Radio Recap - Trick or Treat: The House Impeachment Inquiry Vote

Trick or treat? Earlier today the House of Representatives voted to pass Resolution 660, the resolution setting forth the rules formalizing the impeachment inquiry.

Today on the broadcast, we discussed the House impeachment inquiry vote. I would call House resolution 660 attempted retroactive attribution of due process – attempted because it fails.

The resolution passed 232-196. No Republicans voted for it and two Democrats voted against it. You could say with those two Democrats opposing, that the impeachment inquiry has bipartisan opposition. But not a single Republican even considered this process worth going through, which should tell everyone this inquiry is absolutely NOT bipartisan.

House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Doug Collins described the day:

No matter what is said by the other side today this is a dark day and a cloud has fallen on this House. It has been falling for ten months and it is showing itself today. What we are seeing is this - if the gentleman, who is a friend of mine, from the rules committee would actually want to talk about “are these the same rules as Clinton and Nixon” then we would’ve had a much longer period of debate. Because he knows and I know it is not. There are similarities. Some better, some not, but they are not the same.

To be clear, this is not a vote on articles of impeachment, it is a vote on the investigative procedures attempting formalizing the inquiry. The President has not been impeached, merely the House has formalized the same ineffective process they have been engaging in, giving the power to Adam Schiff and the other committee chairs.

Functionally, nothing has changed. The Majority continues to deny due process.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy had the following to say:

For the last three years they have predetermined the President’s guilt, they have never accepted the voters’ choice to make him President. So, for thirty seven days and counting they have run an unprecedented, undemocratic, and unfair investigation. This resolution today only makes it worse.

I’ve heard members on the other side say they promise rights to the President but only if he does what they want. That’s the equivalent of saying in the first amendment you have the right to the freedom of speech but you can only say the words I agree with. That’s what you call due process.

ACLJ Senior Counsel Andy Ekonomou correctly pointed out that Adam Schiff is trying to run a grand jury process, when in fact, a congressional committee needs to run a fair and open process.

There is no due process at the Intel Committee and the cake is baked by the time it goes to the Judiciary Committee.

We’ll continue to keep you updated on this situation as there are more developments.

You can listen to the entire episode here.