Less than three days after Democrats introduced the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, the attempt to remove the high...
Less than three days after Democrats introduced the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, the attempt to remove the highest executive officer ran into a buzz saw.
Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio eviscerated the Democrats’ obsessive attempt by introducing an amendment to strike the first article of impeachment Thursday.
That article alleges an abuse of power by the president in his dealings with Ukraine.
Democrats point to a July 25 call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as they claim Trump planned to withhold military aid from Ukraine unless it took action to investigate Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.
While he was vice president, Biden pressured the Ukrainian government to fire a prosecutor who had investigated Burisma Holdings, an energy company where Hunter served on the board.
According to Jordan, the abuse of power charge isn’t just wrong, it ignores the truth entirely.
“This amendment strikes Article 1 because Article 1 ignores the truth,” the congressman argued. “Four facts, five meetings. We’ve talked about it now for three months. We’ve known there have been four facts that have not changed, will never change and we’ve known it since Sept. 25 when the call transcript was released.
“The call transcript shows no quid pro quo. What’s interesting is the day the transcript came out, even Chairman Nadler said there was no quid pro quo in the call transcript.”
Not only did House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler of New York deny the presence of a quid pro quo in the call transcript, he has also been an outspoken critic of party-line impeachments, a description that fits the current attempt against Trump perfectly.
“We know, second,” Jordan said, “that the two individuals on the call, President Zelensky, President Trump, have both said no pressure, no pushing, no linkage whatsoever between security assistance money and any type of announcement of an investigation.
“We know that the Ukrainians … didn’t know at the time of the call that the aid had been held up.
“And most importantly, most importantly, we know the Ukrainians took no action, no start of an investigation, no promise to start an investigation, no announcement on CNN, via tweet, no announcement whatsoever that there was going to be any type of investigation into Burisma or the Bidens to get the aid released.
“Those four facts — those four facts — have never changed.”
Jordan then detailed key meetings between top U.S. and Ukrainian officials in none of which the subject of military aid linked to an investigation of Burisma or the Bidens came up.
It’s difficult to allege a quid pro quo when there was no quid, no pro and no quo.
“Article 1 in this resolution ignores the truth, it ignores the facts, it ignores what happened and what has been laid out for the American people over the last three weeks,” Jordan later said.
“I hope that this committee will come to its senses, that it will adopt the amendment and strike Article 1 from the resolution.”
Despite laying out the clear facts, Jordan’s amendment was voted down hours after being introduced, according to CBS News.
The vote was split down party lines — not exactly indicative of the bipartisan image Democrats have attempted to give the impeachment of Trump.
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