We had to pass Obamacare to find out what was in it, and we need to impeach the President to find out what crime he committed. “The President leaves us no choice but to act,” declared Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “The President has engaged in an abuse of power, undermining our national security and jeopardizing the integrity of our elections.” Just what crime the President committed, no one can say. But Democrats fear “grave risk to the country with waiting until we have every last fact,” as Democratic House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff explained.
Facts pose no danger to the country, but they do threaten Democrats’ impeachment plans. During last month’s impeachment inquiry hearings, Democrats came up with just one witness who ever discussed military aid to Ukraine with President Trump, and that witness, Gordon Sondland, contradicted Democrats’ accusations of a quid pro quo. Sondland, testified that Trump instructed him, “I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo. Tell Ukraine to do the right thing.”
The sole day of actual impeachment hearings proved even worse for the Democrats’ case. The liberal law professor Pamela Karlan derailed the proceedings with a lame pun involving President Trump’s 13-year-old son Barron before Jonathan Turley, another liberal law professor who voted against Trump in 2016, exposed the illegitimacy of the entire impeachment effort. Turley easily knocked down each charge, from bribery to vaguely defined “abuse of power,” before narrowing in on Trump’s involvement of the courts in the impeachment process. “If you make a high crime and misdemeanor out of going to the courts,” Turley explained to the Democrat congressmen, “it’s an abuse of power. It’s your abuse of power.”
Democrats have failed to find evidence that President Trump committed bribery, extortion, obstruction of justice, or even abuse of power in his dealings with Ukraine, just as they failed previously to oust him over his affairs with Russia, the IRS, and Stormy Daniels. Undeterred, the Democrats seek to impeach him while they still can.
When Democratic Representative Al Green introduced a resolution of impeachment in 2017, Republicans controlled the House of Representatives. Democrats squandered the next two years on the quixotic Mueller investigation, and now they find themselves facing the 2020 election with a weak presidential field and no grounds for impeachment. No matter — they’ll impeach now and find the crime later, lest Al Green’s prediction come to pass: “I’m concerned that if we don’t impeach this president, he will get re-elected.”