Thursday, December 19, 2019

Pelosi Exposes Her Supposedly Urgent and 'Prayerful' Impeachment as a Partisan Sham


By Guy Benson | Townhall.com


Source: AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

When this idea first started percolating on Twitter among the Very Online Left, I dismissed it as silliness.  Nancy Pelosi wants impeachment over and done with, and she's made a grand show of carrying this 'duty' out with supposed 'prayerful solemnity.'  It seemed obvious that she would instantly dismiss any harebrained scheme that would needlessly and pointlessly drag out the process, accomplish nothing, and fuel the Trump narrative that the whole enterprise is a petty partisan sham.  And yet...

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In a remarkable press conference, Pelosi refused to say repeatedly if the House would send over the articles to the Senate. She would not guarantee sending over the articles to the Senate until they are assured a fair trial. She wouldn’t describe what a fair trial was.

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Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to commit Wednesday to delivering articles of impeachment to the Senate, citing concerns about an unfair trial on removing President Donald Trump from office. 

Senior Democratic aides said the House was “very unlikely” to take the steps necessary to send the articles to the Senate until at least early January, a delay of at least two weeks and perhaps longer.

“So far we haven’t seen anything that looks fair to us,” Pelosi told reporters at a news conference just moments after the House charged Trump with abuse of power and obstructing congressional investigations. “That would’ve been our intention, but we’ll see what happens over there.” 

By delaying passage of that resolution, Pelosi and top Democrats retain control of the articles and hope to put pressure on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to adopt trial procedures they consider bipartisan.

I fail to see the "pressure" or "leverage" this plan allegedly places on Senate Republicans. Mitch McConnell will happily ignore the House's dumb games, keep confirming judges day after day, and hammer House Democrats for their unseriousness -- which would likely further erode support for impeachment. 

Remember, Democrats argued that they had to rush through the process at warp speed because time was of the essence and our very "democracy was at stake," or whatever. 

But now they're going to sit on the articles of impeachment they've passed, for an indefinite period of time, until...Senate Republicans adopt minority-demanded rules that are less favorable to President Trump than the 1999 trial rules were for President Clinton? C'mon. 

This is especially rich, given Team Pelosi's dominance of the process in the lower chamber, eschewing the bipartisan template set out during the previous two modern impeachments. 

Democrats say the evidence they've collected is open-and-shut. Clear as day. Indisputable. They should be eager to allow the 'jury' to weigh it and render a verdict. They now claim that the trial won't be "fair" because some of the jurors aren't impartial, citing comments from McConnell and Graham. Wait until they hear some of the things Chuck Schumer said in the late 1990s about the Clinton impeachment trial. Or what Democratic jurors are saying this very week. Recuse:

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Non-impartial juror, in plain sight. Recuse! That’s the rule right? 


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Let's face it, very few of them are impartial in any true sense.  With the exception of maybe half a dozen Senators, everybody knows exactly how they'll all vote.  That's how partisan impeachments go.  Pelosi knows this, which is why she was opposed to partisan impeachments.  Until she wasn't.  And she was all about a somber, no-nonsense vote. Until she wasn't.  And she started playing footsie with this preposterous, unprecedented 'impeach and withhold' nonsense.  

McConnell ridiculed Pelosi's foolish misstep during a lengthy floor speech on impeachment this morning:

In March, Speaker Pelosi said this: “Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path, because it divides the country.” End quote. 

By the Speaker’s own standards, she has failed the country. 

This case is not compelling, not overwhelming, and as a result, not bipartisan. This failure was made clear to everyone earlier this week, when Senator Schumer began searching for ways the Senate could step out of our proper role and try to fix House Democrats’ failures for them. 

And it was made even more clear last night, when Speaker Pelosi suggested that House Democrats may be too afraid to even transmit their shoddy work product to the Senate. The prosecutors are getting cold feet in front of the entire country and second-guessing whether they even want to go to trial. 

They said impeachment was so urgent that it could not even wait for due process but now they’re content to sit on their hands. It is comical.

And now they're talking about needing to collect more evidencePost-impeachment?  Why, it's almost as if they're partisan clowns, making things up as they go along.  It's the opposite of the image Pelosi has tried to cultivate and project.  And it undermines her accelerated timeline to get this whole enterprise in the rearview mirror as soon as possible, especially given the direction of public opinion.  

This maneuver is a gift to the GOP, and she's a sharp enough tactician to know it.  It'll be the most potent process complaint the president's defenders will have lodged to date, and it will resonate, while her moderates twist in the wind.  Like Allahpundit, I'm totally mystified by this.  I'll be surprised, and top Republicans will be delighted, if this self-inflicted wound is allowed to bleed out much longer.  

Yup:

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McConnell: “It’s beyond me how the Speaker and [Schumer] think withholding the articles of impeachment gives them leverage … Frankly, I’m not anxious to have the trial … If she thinks her case is so weak she doesn’t want to send it over, throw me into that briar patch.”

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As for misstep number two, I'll leave you with this -- which is far less serious and damaging, but further exposes Pelosi's unseriousness.  You want to confirm that a partisan impeachment is a 'sham,' as some have argued all along?  Play insane constitutional games and say things like this:

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It’s a very prayerful and solemn spring, though. The saddest spring. 

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Bravo, Madame Speaker.  Presidential misconduct aside, you've got yourself a ShamWow impeachment.

UPDATE - Are you serious?  You literally impeached the President of the United States last night, for only the third time in the republic's history, and you're absurdly declining to promptly send the articles to the Senate for trial -- and you can't be bothered to answer annoying questions about it?

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"I’m not going to go there anymore." — Speaker Pelosi, refusing to talk impeachment any further.


