Impeachment case "DOA"; Sen. Paul decries "kangaroo court"
We need a lot more Republicans with the backbone of Sen. Rand Paul.
Sunday, in a remarkable interview, he pushed back forcefully against George Stephanopoulos’ insistence that he says the 2020 election was “not stolen.” As if any objective person, well-versed in what happened before, during, and after Election Day, could say that with certainty.
Tuesday, on the Senate floor, Sen. Paul unloaded on Democrats bent on removing a President from office who is already gone. This speech preceded his point of order to affirm that the planned impeachment trial is unconstitutional, as the impeachment of a private citizen is illegal and “essentially, a bill of attainder.”
Sen. Paul appeared later Tuesday on FOX NEWS with Maria Bartiromo, who reported that the Senate had voted 55-45 to set aside his point of order. Still, with 45 senators on record saying this trial is unconstitutional, there won’t be a conviction and this is all just extremely divisive political theater.
"If you voted that it was unconstitutional,” Sen. Paul told POLITICO, “how in the world would you ever convict somebody for this? This vote indicates it’s over. The trial is all over.” And in a tweet, Paul said the House impeachment case is “dead on arrival.”
You can see the video of his speech here at POLITICROSSING, which also has a brief biographical piece on Sen. Paul.
The Kentucky senator opens by talking about what this trial will NOT do: “unify” the country. It does just the opposite of what Democrats claim to want to do. “Impeaching a former President, a private citizen, is the antithesis of unity,” Paul says. “Unity is the opposite of this travesty we’re about to witness.”
He points out that the appointment of a “pro-impeachment Democrat” to preside is neither fair nor impartial. And he’s right: Sen. Patrick Leahy –- whom I would add has ALREADY SAID he would vote to impeach –- is presiding instead of Chief Justice John Roberts, who opted out. The refusal of Chief Justice Roberts to participate is, in itself, enough to show this proceeding for the unconstitutional sham it is.
[Related news: on Tuesday, it was reported that Sen. Leahy, 80, was “feeling unwell” and taken to the hospital for examination and tests but returned home Tuesday night. No details were given. We pray for him and his family.]
"Hyper-partisan Democrats,” Paul says in his speech, “are about to drag our great country down into the gutter of rancor and vitriol the likes of which has never been seen in our nation’s history.”
Truly, I believe that if you don’t count the Civil War –- which seems to be the only worse time that comes to mind these days –- Paul is right in saying this is the most “uncivil” it’s been.
"It’s almost as if they have no ability to exist except in opposition to Donald Trump.”
Bingo –- and now that he’s gone, they will be aiming their venom at anyone who doesn’t share that opposition. Worse, they’ll feel totally self-righteous and “woke” about it.
Paul does a great job of contrasting Trump’s call for “peacefully and patriotically” making their way to the Capitol Building to some of the genuinely incendiary comments that have been made by Democrats.
"No Democrat will honestly ask whether Bernie Sanders incited the shooter that nearly killed Steve Scalise,” he says. Sen. Paul was there and saw that it easily could have become a massacre. “[The shooter] fervently believed the false and inflammatory rhetoric spewed by Bernie and other Democrats...[about Republicans opposing Obamacare wanting people to die].” Sen. Paul notes that when the shooter pulled the trigger, he screamed, “This is for health care!!”
Sen. Paul also cites Sen. Cory Booker, who called for his supporters to “get up in their face [of members of Congress],” and Rep. Maxine Waters, who told her supporters “that if you see a member of the Trump administration at a restaurant, at a department store, at a gas station, or any place, you create a crowd, and you push back on them.” Paul is right: Such words are a recipe for mob violence, and this type of rhetoric is one big reason why anyone working for Trump was asking for trouble (and still is) just stepping outside without protection. Because of the severity of the threats, my own daughter Sarah was the first White House press secretary ever to need Secret Service protection.
Paul describes the experience he and his wife had as they left a White House rally on foot, being bullied, screamed at and threatened with death “by the same type of mob that Maxine likes to inspire.” He says that when this happened, he wasn’t sure they’d come through it alive “even with the police protection.” (My wife and I were at that event and had a similar frightening experience, although not as dangerous as Sen. Paul’s.)
He reminds them that Republicans have endured this political climate without stooping to impeach Democrats for inciting violence. They haven’t held Democrats responsible for what Antifa and BLM did, even though that has resulted in deaths, many injuries, and over $1 billion dollars in damage from burning and looting. They haven't done it even though “many on the Democrat side cheered them on,” Paul says, with Kamala Harris even offering to pay the bill for those who got arrested.
"I wonder if she’ll be brought up on charges of inciting violence,” Paul said, “now that she’s Vice President.” No, he said, because the Republicans won’t go down that “low road of impeaching people for political speech.”
"I want the Democrats to raise their hands if they have ever given a speech that says ‘take back,’ ‘fight for your country.’ Who hasn’t used the word ‘fight’ figuratively...and are we going to impeach every politician who has used the word ‘fight’ figuratively in a speech? Shame --- shame on these angry, unhinged partisans for putting on this sham impeachment, deranged by their hatred of the former President. Shame on those who seek blame and revenge, and who choose to pervert a constitutional process while doing so.”
The speech runs for just over 9 minutes. It’s a must-see, especially from the 7-minute point on, when he gets into “facts,” “truth” and the censorship of opposing views. This is “a dark blot on the history of our country,” Paul says. “I urge my colleagues to reconsider this kangaroo court and move forward to debate the great issues of our day.” Sen. Paul's words need to be remembered not only for their importance but as a reflection of this period of mass political hysteria that we pray America can pull out of.
