It turns out Democrats can make an even more compelling case against impeaching President Trump than can Republicans. Just listen to them!
"Impeachment of a President is an undoing of a national election! And one of the reasons we all feel so angry about what they are doing is that they are ripping from us, they are ripping asunder our votes! They are telling us that our votes don't count and that the election must be set aside!
And House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler says that is simply unacceptable.
"The effect of impeachment is to overturn the popular will of the voters as expressed in a national election," he added. "We must not overturn an election and remove a president from office except to defend our very system of government or our constitutional liberties against a dire threat. And we must not do so without an overwhelming consensus of the American people and of their representatives in congress of the absolute necessity.
"There must never be a narrowly voted impeachment or an impeachment substantially supported by one of our major political parties and largely opposed by the other. Such an impeachment would lack legitimacy, would produce divisiveness and bitterness in our politics for years to come. And will call into question the very legitimacy of our political institutions."
And so grave is this threat, in fact, that moving forward with impeachment amounts to an attempted coup.
"The case against the president has not been made," Nadler added. "There is far from sufficient evidence to support the allegations and the allegations, even if proven true, do not rise to the level of impeachable offenses.
"This is clearly a partisan railroad job....The American people are watching and they will not forget. You may have the votes. You may have the muscle, but you do not have the legitimacy of a national consensus or of a constitutional imperative. This partisan coup d'etat will go down in infamy in the history of this nation."
Congresswoman Maxine Waters is even more direct, as she recognizes that the move to impeach is the product of nothing more than loathing of the President
"They are driven by hatred!" she screamed. "They will stop at nothing to bring him down. Oh, but they've got another thought coming."
Because Waters understands how this impeachment drive has violated the President’s civil rights.
"The rule of law has been violated in denying the president notice of charges, by the abuse of power in the collecting of so-called 'evidence' and the denial of the presumption of innocence," she said.
Texas Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee understands the grave threat that impeachment poses.
"Today, our vote leads into the darkness of a vile attack on the Constitution," she gravely intoned. "We leave here today void and empty because our president will have been toppled against the will of the people of the United States.
Michigan Congresswoman Rosa De Lauro raises similar concerns.
"This House leadership chose not to allow any but the most Draconian actions, impeachment," she said. "It is wrong, and it is unfair. It denies the American people their right to a representative democracy."
And so fundamental is this right that violating it is akin to a political murder.
"Benjamin Franklin spoke of impeachment as an alternative to assassination. Today this body is contemplating a constitutional assassination," she added. "Driven by a naked partisanship almost without lawful and civil bounds, the majority is moving to impeach an elected President of the United States, thwarting the public's will.
"They do so even as the President commands our troops in battle against Iraq and even as he seeks to perform his constitutional responsibility with the support of the overwhelming majority of the American people. This debate amidst those bombs more than anything else symbolizes the madness that has inflamed the partisan fires on the other side of the aisle."
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer has similar concerns about what the Founders would think of this impeachment effort.
"Our democracy will be threatened if we destroy the due process and high standard that the Founding Fathers established over two centuries ago," he says. "The process that the majority has pursued in this matter has been partisan, driven I believe by animus and exceedingly unfair. Like so many other acts of these last two congresses, it has been unworthy of our duty and of our responsibility."
"The question is whether the President's conduct warrants tossing aside two national elections, ignoring the will of the people we represent, and cheapening the Constitution," agrees Massachusetts Congressman Jim McGovern. "I believe very strongly that it does not. I believe the President's behavior warrants a tough censure, but the leadership of this House in a deliberate and cynical and partisan maneuver to even consider a censure resolution. I want to vote my conscience, not the conscience of the political arm-twisters."
Combating those "arm-twisters" is thus crucial, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sums up the concerns of her party.
"Today the Republican majority is not charging the President with fairness, but impeaching him with vengeance," she said. "In investigation of the President, fundamental principles which Americans hold dear — privacy, fairness, checks and balances — have been seriously violated. And why? We are here — we are here today because the Republicans in the House are paralyzed with hatred."
But no one could sum up the arguments against impeaching the President better than the man at the center of it all, former Vice President Joe Biden.
"The President of the United States does not serve at the pleasure of the legislature, does not serve at the pleasure of Joe Biden, does not serve at the pleasure of Henry Hyde, does not serve at the pleasure of the Congress, as a prime minister does in a parliamentary system," he said. "He is elected directly by the people of the United States of America, and the election of a president is the only nationwide vote the American people will ever cast and that’s a big deal.
"The American people don’t think that they have made a mistake by electing Bill Clinton and we in Congress had better be very careful before we upset their decision and make darn sure that we are able to convince them if we decide to upset their decision that our decision to impeach him was based upon principle and not politics."