It turns out Democrats hate frivolous impeachment efforts that are driven by nothing more than partisan grudges. Who knew?
"To move forward on an impeachment is very serious," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. "I think it has a traumatic impact on the confidence that the American people have in government, that the world has in our president, and that we are setting a precedent that we, and I believe that we shouldn’t be frivolous, and how we go forward and punishing a president whose policies we don’t approve of."
"Even if the President should be impeached, history is going to question whether or not this was just a partisan lynching or whether or not it was something that, in fact, met the standard, the very high bar that was set by the Founders as to what constituted an impeachable offense," agreed President-Elect Joe Biden.
House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler was even more forceful in his opposition to such misuse of Congress' impeachment power.
"The effect of impeachment is to overturn the popular will of the voters as expressed in a national election," he said in a passionate speech on the House floor. "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."
Congresswoman Maxine Waters was perhaps even more forceful in her language, citing America's troops serving overseas as a reason to oppose impeachment and calling such an effort a "coup d'etat against the Commander in Chief.
"Mr. Speaker and members, how must our American soldiers feel to have their commander-in-chief under attack while they are engaged in battle?" she asked. "They have the right to feel betrayed and undermined. Today, we are here in the people’s House debating the partisan impeachment of the president of the United States of America, while the commander-in-chief is managing a crisis and asking world leaders for support. This is, indeed, a...coup d’etat. Mr. Speaker and members, Americans all, the [impeaching party] will couch this extremist, radical anarchy in pious language which distorts the Constitution and the rule of law."
Why are so many prominent Democrats suddenly coming out against their frivolous, wholly unsupported impeachment push? They're not. All of these quotes were from 1998, when Republicans impeached President Bill Clinton. Then, there was actually evidence that Clinton committed high crimes and misdemeanors. Now, there is no evidence that President Trump "incited insurrection." Instead, all of the available evidence proves that his speech was protected under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and thus is not punishable. In other words, Democrats' impeachment efforts today are the very height of frivolity that they decried 22 years ago.
Dan O'Donnell covered this sickening double standard in his opening monologue Wednesday. Click on the player below to listen and click here to subscribe to "The Dan O'Donnell Show" on iHeartradio!