What's overlooked in the impeachment circus ...

I’ve had trouble with the whole impeachment farce from the beginning. 

Especially when Democrats started talking impeachment before Trump was even inaugurated.  Honestly, he hadn’t had time to do anything worthy of impeachment. 

Except, of course, beat Hillary.  Apparently, some saw that as grounds for impeachment.  I don’t think that’s what the framers of the Constitution had in mind.  

Impeaching Trump then was as stupid as awarding a Nobel Peace Prize to someone before they did anything.   Oh, wait, that was how Obama won a Nobel Peace Prize.  Never mind. 

The subsequent Russia collusion investigation didn’t come up with anything.  The worst Mueller could come up with was akin to Trump making a mean face and ridiculing Mueller’s team.  When Mueller came to testify to Democrats eager to probe Trump’s “obstruction” possibilities, it became clear that Mueller himself had almost no knowledge what was in his report. 

Whoever wrote that part of the report alleging that Trump “may” have obstructed justice during the investigation – and it obviously wasn’t Mueller – could only point to Trump’s tweets and public statements that hurt their feelings.  That’s pretty thin grounds for claiming obstruction.   

Particularly since Trump let all his people testify.  His team turned over more than a million requested documents to investigators.  But he did call the investigation a hoax.

Which, after three years and $30 million, it turned out to be. 

The latest phase over Ukraine is even more ludicrous, if that’s possible. 

Let’s start with the infamous call between Trump and the Ukraine president.

First, and in my opinion most often overlooked, is that the call was supposed to be a highly confidential exchange only between two heads of state. 

Let that sink in for a minute.  A highly confidential exchange between two heads of state.  On a secure line so the two leaders could speak freely, and trust it would be kept confidential.   

Yet someone decided to leak a version of that call: they told someone else what they heard, who then made up another version delivered to Adam Schiff’s staff.  Schiff’s staff sent the second leaker of the made-up version to lawyers who pay a bounty to anyone who has damaging information about Trump. Those lawyers then filed an official complaint with an Inspector General claiming whistleblower status for someone who never heard the original call.  

Then the made-up secondhand version was conveniently leaked to the media.  

There are so many things wrong with this scenario from the get-go. 

At the heart of it is that someone leaked the contents of a confidential call by the President. That’s irresponsible at best, and possibly a violation of national security at worst. 

But we never hear much about this, do we?  Nor does anyone among the Democrats see this as a problem. Nor, for that matter, do career bureaucrats in the State Department, or our own intelligence community. And certainly not the Democrats’ friends in the media. 

They’ve been doing the same thing all along during Trump’s time in office. 

They see it as wholly justified to embarrass Trump and remove him from office.  He’s not one of them.  He’s an imposter.  He shouldn’t have won.  So they have a duty to stop him. 

Whatever it takes. 

Including making up stuff. Bald-faced lying.  Hiding exculpatory evidence.  Branding opinion as “facts.” Breaking any number of laws. Violating national security. Whatever. 

This is just wrong.  But because it’s Trump, they don’t care.  It’s justified. 

When Trump talks about finding and prosecuting leakers in his administration and government agencies, bureaucrats and the media get up in arms because he’s acting like a dictator and attacking a “free press.”  That’s rich.  By contrast, remember that to stop leaks the Obama Administration wiretapped AP reporters, and obtained phone records and conducted surveillance on a Fox News reporter – including on that reporter’s family.

Obama’s folks also outed and fired a whistleblower.  Yet Trump’s not allowed to even learn who the alleged whistleblower is. 

Trump hasn’t done any of what Obama’s folks did.  Imagine if he had.    

Suddenly it’s okay to leak confidential calls between the President and anyone else.  Think of the precedent this sets, not just for the current President, but for future Presidents. 

Think also about the Democrats and the media going full steam into impeaching Trump on no evidence he did anything worthy of impeachment. If anything, there’s ample evidence he did nothing wrong – even the testimony of the Democrats’ star witnesses shows nobody was threatened, coerced, bribed, intimidated or anything else. 

The other party on Trump’s call, the Ukraine president, saw nothing wrong with the call. Nor did any Ukraine officials.  The only people who saw anything wrong were either not on the call or felt uneasy by what Trump said. That’s it.

Witness after witness denied any direct knowledge of a quid pro quo.  Witness after witness knew of no crimes committed by Trump. Witness after witness said that Trump alone had the authority to set foreign policy.  Witness after witness said Trump had the legal right to request what he did, to withhold aid to Ukraine for any reason, and to also remove Voinovich from her post.   

You get the picture.  There’s no crime. There’s no impeachable offense.  Don’t take my word for it – just review the transcript itself and the testimony from the Democrat witnesses.

There’s no “there” there. No facts; just opinions and feelings.  

But still Schiff, Nadler, Pelosi and other pinheads are pushing for impeachment, based on nothing more than hyper partisan hatred of Trump and their reliance on a strict party-line vote in the House.  They know full well they will fail in the Senate and Trump will not be removed from office before the 2020 election – there’s no way they get enough Republicans there to convict Trump. 

They also know this won't keep Trump from being re-elected. I'll bet their own internal polling points to him winning a second term if the election were held right now.   

Yet that’s not the goal. Democrats want to leave a mark on Trump that he was impeached in the House. For what “crimes” nobody knows.  Still, it will be part of his legacy.  And they can go back to their loons on the left clamoring for Trump’s head with a pyrrhic victory of sorts.

Pyrrhic is the right description. If they follow through and impeach Trump in the House, Democrats will pay a heavy price for this insanity. Not just in 2020, but for years to come.   

With the bar for impeachment set so low by Democrats in their lust to remove Trump, God help the next Democrat President with a Republican House and Senate.