Speaker of the House Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) (C) speaks as (L-R) Chairman of House Judiciary Committee Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), Chairwoman of House Financial Services Committee Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), Chairwoman of House Oversight and Reform Committee Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Chairman of House Ways and Means Committee Rep. Richard Neal (D-MA) listen during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC, on Dec. 10, 2019. Chairman Nadler announced that the Judiciary Committee is introducing two articles on abuse of power and obstruction of Congress for the next steps in the House impeachment inquiry against President Trump. Alex Wong/Getty ImagesVIEWPOINTS
The Impeachment Trap
Jim McKinney2 CommentsDecember 12, 2019 Updated: December 12, 2019Share
Commentary
Progressives, Democrat strategists, and the powerful elite class fell into a political trap. They dug it themselves. Their only hope of escape: complicit media outlets and an ignorant public.
If they successfully impeach the president, they will set a precedent that will change the United States forever. But they’re deep in the trap themselves. The American people, and President Donald Trump, are smarter than the elite believe.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) ordered, and House Intelligence and Judiciary committee chairmen Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) are directing an impeachment into the president’s conduct. The key allegations are (1) President Trump “bribed” a foreign power (the newly elected president of Ukraine) to conduct an internal investigation into a corrupt energy firm (Burisma); and, (2) The investigation was meant to smear a political opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden (and his son Hunter Biden.)
The impetus for the investigation was a complaint from a second-hand “whistleblower” alleging that President Trump used non-traditional diplomatic channels, an oval office meeting offer, and a phone call to achieve his goal of smearing the former VP Biden. The alleged “bribe” is $400 million in U.S. security assistance aid to Ukraine.
According to many D.C. elites, opinion pundits, and journalists, the accusations come from a heroic CIA analyst and other executive branch officials disheartened over the president’s (as a recent Washington Post article declared) “shadow” foreign policy. They tell Americans these are patriots protecting U.S. national security by outing the president’s scheme.
Pelosi, Schiff, Nadler, and partisan legal analysts argue it was illegal for the president to ask Ukraine to investigate corruption, Ukraine’s 2016 U.S. election interference, or Biden’s admitted quid pro quo. (Joe Biden publicly bragged that while he was vice president, he threatened to withhold over $1 billion in U.S. aid unless the former Ukrainian president fired the state prosecutor—who happened to be investigating Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company Joe Biden’s son Hunter oversaw as a board member.) They further argue the “shadow” foreign policy was to benefit Trump personally, and was an “abuse of power.”
Schiff and Nadler have paraded selective witnesses that confirm their claims. They enacted rules that didn’t allow due process for the accused president, and called few defense witnesses in the investigation. They claim the president “obstructed congress” by not participating in their orchestrated media spectacle.
Pundits for major press outlets have celebrated the unprecedented hearings, rarely questioning the legitimacy of the process. Democrat activists, pseudo journalists, “Never Trumpers,” and the “resistance” are jubilant, reveling in the political havoc they have propagated. They have very little concern for the damage they are doing to the nation.
Here lies the trap.
If their arguments stand, then the accusers will be forced to admit there was no possible justification for President Obama’s Department of Justice (DOJ)/FBI 2016 investigation into candidate Trump for Russian interference and collusion, or the subsequent DOJ/Mueller investigation targeting the Trump administration. The Obama DOJ/FBI used multiple foreign entities to justify their investigations.
How can the Obama administration have the right to investigate a candidate with the full force of our justice system based on foreign information, but Trump does not? The arrogance, and hypocrisy, are staggering.
Pelosi and Schiff must believe the American voter has no memory or reasoning ability, or worse, they believe they can control the people through a complicit media and elitist propaganda.
Another problem.
The very premise of their argument is flawed, and dangerous for democracy. There’s no such thing as a president’s “shadow” foreign policy—there’s only the president’s foreign policy.
The essential fact the inquisitors and media pundits neglect? None of the hearsay “witnesses,” nor the alleged whistleblower, were elected to make U.S. policy. Voters must decide if a policy is valid, not D.C. bureaucrats.
Americans elect a president to set foreign policy. The analyst must evaluate it; the soldier and unelected bureaucrat must execute it. That’s at the core of our constitutional system. The president, and those who elected him or her, suffer the consequences if those policies fail.
U.S. presidents are elected to serve the people, by the people, for the people. Undermining the president of the United States for politics, personal dislike, or policy disputes is not honorable or heroic, it’s sedition.
Our forefathers designed our government to protect the Constitution and the rights of everyone, not just the large enclaves of the elite in Hollywood, New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, or the powerbrokers in Washington, D.C.
Elites in these progressive enclaves are using impeachment in a desperate attempt to take away the rest of America’s vote. If the elites succeed, they’ll have won a hollow victory—half the nation will rise against them, as they did in 2016.
The powerful politicians and news outlets in these progressively skewed media markets still haven’t figured it out—Americans are tired of Washington’s deceit and superiority. Americans want a better life. They want a good job. They want to be safe. They want to be free. And, like Donald J. Trump, they still believe in America.
American voters are smarter than the arrogant elites and progressive media pundits believe. That’s why Americans elected the president in a shocking electoral landslide. That’s why Pelosi, Schiff, Nadler, and the elitists are stuck in their own trap—hard as they try, they can’t control voters with propaganda. That’s why I believe there’s still hope for America, and why President Trump will be re-elected in 2020.
Lt. Col. James McKinney is a retired U.S. Army Foreign Area Officer with over 30 years of service in strategic, tactical, and special operations assignments around the globe. He served as a senior defense official and defense attaché, the Deputy Chief of Combating Terrorism for U.S. Pacific Command, the security assistance officer for U.S. embassies in Albania and the Republic of Georgia, and a political-military adviser to the commander of U.S. Army Central in the Middle East. He is now a consultant, and serves on the board of Saturna Capital.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
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