With her failed stall tactics, 79-year-old House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called for the vote to approve sending two articles of impeachment to the U.S. Senate for trial. Passed Dec. 13, 2019, the two articles, one on abuse of power and the other on obstructing Congress, Pelosi followed the advice of 78-year-old Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe to delay sending the articles until she won concessions from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). After a month of no concessions, Pelosi relented, finally calling the vote to send the two articles to the Senate for trial. Pelosi wanted McConnell to agree to allow Democrats to call more witnesses and add new documents proving that 73-year-old President Donald Trump engaged in a quid pro quo with 40-year-old Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to get dirt on the Bidens in exchange for military aid.
Democrats contend that Trump tried to bribe Zelensky into getting information on 77-year-old former Vice President Joe Biden and his 50 year-old son, Hunter. While Democrats and their media friends accuse Trump of interfering in the 2020 election, Trump was more interested in information on Hunter, who made millions on the board of Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings. Trump was interested in checking out Ukrainian corruption, more than giving himself an unfair advantage in the 2020 election. Joe, after all, is not the Democrat Party nominee, only one among 14 other Democrat candidates running for president. Hunter was not running for elective office, perfectly fair game for the president or anyone else in seeking information. Pelosi, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and House Judiciary Chairman Jerold Nadler (D-N.Y.) accuse Trump of treason.
Pelosi, Schiff and Nadler have stated publicly that Trump’s guilty of abuse of power and obstructing Congress, blasting McConnell for saying he was “coordinating” with the White House. Pelosi pretends that the Senate must be impartial, when House Democrats concocted impeachment articles in the most partisan, one-sided process ever. House Democrats have accused Senate Republicans to staging a sham trial before the proceedings begin because they won’t let Pelosi dictate terms of a Senate trial. Today, Pelosi announced Schiff to lead the House managers to prosecute the case against Trump. Only recently, Republicans wanted to name Schiff as a witness because of his direct involvement with a so-called “whistleblower” who complained about Trump’s July 25 phone call with Zelensky. Schiff denied talking with the “whistleblower,” until he admitted Oct. 3, 2019 he did have contact.
Schiff and his House managers will present the Democrat case that Trump committed high-crimes-and-misdemeanors warranting impeachment. Yet the two articles are so vague they don’t meet the Constitutional test of “treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” If there’s no high-crimes-and-misdemeanors, what are Democrats hoping to show skeptical Republican jurors on the Judiciary Committee? Democrats are aligned politically to get rid of Trump but they have yet to convince any Republicans in the House or Senate to go along. Demanding new witnesses and documents, Democrats know their case won’t convince 67 senators to convict Trump on non-impeachable offenses. All House managers make the same case that Trump ordered Zelensky to dig up dirt on the Bidens in exchange for $391 million in Congressionally-approved military aid.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) demanded that former National Security Adviser John Bolton, Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and Office and Management and Budget [OMB] Pentagon chief Michael Duffey all testify and provide new documents. In the worst-case scenario, showing that Trump wanted information on the Bidens in exchange for military aid, Democrats still haven’t shown that Trump committed high-crimes-and-misdemeanors as defined in the Constitution. Charging Trump with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress are not high-crimes-and-misdemeanors. House Democrats made up their own version of high-crimes-and-misdemeanors, including saying that Trump asked a foreign leader for information on a U.S. citizen. Since when is that a high-crime-and-misdemeanor? Republicans don’t think Trump committed an impeachable offense.
Pelosi revealed her extreme bias and vendetta against Trump. “He has been impeached forever,” Pelosi said with glee. “They can never erase that,” knowing that she and her House managers face their comeuppance in any Senate trial. Speaking out loud, Pelosi shows for all to see her great accomplishment getting the Democrats caucus to approve two articles of impeachment against Trump, even though they fall way short of the Constitutional standard. Republicans have lived, since Trump’s Nov. 4, 2016 election, with Democrats’ attempts to find grounds to nullify the election, including talking impeachment since Day One. Schiif, who heads Pelosi’s team, said March 3, 2019 that there’s “direct evidence of collusion,” referring to Trump’s involvement with Russia. On March 23, 2019 former FBI Director Special Counsel Robert Mueller cleared Trump or his campaign of Russian involvement.
