The Five Myths of The Day for the Fake News Bunch #FNB
Richmond, VA— Congressman Morgan Griffith (R-VA) summed it up on #JFRS yesterday: “President Trump has boxed Nancy Pelosi into a lose-lose corner on impeachment. If she holds a vote on a hearing, she either loses the vote now or loses the gavel in 2020. That’s why I predict there will be no vote.”
Griffith is on to something. Pelosi doesn’t want a legitimate process where Republicans have subpoena power and vulnerable freshman Democrats in her fractured caucus have to go on the record with a recorded vote.
Instead, we have her three-ring circus politically motivated sideshow where GOP ranking committee members have no ability to cross-examine, question or offer a rebuttal to witnesses.
As a result, the President is denied due process.
Let’s first set the record straight about House Democrats’ unprecedented contempt for due process rights, shall we?
MYTH #1: Due Process Applies Only During the Senate Trial
FACT: Due process applies to both the House inquiry and the Senate trial. When the House Judiciary Committee conducted impeachment investigations for the Clinton and Nixon impeachments, it approved procedures that protected the President’s due process rights.
MYTH #2 : The President Has No Right to Cross-Examine Witnesses in The House
FACT: The procedures approved by the Judiciary Committee for the Nixon and Clinton impeachments both explicitly state “[t]he President’s counsel may question any witness called before the Committee.” President Clinton’s attorney questioned Ken Starr when he appeared before the Judiciary Committee, and President Nixon’s attorney questioned each of the nine witnesses that appeared before the Judiciary Committee.
MYTH #3: The President Has No Right to Counsel in The House
FACT: The procedures approved by the Judiciary Committee for the Nixon and Clinton impeachments both explicitly state “The President and his counsel shall be invited to attend all hearings, including any held in executive session.” President Clinton’s attorneys were allowed to call and question 14 expert witnesses before the Judiciary Committee.
MYTH #4: The House Is the Grand Jury, So Due Process Is Unnecessary
FACT: Unlike impeachment inquiries, grand jury proceedings are secret. But impeachment inquiries are conducted in the open, and the investigating committee’s facts are reported at the end of the inquiry.
MYTH #5: Nothing Requires the House to Vote to Approve an Impeachment Inquiry
FACT: In every prior presidential impeachment inquiry in our history, the full House has voted to authorize the inquiry.
That is not a mere matter of custom, it is an essential step to delegate authority for a committee to act pursuant to the House’s impeachment authority—which cannot happen without a vote from the House.
Nothing in current House rules allows any committee to open an impeachment inquiry by itself.
Each committee can act only with the authorities delegated by the House, and under current House rules, no committee has been given jurisdiction over impeachment or the authority to investigate pursuant to the House’s impeachment authority under Article 1, section 2 of the Constitution.
But facts or rules don’t matter now.
The Democrats and their lying media acolytes have nothing to run on in 2020. So they have to move forward with impeachment and makeup stuff as they go along.
Case in point: CNN (Clown News Network) “declares a war on facts.”
Fake News CNN is falsely asserting that the White House letter to House Democrats on impeachment “declares war” on the Constitution.
Seriously, CNN?
Fact: The House Democrats’ impeachment sham is unfair, unprecedented, and constitutionally illegitimate with no full vote and no authority to move forward.
As the White House stated in their letter to Pelosi, this impeachment sham “lacks any legitimate constitutional foundation, any pretense of fairness, or even the most elementary due process protections.”
Trump snubbed their scam, and now CNN goes a rampage. Hilarious antics coming from the biggest liars and purveyors of fake news.
Pelosi’s Democrats are defying every longstanding precedent as to how constitutionally valid impeachment inquiries are conducted. How can one not look at this entire charade as overtly political?
Hold a Vote Nancy–What Are You Afraid Of?
If Pelosi holds a vote, and the House authorizes a legitimate Impeachment hearing, then let’s all have at it.
Until now, the House of Representatives has never attempted to launch an impeachment inquiry against a President without voting to authorize it.
Pelosi’s Democrats are refusing to respect even the most fundamental due process protections that every American is entitled to and are protected by the Constitution. In so doing, they’re trashing nearly 150 years of precedent.
Why are House Democrats trying to overturn the voice of the American people and undermine our democratic system?
It’s simple: power.
They can’t beat Trump in 2020–they know he’s going to win again–so they’re in a desperate witch hunt for something to tag him with Russia, recession, racism, tax returns, emoluments, Ukraine, whistleblowers, you name it.
In the meantime they get nothing done. No USMCA, no Surprise Medical Billing legislation, no prescription drug pricing plan. What are the Democrats going to take to the voters in 2020?
It’s become the witch hunt Party.
Why won’t Pelosi just call a vote on an impeachment hearing?
Because she’s from San Francisco, and she remembers the last scene of the movie Dirty Harry.
“Do you feel lucky today, Nancy?”
Never Trumpers