Kellyanne Conway kept up her campaign to defend President Donald Trump’s most erratic rambling this week when she went on Fox News to complain about the process Democrats are using for their impeachment inquiry. Soon after her appearance, Fox News host Chris Wallace directly rebuked her argument, pointing out that her and many fellow Republican Trump allies resorting to complaining about the process follows them running into major problems via the basic facts of the case. In other words, Democrats are systematically building their case, and Republicans are getting desperate.
Wallace explained:
‘My feeling is that if you are having trouble with the facts, you argue process. That’s what Republicans are doing right now. The Democrats have gotten some very damaging information from people like William Taylor, the acting U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine; Fiona Hill, who used to be one of the top advisers in the National Security Council on Ukraine. Evidence that seems to tie more of a quid pro quo… that there is some evidence from these people working in the Trump administration that the president linked aid to Ukraine and linked a White House meeting with Ukrainian president to getting oppo research on the Democrats.’
Check it out:
It’s true — just this week, Taylor bluntly told Congress that at one point, Trump donor turned E.U. Ambassador Gordon Sondland directly told Ukrainian counterparts that “everything” they wanted from the U.S. was dependent on them coming up with dirt on the Bidens, or at least publicly announcing that they would be investigating the family of the former vice president and current Democratic presidential primary candidate. Sondland, then-U.S. Special Envoy Kurt Volker, and Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani even worked on drafting a statement for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to release publicly.
This evidence is all pretty straightforward! Republicans have been freaking out anyway — pretty much literally.
This past week, Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz helped lead a group of Republican members of Congress into a secure hearing room where the House Intelligence Committee had been readying to hear from an impeachment inquiry witness. Their showboating reached outlandish proportions — despite rules against electronic devices, they freely wielded theirs when inside the room. Some of them shouted, and some of them even ordered pizza, apparently — because they’ve been backed so far into a corner that they’ve had to resort to those kinds of antics.
Wallace pointed out that there are literally more than three dozen Republicans who are on the committees involved in the impeachment inquiry and have access to these classified hearings, where they can ask questions too. Additionally, he noted on Fox, Democrats are no doubt readying to have public hearings with key witnesses essentially as soon as possible — and this whole process has a precedent in Republicans’ own never-ending Benghazi investigation. As a part of that, they had plenty of their own private hearings.
Even still, Republicans have gotten all-in on the Trump bonanza, even while there’s no immediately available “out” in sight. The evidence just keeps piling up.
