Faced with the looming reality of a president likely to be formally impeached very soon, Congressional Republicans who back Donald Trump are resorting to increasing frenzy in their attempts to defend their position. As if they have some inner terror of actually engaging with the facts of this situation, this Monday as the House Judiciary Committee carried out their latest public impeachment hearing, prominent Trump ally and Florida Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz spoke out with belligerent complaints about Democratic witness Daniel Goldman’s past political donations. To begin with — that just about could not be less relevant to the facts of Trump’s scheme to get Biden dirt from Ukraine. Additionally — are we supposed to take Gaetz as some arbiter of true nonpartisanship? Ha!
Gaetz smugly asked Goldman whether he was testifying as “a partisan advocate for the Democratic position,” adding:
‘Or are you here as a nonpartisan investigator of the facts?’
To be clear — there’s no apparent evidence of any kind of political bias affecting Goldman’s conclusions in favor of the impeachment case that Democrats have been developing against the president. As Goldman noted, he was testifying to “present the report we did on our investigation, which was totally and completely relied on the actual evidence we uncovered, the witness testimony and the documents.”
It’s like, as the final rounds of the impeachment proceedings get underway, Republicans are cowering in the corner and just willing to throw anything at the wall and hope it sticks.
Gaetz also complained about Goldman’s past donations to Democratic politicians, which the lawyer defended by sharing that he thinks it’s “very important to support candidates for office.” Still, Gaetz continued by offering the completely unfounded suggestion that if Goldman had donated more money, he’d have gotten a chance to appear as a witness and ask questions, which fellow Democratic counsel Barry Berke had done earlier in the proceedings.
Gaetz actually complained about Democratic witnesses’ donations to Democratic candidates at an earlier hearing. (Again, are we supposed to take Gaetz as a personification of some kind of nonpartisanship? Has he ever donated to a Republican candidate?)
When the Judiciary Committee hosted four legal scholars last week to discuss the Constitutional basis for impeaching Trump, Gaetz raised the issue with witness and Stanford Law Professor Pamela Karlan. After also dinging the committee’s top Republican Doug Collins earlier in the hearing for suggesting that she was unprepared, Karlan memorably told Gaetz:
‘I have a constitutional right under the First Amendment to give money to candidates. At the same time, we have a constitutional duty to keep foreigners from spending money in our elections.’
after a tense exchange with matt gaetz about her donations to democrats, karlan responds, " i have a constitutional right under the 1st amendment to give money to candidates. at the same time, we have a constitutional duty to keep foreigners from spending money in our elections" pic.twitter.com/nRLkXM7gdN
— David Mack (@davidmackau) December 4, 2019
Bingo. Too bad that Republicans have proven far more willing to complain about the process than they are about Trump literally standing on the White House lawn and asking for foreign election assistance, among other examples.
The point of the impeachment inquiry is fast approaching when Democrats will present their final, formal articles of impeachment, which Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) said could emerge as soon as this week. After that point, the case will move to the Senate, where more ardent Trump supporters will get a chance to let their belligerence shine.
