Farrell: House Democrats Are Set To Impeach Trump; They May Not Like The Result

From Chris Farrell’s Op-Ed for The Daily Caller:

In 1998, during the Clinton impeachment, Democratic New York Rep. Jerry Nadler paraphrased Benjamin Franklin saying impeachment was intended to be “a substitute for assassination.”

Nadler may still believe that, but it appears more likely that the Democrat rush to impeachment will take them down rather than President Trump.

The party-line voting throughout the sham impeachment “process” illustrates part of the challenge Democrats face. In 2018, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “Unless you have bipartisan consensus, impeachment is a divisive issue in the country. Many people would think it’s being done for political reasons.” Pelosi was right. And today, lacking bipartisan consensus, many if not most people know that this impeachment is simply a political stunt. The only bipartisanship in the process will come from among the 31 Democrats in Trump-voting districts who may break ranks with their party. One of them, New Jersey Rep. Jeff Van Drew, is switching parties rather than face a progressive primary challenger in 2020. Others may feel pressured to “vote their conscience,” which really means vote for political survival.

The charges against the president are confusing to most Americans, and don’t even meet constitutional muster. Realizing they had failed to bother citing an actual crime in their rush to impeachment, the Democrats believe they have cured their fatally flawed effort in the publication Monday of a 658-page Judiciary Committee report, stating: “President Trump abused the powers of the presidency by ignoring and injuring national security and other vital national interests to obtain an improper personal political benefit,” the report reads. “He has also betrayed the nation by abusing his high office to enlist a foreign power in corrupting democratic elections.” (RELATED: FARRELL: Obama Wanted To Know Everything His Trump Spies Were Doing, And It Looks Like He Did)

I’m certain Democrats are relieved that they had the weekend to paper-up their pathetic committee hearing work and get that into the report. This shows how Democrats are trivializing the impeachment process. Traditionally impeachment has been considered a last resort to be used against a president who met the strict standard of having committed high crimes and misdemeanors. It was not intended to be the product of policy disagreements, tantrums by frustrated career government bureaucrats, and swamp politics as usual.

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