White House condemns Democrats' 'unhinged obsession' with impeachment after House approves resolution
The White House releases a statement defending President Trump against Democrats' 'illegitimate' impeachment probe after the House approves rules for the inquiry; John Roberts has more on the reaction.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif, said in March: “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.” But on Thursday she took the opposite position, winning House approval of a resolution to formalize impeachment proceedings against President Trump without any compelling, overwhelming, or bipartisan support.
Not a single Republican House member voted for the resolution, but two Democrats sided with Republicans to vote against it.
The Democrats’ resolution changes absolutely nothing. All it does is formalize the Democrats’ political vendetta against President Trump and rig the process in favor of their party. How fitting that they formalized their endless witch hunt on Halloween.
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This resolution essentially crowns House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., as king of the Democrats’ witch hunt, vesting in him ultimate authority over impeachment proceedings.
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According to the resolution, Schiff has the power to decline witnesses subpoenaed by Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., who must also submit extensive written justification for every subpoena he requests. The few subpoenas that are accepted by Democrats will have to face an Intelligence Committee including of 10 of the 13 Democrats who supported impeachment well before Thursday’s vote was held.
Further, only 22 members of the House can participate in the impeachment investigation – down from 110 originally – meaning that millions of Americans will have their representatives excluded from this broken process.
The White House is also excluded from participating until after the House Judiciary Committee inevitably produces a biased report based on Schiff’s unfair hearings. Until that happens, the rules are unclear. What is clear, though, is that President Trump has been denied basic due process rights throughout this entire charade.
With Thursday’s vote, Pelosi and Schiff have managed to make this impeachment charade even less democratic than before. They claimed this vote would provide transparency for their shady impeachment sham, but it only serves to further limit the integrity of the process while making their partisan witch hunt even more glaringly obvious.
But let’s not let this show of political grandstanding distract us from the truth: President Trump did nothing wrong. There was no quid pro quo.
As Democrats continue to politicize their impeachment agenda, recent polling in battleground states indicates that the American people see right through their charade. In fact, support for the president only grows.
Since Pelosi first called for an impeachment inquiry, President Trump’s approval has increased by three points in 17 targeted states. In those states, voters opposed Democrats’ impeachment effort by a 14-point margin. Independents nationally oppose the effort by a 13-point margin.
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And 70 percent of voters believe this is “all politics” and would prefer that congressional Democrats focus on the real issues – such as ratifying the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement, securing critical defense spending, and funding federal departments and agencies.
Some $1.7 billion worth of tax breaks are being left on the table while Democrats pursue this impeachment sham.
The American people are tired of the partisan politics by Democrats, and the poll numbers show that.
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The vote by House Democrats Thursday is nothing but hocus pocus. It serves only to formalize what’s been an illegitimate process from the start and instead leaves us with a deeply flawed attack on the president rigged in favor of Adam Schiff.
From the very beginning, Democrats were dead-set on discrediting the results of the 2016 election. But try as they might to unravel our electoral process, they will inevitably fail. Their decision to disregard the will of the people will haunt them at the ballot box and only serve to bolster President Trump’s reelection prospects in 2020.