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Mark Levin: Nancy Pelosi's Latest Impeachment Stunt Is Brazenly Unconstitutional

By Katie Pavlich | Townhall.com


Source: (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

Conservative radio host and constitutional scholar Mark Levin is slamming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after she threatened to withhold two articles of impeachment against President Trump from the Senate Wednesday night.

"Nancy Pelosi was apparently advised by leftwing Harvard law professor Lawrence Tribe to delay sending the impeachment to the Senate. So she’s unilaterally sitting on the impeachment. This is another brazen unconstitutional act," Levin wrote Thursday morning on his Facebook page. 

"Here’s what Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans must do in response: The Senate has the sole power under the Constitution to adjudicate an impeachment. Therefore, Pelosi is attempting to obstruct the Senate’s power to act on its constitutional authority. McConnell should immediately put an end to this and declare the impeachment null and void as the speaker has failed to complete the impeachment process by timely sending it to the Senate for adjudication," he continued. "McConnell has no less authority to unilaterally make such a decision than Pelosi does to withhold the administrative notification of an impeachment to the Senate either indefinitely or with conditions. Her effort to cripple the presidency and blackmail the Senate must be defeated."

As Matt covered last night, Pelosi threatened to hold the articles if the Senate doesn't agree to conduct a "fair trial." 

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Reporter: Can you guarantee that the impeachment articles will be at some point sent to the Senate? Can you guarantee that?

@SpeakerPelosi: That would've been our intention, but we'll see what happens over there.

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We're still waiting on a decision about whethershe will hand this off to McConnell.


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Why House Republicans Should Take a Bow After This Impeachment Fiasco Is Over

By Matt Vespa | Townhall.com


Source: AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

The vote was inevitable. No one should have been shocked about yesterday’s impeachment vote. The Democrats have had the votes for weeks. The only question was how were House Republicans going to act in the face of these shoddy impeachment charges against President Trump. They weren’t going to let this go by smoothly—and they didn’t. 

The point of order calls, motions to adjourn, and roll call votes for everything concerning this circus was pervasive. Slow down the works and gum them up. Make sure the cameras hear what a shame this is—and they did. Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA) the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee did well under center executing this playbook. 

Reps. John Ratcliffe (R-TX), Elise Stefanik (R-NY), and Matt Gaetz (R-FL) were other MVPs who made sure in their respective committees that Democrats weren’t going to ring forward these articles with ease. That’s all they could do.

A united front was key concerning the optics of this whole mess because it is a political matter. In past impeachments, a few votes have peeled off in favor of this move. Not this time. We had total GOP support behind Trump in yesterday’s vote on both articles. Abuse of power and obstruction of Congress were the charges, and none of them passed the constitutional standard for the circus that has engulfed Washington. 

Crimes were actually committed in past impeachment pushes Trump did no such thing here. For those who are paying attention to this fiasco, this whole thing began in the super-secret basement of Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), chair of the House Intelligence Committee, who held secret hearings with witnesses, released selective transcripts of those testimonies that fit the Democratic narrative, and only gave Republican members one-page summaries that they could only read in front of a Democratic staffer. 

When this whole process came out of the bunker after the impeachment inquiry vote, then the whole thing fell apart. It was very much a replay of the Russian collusion delusion theater that dominated the news cycle for two years. 

And the basis for this impeachment is also garbage. It’s based on the allegation that Trump threatened to withhold aid from Ukraine unless they opened a corruption probe into Hunter Biden’s board position on Burisma, an energy company, which he filled during the Obama administration when daddy Biden was VP. He has no experience in energy, but was making $50,000/month and allegedly selling access to top Obama officials when Joe was trying to combat corruption in Ukraine at the time. Despite what some think, it’s a story, and the Biden campaign has failed miserably in trying to squash it. 

A reported CIA agent, who is also a registered Democrat, had worked with a 2020 candidate and was a former staffer o Obama’s National Security Council Staff, lobbed this quid pro quo allegation. This person reached out to Schiff’s staff prior to filing the complaint. Schiff probably knows who this person is and was privy to the contents of the whistleblower report, which he planned to weaponize against Trump before it was officially filed—talk about collusion, bias, and the deep state. 

The grounds for impeachment are nonsense. How this all came about was biased. Schiff was caught in a lie about not having contact with the whistleblower before the complaint was filed as well. It reeked of a Democratic witch-hunt. It is a Democratic witch-hunt. It’s a quasi-coup attempt, with the Democratic Party, the anti-Trump deep state, and the liberal media being the core principals in this charade. Squishy members could have bolted. They didn’t. Even outgoing Congressman Will Hurd (R-TX), the one who was the most open to these allegations, refused to cross the aisle as he saw the evidence was lacking and rightfully so. 

So, the GOP knew it was going down, but not before beating the causes for impeachment to a bloody, messy pulp. Now, all that needs to happen is for the Republican Senate to deliver the kill shot, which it will. That’s why Speaker Nancy Pelosi is threatening to withhold the articles until the Senate has a fair plan for trial or something. That’s not her call. Isn’t that overreach, abuse of power, and setting the stage for a constitutional crisis? 

Democrats can’t abide by their own rules or standards because they don’t have any. This whole circus has exposed them as being at the heart of the rot of America. They’re cancer. And the best remedy is to vote Republican in 2020. I mean we’re already seeing the benefits. 

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EXCLUSIVE: @GOP announced record fundraising numbers amid the #impeachment drive against @realDonaldTrump hauling in a whopping $20.6 million in November-- highest November fundraising in RNC history @GOPChairwoman https://www.foxnews.com/politics/republican-party-sets-fundraising-record-amid-impeachment-battle …