Since President Trump was elected, there have been four formal official attempts by U.S. House Democrats to impeach the president — the first initiated more than two years ago.
In addition, there was an immense deep dive, $35 million FBI investigation, which has now been completely and unquestionably renounced. We have all witnessed the Democrats’ obsession with impeachment, their vulgar comments, the House votes (nearly 100 Democrats voted to advance impeachment well before the Ukraine situation), and 16 of the 24 Democrat Judiciary Committee members voted in July 2019 for impeachment before their “hearings” began.
We all witnessed an unprecedented impeachment process: testimony behind closed doors, cherry-picking public witnesses, disallowance of exculpatory evidence, and not only a presumption of guilt, but a frothing at the mouth (as an example, Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler said to me last March that he was going to put President Trump in jail). My take on this “jerry-rigged” impeachment is that because they had no case, they felt it necessary to game the process.
But let’s avoid opinion and move on and look at the evidence and actual testimonies of the witnesses. No matter how House Democrats wish to say it, there is not one instance, not one example, not one email or note, not one firsthand directive from anyone in the executive branch or associated with the president, including the president and Rudy Giuliani, that any offer was made to Ukraine to investigate the Bidens in exchange for something. Ambassador Sondland corrected his confusing remarks when he retracted any such misunderstanding
The president in the call with the Ukrainian president brought up corruption, and yes, stated a glaring example of this corruption was the fact that Hunter Biden was working for a corrupt Ukrainian company, whose CEO was an arch-criminal. As we know, Vice President Biden got involved by saying he wanted the top Ukrainian prosecutor to be fired in exchange for a billion dollars in aid.
I had an occasion to speak with the president personally about this matter this past October. The president was confident, unafraid, and stated that the whole thing has no merit. He was so confident even before hearings began because he knew he had done nothing wrong. How can any evidence be found when there was no wrongdoing, no inappropriate action, and certainly no crime committed?
Yet, Democrats voted to impeach the president for obstructing Congress. If this is the new standard for exercising executive privilege, Presidents Obama, Bush 43, and Carter, should have all been impeached. Worth noting, a Democrat House member stated on camera that he voted for impeachment because certain witnesses didn’t appear. Never mind the fact that 25 Trump administration officials testified, and thousands of pages of records were provided during the investigation. But these witnesses he is referring to were requested with few days’ notice, were provided no understanding of the customary procedures, and were ordered to appear while the president and his team were departing for the NATO summit. Real compelling reason to impeach, huh? Unbelievable.
The other article, “abuse of power?” Concerning who? As the president of Ukraine and his staff stated repeatedly, they knew of no pressure, nor was there any such demands for anything. The Democrats, of course, dismissed this testimony and conveniently stated the Ukrainian president must be lying.
Speaker Pelosi now won’t let this go. She thinks that she has the right to tell the Senate how to run their trial. Nancy Pelosi’s House, and those members who follow her lead by voting with her 100 percent of the time, seem to think that they have a parliamentary jurisdiction of other branches of our government. Remember the Constitution, madam speaker.
Nothing good has or will come from this impeachment process — all they’ve done is damage our nation. Democrat members have stated that what is important is that President Trump is now stained for all of history. That’s just great — never mind the waste of time and the millions of taxpayer dollars squandered. Weaponizing impeachment is a damn scary episode in our history. The Pelosi Democrats have shown that they cannot be trusted to lead. They have put their differences with the president well above what is best for the country, and since they don’t trust the American voter to decide who our president should be, the American voter is justified in not trusting Nancy Pelosi’s House. It is a matter of trust.
Congressman Dan Meuser (R-PA) represents Pennsylvania’s Ninth District.