OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
California Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff is furious after an announcement by Republican Speaker of the House and California Rep. Kevin McCarthy.
The Speaker has announced his support for a resolution brought by House Republican Conference Chair and New York Rep. Elise Stefanik and Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to expunge the former president’s two impeachments from the record, Fox News Congressional Correspondent Chad Pergram said.
“Yeah, because, look, I voted against both impeachments,” McCarthy said to reporters on Friday.
The Speaker said that the former president’s first impeachment, which was based on a phone call he had with the President of Ukraine, was “not based on true facts.” And the second impeachment, based on the January 6 Capitol incident, was “on the basis of no due process.”
“I think it is appropriate, just as I thought before, that you should expunge it because it never should have gone through,” the Speaker said.
He then spoke about applying the standards Democrats used on former President Trump to President Joe Biden amid revelations by IRS whistleblowers and other sources.
“So what about at 10:23 today that said an individual had to pay the Biden family and he had to use shell companies to pass it through,” the Speaker said. “Is that more than a phone call?”
“And what about what we just found from Jason Smith, where now you have DOJ warning Hunter Biden ahead of time,” he said. “You now have 51 individuals, who when they had a laptop that had been classified certification — that you’re talking to former CIA directors and others— lie to the American public before an election, saying that that was Russia collusion.”
“At the same time you have a number of items that if I raise the bar to an impeachment with the same level that the Democrats did, I think there’d be a lot of times impeachment,” he said.
Breitbart News reported.
Stefanik’s resolution aims to expunge Trump’s impeachment concerning January 6. She asserts the facts and circumstances upon which the House Democrats impeached Trump did not meet the burden of proving that Trump committed “high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” She also argues the impeachment did not establish that Trump engaged in an “insurrection or rebellion against the United States.”
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Greene’s resolution focuses on Trump’s 2019 impeachment regarding the “perfect phone call.” Greene argues Trump was wrongfully accused of misconduct, demonstrated by the information revealed in the FBI informant document that alleges Joe Biden took a $5 million bribe. The resolution asserts the articles of impeachment did not meet the burden of proof of “high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
In other Trump news the former president has found out who government prosecutors will be calling on to testify against him in the case involving alleged mishandling of classified documents, according to reports on Wednesday.
The revelation stemmed from the Justice Department’s release of “grand jury testimony of witnesses who will testify for the government at the trial of this case” as part of the pre-trial discovery phase.
That said, the DOJ’s filing did not list the witnesses specifically nor what they said during their grand jury testimony.
On Monday, a federal judge handling the case blocked the former president from releasing any evidence that is given to his legal team by federal prosecutors.
“The Discovery Materials, along with any information derived therefrom, shall not be disclosed to the public or the news media, or disseminated on any news or social media platform, without prior notice to and consent of the United States or approval of the Court,” Federal Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart noted in his order.
In addition, the order stated that Trump and his legal team also are not allowed to disclose any of the material, due to the sensitivity of its contents, in “any public filing or in open court without notice to, and agreement from, the United States, or prior approval from the Court.”
The defense counsel has also been instructed to keep all the documents securely in their custody. Furthermore, it stipulates that upon the conclusion of the case, all the materials must be either returned to the U.S. government or completely destroyed within 90 days.
