The ongoing Congressional Republican strategy in attempted defense of President Donald Trump during the Democrat-led impeachment proceedings remains to yell and shout and even scream when they’re worked up enough. This Thursday, as the House Judiciary Committee prepared to formally approve articles of impeachment against the president in preparation for a full House vote, prominent Trump shill Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) devolved into a meltdown in which he shouted out some of the already debunked talking points that Republicans have already repeated ad nauseum.
He was so desperate that he even introduced an amendment to the articles of impeachment to completely eliminate the first one of them, which focuses on Trump’s abuse of power. (The second spotlights Trump’s obstruction of duly proceeding Congressional investigation.) Unsurprisingly, Jordan’s amendment was voted down right along party lines. None of his obstruction efforts worked.
Still, he ranted:
‘Democrats say there’s some scheme to have an announcement made by President Zelensky to get a phone call with the president to get a meeting with the president to get the aid released. When did the announcement happen? They got the call on July 25th; they got the meeting on September 25th; they got the money on September 11th. There was never an announcement from the Ukrainians to do the investigation! So you can keep saying all this stuff and all the points that this happened — it didn’t happen. Not the facts. Those are not the facts, and we know why the aid ultimately got released: because we learned that this guy, this new president, was actually the transformer, the real deal — he was actually going to deal with the corruption issue in his country. You can make up all the things you want, but those are NOT the facts.’
Watch:
.@Jim_Jordan to House Democrats: “You can make up all the things you want, but those are NOT the facts.” pic.twitter.com/3mKdLjvwYT
— Rep. Mike Johnson (@RepMikeJohnson) December 12, 2019
NBC reporter Jonathan Allen had a great response. He quipped:
‘Jim Jordan’s argument is like saying a murder for hire agreement isn’t a crime if the cops apprehend the hitman before the killing — No one got paid, No one got killed, No crime.’
Jim Jordan’s argument is like saying a murder for hire agreement isn’t a crime if the cops apprehend the hitman before the killing — No one got paid, No one got killed, No crime.
— Jonathan Allen (@jonallendc) December 12, 2019
There is little if any apparent evidence that there was actually any dramatic development in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s willingness to confront corruption that preceded the Trump administration finally releasing military aid that had been previously approved by U.S. authorities for the country. House Democrats have tried to get documentation surrounding the aid process from the Trump administration, but they’ve stonewalled and refused to comply with subpoenas, which isn’t exactly something you do when you’ve got nothing to hide.
Neither is the incessant yelling that Republican members of Congress have employed some kind of hallmark of innocence. Former Republican Congressional staffer Kurt Bardella, who’s no longer a Republican, quipped in a piece for NBC News that Republicans have been treating their time in the spotlight like Fox News segments — lots of spewed hot air, little substance.
And it’s not getting them anywhere. For weeks of impeachment hearings, Republicans have stuck to the same repeatedly debunked talking points, including the claim that since Trump said there was no pressure on Ukraine to produce Biden dirt to get aid, there’s nothing to see here — but that’s not how it works. You don’t get to just will innocence into existence!
