Hanging by a thread
The White House hasn’t found a way to defend themselves from impeachment and the Republicans have been struggling mightily to find a defense that works.
The obvious answer is that it is impossible to defend the president’s actions because they obviously corrupt and show a clear abuse of power. I wish they would just see that with their own eyes and tell their voters that it is over. Trump’s actions are a clear violation of the Constitution and he should be thrown out of office.
But alas, the current Republicans in Congress can’t find the spine to do that so they came up with a weak defense that they’ve been rolling out this week. They can’t defend the president’s actions (just watch–none of them are doing this), they can’t attack the whistleblower because they don’t know who it is, and the testimony that’s come out of the House hearings so far as been air tight. So, they’ve decided to go after the process the Democrats are using.
Mitch McConnell laid out this specific tactic earlier this week which is documented here: McConnell to Republicans: Defend Trump on process This is why you saw dozens of House Republicans breach national security to storm into a secure room (SCIF) earlier this week, to protest the Democrats’ process. (Still not sure how that helped their cause.) It’s why Senator Lindsey Graham is introducing a resolution to pressure the House Democrats to change their process. (Excuse me while my eyes roll back in my head.)
All that said, process is the only thing the Republicans have and so we’re going to see more attempts to reframe impeachment this way. So, here’s what we should be saying to counteract this tactic:
🔹 There is no specific process for impeachment outlined in the Constitution other than that the House makes the charge and Senate holds the trial.
🔹 Therefore, the Democrats are using the current House rules to run the process. They are literally following the rules.
🔹 There are 3 committees conducting impeachment hearings and all of them have Republicans sitting on them and partipating.
🔹 And most importantly, we must point out that the Republicans aren’t defending Trump’s actions — because they can’t. They are grasping at straws.
After that, keep talking about what the people testifying in front of the House are saying. Their testimony keeps confirming what the original whistleblower said. So much so, that the Democrats think they don’t need the whistleblower to testify at all.
The facts coming out about how Trump required quid pro quo with Ukraine is far more interesting, damning, and important than the GOP trying to cook up a “process” issue. But we can’t leave it up to chance or the media. Keep flooding the airwaves and social media and your conversations with the facts.
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Hello TokyoSand . The interesting thing is these rules were crafted by the Republicans in 2015 and were used against Hillary Clinton during the Benghazi hearings. Hugs
So true.
Trump and his Republican henchmen – especially William Barr – are also using other authoritarian tactics such as delaying and obstructing the impeachment process, using disinformation campaigns and government agencies to shift media attention away towards contrived right-wing conspiracy theories, and trying to intimidate witnesses, officials, and even the public at large with all manner of threats.
This is what dictators do. This is what mob bosses do.
Hello Robert. Yes the stunt that Matt Gaetz organized and was part in, is total witness intimidation as he tried during the M Cohen testimony. The thugs are running amok as they have no way to deny the clearly illegal actions of this administration, so violence, intimidation, and basically thug rule becomes the way they try to maintain minority rule. The do not care about democracy, they crave power and would gladly see the US as a one party rule such as China rather than lose the power they are seeing slip from them daily. Hugs
The involvement of Barr is extremely distressing to me.