On Tuesday, Daily Wire Editor-at-Large Josh Hammer, who is a constitutional attorney by training, joined “Tipping Point With Liz Wheeler” on One America News Network to discuss House Democrats’ formal unveiling of their two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump: One for “abuse of power” and one for “obstruction of Congress.” As The Daily Wire reported yesterday:
In a press conference Tuesday, Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) announced that the Democrats are bringing two articles of impeachment against Trump: “abuse of power” and “obstruction of Congress.”
Trump’s alleged abuse of power, the Democrats contend, relates to his attempt to “pressure” Ukraine into investigating his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, which Nadler described in the press conference as having “compromised our national security and threatened the integrity of our elections.”
The Democrats also maintain that the president’s unwillingness to cooperate with their inquiry is grounds for impeachment.
Notably, Democrats failed to introduce an article of impeachment pertaining to either bribery or the much-ballyhooed Mueller report.
Hammer joined Wheeler to discuss the articles of impeachment, which both commentators largely dismissed as the work of frivolous and unserious partisanship. Wheeler began by asking Hammer what happened to the bribery allegation. Hammer responded by excoriating House Democrats, opining that “this whole thing is obviously a total sham.”
What happened to bribery? What happened to the Mueller report? I mean, I feel like they were just kind of licking their finger and putting it out there to see which way the wind would blow, like a little poll-testing. This whole thing is obviously a total sham. It’s a fraud. It’s nonsense. It’s gonna politically redound to Republicans’ interests. It’s polling massively underwater in every swing state imaginable — 55% to 60% of voters across Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Ohio, — basically all the polling I’ve seen indicates that Republicans are gonna benefit tremendously by this.
Hammer then transitioned to discussing the uniquely partisan and politicized nature of this current impeachment effort, viewed from a historical perspective.
But you know what, this is the fourth time in the nation’s history I believe, that articles of impeachment have been drafted. The first time was Andrew Johnson in the late 1860. The second time, of course, was Richard Nixon. And the third time was Bill Clinton. Going back to Andrew Johnson, he at least violated the Tenure of Office Act, a statute. Now that statute was unconstitutional, and I think the president was proper to violate it, in that sense — but he at least violated a statute. Richard Nixon of course, was Watergate and all that. Bill Clinton committed perjury.
So in each previous instance, there has been something concrete to point to as a clear-cut impeachable offense. They have nothing here. They have this big, undefined, amorphous, malleable “obstructing Congress”/”abuse of power” standard. It’s gonna backfire wildly in their faces and I, for one, am very excited to see it.
Wheeler then asked Hammer about the particularly unusual “obstruction of Congress” impeachment charge, which Hammer dismissed as running counter to the entire premise of the Constitution’s separation of powers framework, in the first instance.
WATCH: