Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-TX) warned Democrats on Thursday that their continued push for impeachment and actions over the last three years were putting the country on the brink of a “civil war.”
A new Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service poll released this month found that the average American believed that the U.S. is two-thirds of the way to the “edge of a civil war.”
Speaking on Democrats’ desire to impeach President Donald Trump, Gohmert said on the floor of the House of Representatives that what Democrats “want it to be a one-sided non-due process sham court and it’s about to push this country to a civil war if they were to get their wishes.”
“And if there’s one thing I don’t want to see in my lifetime, I don’t want to ever have participation in, it’s a civil war,” Gohmert continued. “Some historian, I don’t remember who, said, ‘guns are only involved in the last phase of a civil war.'”
WATCH:
Today on the House floor, @replouiegohmert ripped into Democrats on the “gross unfairness” and secrecy of the impeachment process. He calls the attempts to impeach @realDonaldTrump a “coup”. pic.twitter.com/jXAgG5Njzb
— (((Jason Rantz))) on KTTH Radio (@jasonrantz) November 1, 2019
Partial transcript of Gohmert’s remarks on the floor of the House of Representatives:
You get to ask the questions, you see the questions, you get to hear the answers, and you get to observe the witnesses. It’s important and yet under orders of the speaker and Chairman Schiff this so called comparative grand jury kept the huge majority out of those hearings where we could hear and see for ourselves and now we find out through the vote today that yeah the judiciary committee is ultimately going to get this from the intelligence committee.
But never in the history of this country have we had such gross unfairness that one party would put armed guards with guns to prevent the duly authorized people from being able to hear the witnesses and see them for themselves and then all we hear from this resolution today, ‘we’re going to send you the depositions after we get through doctoring and looking at and editing the transcripts, we’ll send you those so you have the evidence you need.’ that’s not the kind of evidence that a coup should be based on. If we’re going to have what they’re trying to legalize as a coup, we ought to have a right to see each of those witnesses and the only potential use for the deposition should be impeachment of those witnesses, nothing else, not for anything substantive.
The president’s attorney, unlike in 74 and 98, were not allowed to be there even to see and hear the witnesses. So the references this being a star chamber are not inappropriate. It’s outrageous what’s been going on for people who truly care about due process. Regarding the procedures now, the judiciary committee must operate pursuant to the procedures imposed by the chairman of the rules committee. Well previously on the oldest committees in the house of representatives, the judiciary committee in prior impeachments made the rules for the impeachment hearing. We didn’t have it dictated by the rules committee, no, because this is the judiciary committee. These are people that are supposed to have expertise in constitutional issues. So, when you have the committee that has more expertise in constitutional issues, what did the majority do? ‘we don’t want the committee with the most expertise on constitutional issues dealing with these constitutional issues, we want to put armed guards outside a hearing and have it in a secret compartmented ‘information facility and we’re not going to let the other side call their own witnesses so we get a fair picture about what actually went on and we’re not even going to let them ask questions we don’t want them to ask. We’ll instruct the witnesses not to answer.
Because you see they want it to be a one sided non due process sham court and it’s about to push this country to a civil war if they were to get their wishes. And if there’s one thing I don’t want to see in my lifetime, I don’t want to ever have participation in, it’s a civil war. Some historian, I don’t remember who, said, ‘guns are only involved in the last phase of a civil war’
What’s going on here has not protected the Constitution, it’s not protected the institutions, it’s not protected this little experiment in self-government, no, what it is done has put it all at risk because what some people in this body don’t seem to understand is, when you set a precedent as dangerous as what we have been watching for the last three years, it won’t be me, but there will be republicans, if this isn’t stopped, there will be republicans that will take the precedent of what the Democrats have done here and use it against a democratic president, try to set him up and create a coup.
Like I said, it won’t be me, but that’s the way history works. Somebody sets a precedent, then eventually somebody, also not concerned about due process, is going to try to mimic that and go one further.