Make no mistake, it is hysteria. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz quipped to Sean Hannity on Tuesday night that “I feel like I’m kind of trapped in GROUNDHOG DAY, where, apparently, every January, we’re gonna be doing another impeachment.”
Trump declassified docs showing FBI malfeasance
One story that’s getting lost in the week’s giant steaming shovelful of...well, news...is the information being mined from FBI documents that President Trump declassified almost literally on his way out the door.
Investigative reporter John Solomon has been quietly going through this material, and you can keep up by following his work on his website JUST THE NEWS.
Remember when Andrew McCabe, then acting director of the FBI, decided to open a formal investigation into President Trump on the grounds that Trump’s firing of Director James Comey might have been an act of obstruction, done to thwart the (phony) “Russia” investigation? (Come to think of it, remember how virtually everything Trump did, even if it was well within his authority as President, was labeled “obstruction”?) And remember how “shocked, shocked!” Democrats were that Trump would dare fire Comey and how they all, as if on cue, started demanding the appointment of a special counsel?
Well, we now have contemporaneous notes from a May 2017 meeting at which then-deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was informed of McCabe’s decision to formally investigate Trump. There are notes from both McCabe and Lisa Page.
There’s something intriguing in Page’s notes. She wrote that in the meeting, Rosenstein expressed outrage that Comey had been fired, but she added a comment that this rage seemed odd to her, as Rosenstein had already revealed to FBI officials, presumably including her, that he and then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions had been contemplating firing Comey for months, since January. She apparently wondered what the big deal was about Trump firing Comey if the DOJ was getting ready to fire him anyway. (If there was one thing Democrats and Republicans generally agreed on, it was that James Comey deserved to be canned.)
McCabe’s notes are consistent. Five days later, in notes from a different meeting, he quoted Rosenstein as saying the firing of Comey had been in the works for months and WAS NOT REALLY DRIVEN BY THE RUSSIA PROBE. (Emphasis mine --- obviously, the "Russia" thing was just a pretense.)
Page’s notes are also consistent with Rosenstein’s Senate testimony that he and Sessions wanted to fire Comey in January 2017. But what we know now is that McCabe and others at the Bureau KNEW this even as they opened the investigation against Trump for doing the very thing their superiors at the DOJ had been talking about doing for months –- firing Comey!
If the investigation of Trump seemed like a sham before, this shows it to have been even more of one. “Most supervisors I know wouldn’t open that case with such stunning exculpatory information,” said Jeffrey Danik, a decorated 28-year veteran FBI supervisory agent who retired in 2015. “It’s more than flawed; it’s its own standalone abuse. You have exculpatory information, and you are ignoring it.”
Can you say “witch hunt”?
Something else: Remember when McCabe testified before Congress that Rosenstein offered to wear a wire and surreptitiously record President Trump as part of a plot to invoke the 25th Amendment? Now we have McCabe’s own notes about that. He records this exchange factually and appears to take the suggestion seriously, not expressing any interpretation that Rosenstein might be joking, as Rosenstein later claimed he was.
"As our conversation continued,” McCabe wrote contemporaneously in May of 2017, “the DAG [Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein] proposed that he could potentially wear a recording device into the Oval Office to collect additional information on the President’s true intentions. He said he thought this might be possible because he was not searched when he entered the White House. I told him that I would discuss the opportunity with my investigative team and get back to him.”
Do you get the impression from this that anyone is kidding? Neither do I. No, this is just more indication that President Trump has been right all along about what was being done to him by the FBI. And Solomon has merely scratched the surface of what we’re going to learn.
"Fact-checking" officially dead
Surprise, Surprise: The Washington Post announced that now that Joe Biden is in, they will no longer be “fact-checking” everything the President says. They figure Biden will be like Obama and never lie (Ahem – “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor,” “Obamacare will save you $2500 a year,” etc., etc., etc.)
Of course, we’ve all learned how the media define “lies” from a Republican: any opinion they disagree with, any joke at their expense, any deliberate exaggeration to make a point, any figure of speech they can take literally, and any statement of objective fact that they can find a way to nitpick or come up with an alternative interpretation.
But that’s okay if they don’t want to chronicle all the lies Biden tells (he’ll govern as a unifying moderate, he won’t ban fracking, nobody who makes less than $400,000 a year will pay a penny more in taxes, etc., etc., etc.) We’ll just keep doing it for them.
Oh, and the Federalist is also on the case.
Highest -Paid Federal Employee
Take a wild guess who’s the highest-paid employee in the entire federal government. Here’s a hint: like most government salaries, you will probably think it’s costing us far more than it’s worth.
Yep, We’re Back to the Obama Policies
Because of Joe Biden’s executive order killing the Keystone Pipeline on his first day as President, hundreds of workers have already been laid off.
Since it was set to create at least 8,000 jobs, the destruction is just getting started. Don’t worry, though: Biden’s Transportation Secretary pick, Pete Buttigieg, suggests that thanks to Biden’s push for climate change initiatives, those pipe workers can just get “different jobs.”
Would any of them like to apply for Transportation Secretary? I have a feeling plenty of them would be more qualified than the current pick.
Harriet Tubman In The News
The Biden Administration wants to speed up the process of putting abolitionist Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill. It’s interesting because, as this history lesson notes, under their current standards, they would find Harriet Tubman guilty of insurrection.
Personally, I’m all for replacing Andrew Jackson with Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill. Why keep honoring the notoriously racist founder of the Democratic Party when we could honor a black, female, gun-owning, Republican freedom fighter?
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. -- Plato (429-347 BC)
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