Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) impeachment talking points, annotated
By Curt Anderson December 30, 2019 11:52 pm Category: Politics (5.0 from 1 vote)
Rules of the Post
[Fox News interviewer] Mike Emanuel: Do you believe Speaker Pelosi is overreaching by trying to influence a Senate trial?
Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA): Well, it's not her role to go over to the Senate. She could run for the Senate if she wants to be a senator. [Nancy Pelosi hasn’t indicated any interest in trading in her role as leader of the House for a back bench role in the Senate.]
But the House has a role; the Senate has a role. It's time for the Senate to do their job. Look, for months she was saying how important it is, they've got to remove this president immediately, he's a threat to their, you know, their whole way of life. [Nancy Pelosi nor any other congressional Democrat has any expectation that the GOP controlled Senate would muster a the two thirds vote needed to impeach. Trump’s impeachment even without conviction accomplished the Democrats’ goals: They fulfilling their duty of upholding the Constitution. They embarrass the White House’s resident narcissist with the stain of impeachment. More importantly impeachment warns future Presidents that they cannot get away with pressuring foreign governments into exerting influence on our election.]
And then, once they pass the impeachment, she doesn't want the Senate to get the papers to start the trial. [I am pretty sure that Pelosi wants the Senate to conduct a trial, a fair trial in which the Mitch McConnell and Republicans attempt to determine the facts through testimony and evidence. And trial in which the Republicans don’t coordinate with the defendant.]
They can't have it both ways. I think people see through the charade. It's a political charade. This is not what our founders intended impeachment to be used for. In fact, they wrote about it. Hamilton talked very specifically about the concern that impeachment… [Alexander Hamilton could have been talking about Donald Trump when he wrote about the need for impeachment: "When a man unprincipled in private life[,] desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper . . . despotic in his ordinary demeanour — known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty — when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity — to join in the cry of danger to liberty — to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion — to flatter and fall in with all the non sense of the zealots of the day — It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may 'ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.'" –Alexander Hamiliton]
…would be used to carry out a political vendetta instead of to go after a crime. There was no crime committed [The Constitution specifies the grounds for impeachment: "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors". The precise meaning of the phrase "high Crimes and Misdemeanors" is not defined in the Constitution itself.]
And so now, all they're doing is trying to just attack the president, personally, because their field is so weak on the Democrat side and the president's done such a great job at fulfilling his promises, the things he actually ran on doing. I wish Barack Obama and Joe Biden would have stood up to Russia and helped Ukraine as much as President Trump has helped Ukraine: selling Javelin missiles, allowing them to stand up to Russia in ways that Barack Obama and Joe Biden wouldn't allow Ukraine to do. [At the time, Obama officials were debating whether to send lethal military equipment amid the conflict with Russia, particularly Javelin anti-tank missiles. Obama rejected a request from Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko for lethal aid in 2014, though the White House approved a $53 million aid package that included vehicles, patrol boats, body armor and night-vision goggles, as well as humanitarian assistance.
U.S. officials were concerned that providing the Javelins to Ukraine would escalate their conflict with Russia. Key allies, including Germany, were not keen on sending weapons into the conflict zone, said Michael Kofman, an expert on Russia and senior research scientist at the CNA Corporation.
Between 2014 and 2016, the United States committed more than $600 million in security assistance to Ukraine.]
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[Fox News interviewer] Mike Emanuel: Do you believe Speaker Pelosi is overreaching by trying to influence a Senate trial?
