Former President Trump’s second impeachment trial overshadowed President Biden’s first month in the White House.
The impeachment resolution alleged that the outgoing President “acted in a manner grossly incompatible with self-governance and the rule of law” by issuing “false statements asserting that the Presidential election results were the product of widespread fraud and should not be accepted by the American people.”
The resolution also claimed that President Trump “imperiled a coequal branch of Government” by making “statements that, in context, encouraged — and foreseeably resulted in — lawless action at the Capitol” on January 6.
Though the House of Representatives voted in favor of the resolution, Democrats in the Senate failed to muster the 67 votes necessary to convict former President Trump. Seven Republicans in the Senate, however, broke ranks with their colleagues to vote with the Democrats — much to the ire of their constituents.
As President Trump’s legal team noted during the Senate trial, a closer look at the impeachment charges would reveal that many prominent Democrats could be impeached under the same standards.
Here are seven examples.
Nancy Pelosi
In June of 2018, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) suggested that “uprisings” should occur in response to the practice of separating illegal immigrant children from their guardians.
“First of all, this was an act of the administration. They had been planning this for a while,” Pelosi commented at a press conference. “I just don’t even know why there aren’t uprisings all over the country. And maybe there will be, when people realize that this is a policy that they defend.”
More recently, the congresswoman claimed that Republicans are “enemies of the state” due to their suspicion of mail-in ballots.
“We take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic. And, sadly, the domestic enemies to our voting system and honoring our Constitution are right at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with their allies in the Congress of the United States,” she declared in August of 2020.
Chuck Schumer
Though his party claimed that President Trump incited an attack against a coequal branch of the federal government, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) used inflammatory rhetoric toward the judiciary branch within the past year.
Sen. Schumer threatened Trump-appointed Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh during a pro-abortion event in early 2020.
“I want to tell you, Gorsuch. I want to tell you, Kavanaugh. You have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions,” said the Democrat in front of the Supreme Court building.
The statement provoked an extraordinarily rare rebuke from Chief Justice John Roberts.
“Justices know that criticism comes with the territory, but threatening statements of this sort from the highest levels of government are not only inappropriate, they are dangerous,” said Roberts. “All Members of the Court will continue to do their job, without fear or favor, from whatever quarter.”
Maxine Waters
During a 2018 stump speech, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) encouraged supporters to harass members of the Trump administration.
“If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them, and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere,” exclaimed Waters.
Days earlier, senior Trump officials — including Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, Press Secretary Sarah Sanders, and senior adviser Stephen Miller — faced angry protesters and were removed from DC-area restaurants.
Joe Biden
Democrats claimed that Trump’s admonition to “fight like hell” served as an incitement to violence following his January 6 speech. However, the current President of the United States also uses the phrase “fight like hell” while addressing supporters.
The Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee pointed out that Biden used the phrase at least once during his most recent presidential campaign.
“That’s why I’ve spent my whole career fighting — and I will continue to fight — like hell so that no one ever has to make that walk again,” tweeted Biden in reference to his father walking upstairs to tell his family that they would be moving in search of better economic opportunities.
“Incitement?” quipped the House Judiciary Republicans.
Jamie Raskin
Other Democrats — including lead House impeachment manager Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) — also employ the phrase “fight like hell” in political contexts.
“The GOP rush to replace Justice Ginsburg is all about destroying the Affordable Care Act, women’s health care and reproductive freedom, and the voting rights and civil rights of the people,” tweeted Rep. Raskin after the former Justice’s death in September of 2020. “We must fight like hell to stop this assault on health care and the Constitution.”
In his February 13 speech, however, Rep. Raskin berated Trump for using the exact same phrase.
“When he took the stage on January 6, he knew exactly how combustible the situation was. He knew there were many people in the crowd who were ready to jump into action, to engage in violence, at any signal that he needed them to fight like hell to stop the steal,” said Rep. Raskin. “And that’s exactly what he told them to do.”
Kamala Harris
The current Vice President of the United States often uses rhetoric that could be interpreted as an incitement of violence.
As nationwide riots following the death of George Floyd caused dozens of deaths and billions in property damage, then-Senator Kamala Harris discussed the phenomenon with comedian Stephen Colbert.
“They’re not going to stop,” Harris asserted in the June 17 interview. “This is a movement, I’m telling you. They’re not going to stop and everyone beware, because they’re not going to stop. They’re not going to stop before Election Day in November and they’re not going to stop after Election Day. Everyone should take note of that on both levels. They’re not going to let up and they should not and we should not.”
Days earlier, Harris encouraged her followers to support the Minnesota Freedom Fund — an effort to provide bail money for criminals arrested during the Minneapolis riots. Later reports revealed that funds were also allocated to free domestic abusers from jail.
Hillary Clinton
Hillary Clinton — former First Lady, Senator from New York, and Secretary of State — would likewise be liable to the Democrats’ impeachment charges, as she has suggested on multiple occasions that she lost to President Trump as a result of election fraud.
During a 2019 speech in Los Angeles, Clinton said that the presidential election was “stolen” from her, earning cheers and applause from her audience.
“I think it’s also critical to understand that, as I’ve been telling candidates who have come to see me, you can run the best campaign, you can even become the nominee, and you can have the election stolen from you,” said Clinton.
During a podcast interview in 2020, Clinton insisted that the Trump campaign benefited from voter suppression and Russian interference during the 2016 presidential race.
“I think that Trump and a lot of the people around him know that his victory was not on the up and up. They had an extensive campaign to suppress black voters,” alleged Clinton. “We now know much more about that than we did. They had third party candidates boosted, particularly by Russian media.”
“I was the candidate that they basically stole an election from,” she added. “I was the candidate who won nearly three million more votes.”
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.