An inquiry into impeachment proceedings that would inevitably be a failure for Democrats is underway, but actually impeaching President Donald Trump is unlikely to be their real goal anyway. One of the few sane 2020 contenders, Tulsi Gabbard, warned that impeachment would “tear apart the country,” and perhaps that is the real goal. Or at least to turn impeachment proceedings into yet another aimless investigation to dig up dirt on Trump following the anti-climatic end of Robert Mueller’s special counsel.
It’s a partisan witch hunt – and without a hint of irony – many of those Democrats pushing for impeachment today were decrying an allegedly partisan witch hunt against Bill Clinton when it was him being impeached.
Jerry Nadler
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler is the chief hypocrite in the unfolding impeachment saga. When it was Bill Clinton’s impeachment, he warned that “This partisan coup d’etat will go down in infamy in the history of our nation.”
Nadler also seemed to think that impeaching a president for lying under oath was “lowering the standard of impeachment.”
If that was the case then, what does he think his proceedings are?
Nancy Pelosi
Nancy Pelosi’s tone also changed drastically on impeachment.
Speaking on the House floor in December 1998 she told us that “Today the Republican majority is not judging the president with fairness, but impeaching him with a vengeance.”
She added “In the investigation of the president, fundamental principles which Americans hold dear – fairness, privacy, checks and balances – have been seriously violated and why? Because we are here today because the Republicans in the House are paralyzed with hatred of President Clinton… Until the Republicans free themselves of that hatred, our country will suffer.”
John Lewis
When it was his party being drawn into a mess, John Lewis correctly realized that impeachment proceedings interfere with the government’s ability to do much else. “[Instead of discussing impeachment] We should be standing here debating the future of social security. We should be standing here debating health care. We should be standing here debating education for our children and how we can protect the environment. Instead we are participating in a political charade. Republicans want to do what they could not do in an election, defeat Bill Clinton.”
Change “Republicans” to Democrats,” and “Bill Clinton” to “Donald Trump,” and I don’t think truer words have ever been spoken by Rep. Lewis!
Maxine Waters
So devoted is she to the cause of impeachment that Maxine Waters has been calling for it since before Trump even took office.
She admitted that Clinton was “guilty of certain indiscretions, in his private life.” But, she said, Clinton “did not commit high crimes and misdemeanors” that warranted impeachment.
Above all else, she blasted a “partisan impeachment” that she described, like Nadler, as a Republican Coup.
There’s no question that any talks of impeachment are politically motivated, and nothing more. Those who once bemoaned that the standards for impeachment were being eroded have succeeded in now making those standards unrecognizable.
It looks like Democrats were simply against witch hunts before they were for them.
