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Impeachment Discredited Politically by IG Report and Bitter House Democrats with “0%” Bipartisan Support

December 12, 2019         Vol. XII, No. 11         3:13 pm

Yes, Trump is Appalling, but …

It does not matter politically that everything President Donald Trump is accused of by US House Democrats is true if the alternative to President Trump is worse. After witnessing both the spectacle of the hyper-partisan impeachment proceedings, that failed to convert a single bipartisan vote, and the testimony by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz exposing corruption in the highest ranks of the FBI, many Americans will undoubtedly conclude that the alternative to Trump is worse.

What’s worse than President Trump’s everyday appalling comments and behavior? How about FBI lawyers who alter CIA email to say that a respected CIA informant, Naval Academy graduate and Trump campaign advisor Carter Page, was not a CIA asset? Intentionally falsifying a FISA application document is illegal. Withholding exculpatory information is the reason Carter Page was unjustly suspected of spying for Russia and why the FISA court approved spying on Carter Page.

Yes, President Trump’s behavior is frequently appalling and unbecoming of the President of the United States. Not that anyone needs examples, but just today, President Trump criticized as “So ridiculous” the naming of 16-year-old environmental activist Greta Thunberg as Time magazine’s “Person of the Year.” That’s an appalling and shameful statement, especially from a US President.

But, is Trump’s behavior more appalling than the Inspector General’s testimony that 17 “inexplicable” inaccuracies and omissions by the FBI in the process of obtaining four separate FISA warrants led to the unwarranted spying on Carter Page? Intentional? “It’s hard to look at all 17 of these events and conclude it was complete incompetence,” said Horowitz.

Is Trump’s behavior more appalling than the fact that the FBI knew and failed to report that the Steele dossier, the document that Horowitz said “pushed the FISA over the line” in establishing probable cause for spying on Carter Page, was not only written by an unreliable source who was “desperate to prevent Mr. Trump’s election,” but was paid for by the Clinton campaign?

The FBI had a duty to report exculpatory information and to obtain evidence legally, and they didn’t. The FBI has been caught by the Inspector General using the “fruit of the poisonous tree” to, as Attorney General William Barr said on Monday, “launch an intrusive investigation of a US presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps taken.”

That, my friends, is appalling. And, as much can be said for the impeachment proceedings.

Impeachment with Avengeance Yields “0%” Bipartisan Support

US House Democrats have launched an intrusive investigation of a US President on suspicions so thin that they have failed to achieve their goal of bipartisan support. Not one Republican is with them.

Without bipartisan support for impeachment, Democrats will wind up being punished. And Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, knows that all too well. “Unless you have bipartisan consensus, impeachment is a divisive issue in the country,” Pelosi said on May 8, 2019, at a Politico event. “Many people would think it’s being done for political reasons,” she added.

Is impeachment a divisive issue in the country? Today’s Real Clear Politics average of all polling on the question of impeachment shows 46.5% “Yes” and 46.5% “No.” A divided nation over impeachment and “0% bipartisan support is the worst possible outcome for Democrats.

The resolution in the US House to open the impeachment inquiry passed 232-196, with not a single Republican vote. On February 6, 1974, the US House voted 410-4 to proceed with the formal impeachment inquiry against President Nixon. There was also bipartisan support in 1998, when 31 House Democrats voted with Republicans for the impeachment inquiry against President Clinton.

I cautioned in my last report, if the final US House vote on impeachment is 100% partisan, Democrats will be facing a political backlash in 2020. The vote on impeachment is 100% partisan.

So, what happened to Pelosi’s wise council on the need for bipartisan consensus? Bitterness.

From the day Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton, too many House Democrats have allowed their bitterness to get the best of them. Sure, they stand soberly before the microphones quoting American founders and justifying impeachment as their duty to the Constitution, but most Americans only see bitter partisans in a Congress with a 21.8% Job Approval rating (66.5% disapprove).

On December 18, 1998, Nancy Pelosi, D-California, said, “The Republican majority is not judging President Clinton with fairness but impeaching him with avengeance. We are here today because Republicans are paralyzed with hatred.” The same statement can be made about Democrats today.

The lack of bipartisan support for impeachment, along with the Inspector General’s report this week, clearly make the case that President Trump is being impeached with avengeance because Democrats are paralyzed with hatred over losing in 2016.

It does not matter politically that everything President Donald Trump is accused of by US House Democrats is true if the alternative to President Trump is worse. Revenge impeachment is worse.

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John N. Davis

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