senate for a trial until a more politically opportune time.
And, yes, they’re actually saying it with a straight face.
