President Donald Trump and his allies really don’t like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). One might hope that serious matters of national politics could rise above that kind of pettiness, but the absolutely endless stream of anti-Pelosi insults from the president himself tells a markedly different story. This weekend on Fox News Sunday, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) launched into a rambling anti-Pelosi tirade over her decision to delay transmitting the impeachment case against Trump to the Senate for a trial while advocating for fairness. Scalise claimed that the delay proves that Dems have “no case” — in other words, he is actively choosing to ignore even the hundreds of pages of evidence against the president that are currently publicly available.
Scalise insisted:
‘It’s our duty to turn over the articles of impeachment. It’s not like some mechanism that she can control. The House passed it, they shouldn’t have — you look at what the evidence was, Speaker Pelosi wants to talk about the evidence: every one of their witnesses testified under oath saying there was no bribe, saying there was no quid pro quo. Maybe she’s trying to carry out her own quid pro quo by acting like she has some kind of role in the Senate trial.’
Essentially the entirety of that argument is bad faith nonsense. Trump’s own E.U. Ambassador Gordon Sondland explicitly and publicly told Congress that yes, there was a quid pro quo.
Going on from there, Speaker Pelosi does, in fact, have a role in the Senate trial! It’s her job to name the managers for the House’s case for that trial. How much more completely off track could Scalise get?
He continued:
‘They’ve neglected a real agenda for hardworking families, and so what you’re seeing right now is I think Pelosi just exposing the fact that she has no case and trying to have one more bite at the apple.’
Watch:
Rep Steve Scalise (R-LA) joined FOX News Sunday to discuss expectations for impeachment when Congress returns. Will the Speaker hold the articles hostage? Congressman Scalise says: "Pelosi is exposing the fact she has no case and trying to have one more bite at the apple." #FNS pic.twitter.com/PKnrMQTWRy
— FoxNewsSunday (@FoxNewsSunday) December 29, 2019
Democrats in the House have passed literally hundreds of bills that have been flatly and completely ignored by Republicans in the Senate. They’re not the ones who are “do nothing,” by any stretch of the imagination. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has proudly touted himself as the “Grim Reaper” of Democratic legislation — yet, somehow, it’s the Democrats’ fault when plans go south. Scalise claimed that Trump has been creating jobs, but jobs were being created before he came to D.C. and the process will continue long after he leaves the town — and the rate of job creation under Trump has even been lower than the rate under Barack Obama’s leadership.
The Republican case that they’ve brought to defend Trump against impeachment relies upon these kinds of gross misrepresentations of reality and obstructions of duly proceeding, even court-approved investigative processes. In one particularly outlandish highlight, the president’s Congressional allies have repeatedly pointed to the president’s own claims of innocence — but not guilty pleas have never been cause to throw out entire evidence-based cases! Now, Republicans are aiming for a swift, witness-less trial in which they can quickly vote to acquit the president, but Democrats are refusing to capitulate.
