Ted Cruz Retweeted
Audio/transcript: Senator @tedcruz describes impeachment trial procedure to me in long interview and in as much detail as has been done to date: https://t.co/DgJ2yOGQg5— Hugh Hewitt (@hughhewitt) January 14, 2020
Posted on 01/14/2020 11:44:10 AM PST by conservative98
Senator Ted Cruz joined me this morning to discuss the looming impeachment trial:
Audio:
Transcript:
(Excerpt) Read more at hughhewitt.com ...
TC: I think there’s certainly a significant number of senators who are aware of that. I can’t necessarily say everybody, but that has been an issue. We have discussed it at great length. And you are right that on the face of this, the articles of impeachment voted out by the House don’t meet the bare thresholds the Constitution sets as the standard for impeachment. Impeachment of a president lies when the President has committed treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors. And on the face of it, these articles do not allege treason, bribery or other high crimes or misdemeanors. In fact, they don’t allege any criminal conduct whatsoever. It’s the first time in the history of our country a president has been impeached without an allegation of criminal conduct. They don’t allege the President violated any criminal law. They don’t even allege he violated any civil law. They don’t so much as allege that he had a speeding ticket. And that ultimately, bringing impeachment in those circumstances with no underlying criminal conduct, is an abuse of power by the House Democrats. It is partisan, it is political, and it is not consistent with the threshold for impeachment set out in the Constitution. That’s why I’m confident at the end of this proceeding, and as I said, we’re going to conduct a fair proceeding. We’ll let both sides present their case. But at the end of this proceeding, these claims are going to be thrown out, because they fail to satisfy the Constitutional standard for impeachment.
HH: Now Senator, there are a number of Republicans, and I don’t want to exclude anyone, but John Cornyn is a former member of the Texas Supreme Court. Josh Hawley clerked for the Chief Justice and was the attorney general for Missouri. Mike Lee is a federal court clerk and clerked for Justice Alito. You’ve got Tom Cotton who is not much of a lawyer, but a fine soldier, and he went to HLS. I can say that. And so I’m just curious do the members of the caucus defer to those of you like you who’ve got nine arguments before the Supreme Court and 50 courts of appeal arguments, and actually are deeply-versed in these matters?
TC: Well, look, I mean, every senator believes he or she knows what the Constitution says and has their own judgment. That being said, the Senate is a place where when you have a member that has a particular expertise, whether it is Constitutional Law or Ag policy, those members with that expertise tend to lead. And this is certainly the case here where those of us who have had considerable background in these areas have been much more vocal internally, have been meeting with leadership, have been meeting with the White House, have been working on planning and strategy throughout this entire proceeding, and have also been playing a much more visible role publicly, going out, you know, going round to round with the Chuck Todd’s of the world, going and trying to explain the underlying issues, because sadly, the mainstream media is not going to do that. And so we’ve got to be out and explaining what really is at stake here.
Ted Cruz Retweeted
Audio/transcript: Senator @tedcruz describes impeachment trial procedure to me in long interview and in as much detail as has been done to date: https://t.co/DgJ2yOGQg5— Hugh Hewitt (@hughhewitt) January 14, 2020
I find it rather amusing in one respect. About half of the dems Senators seem to be running for President. They cannot campaign at all once this starts. Say bye bye to Iowa.
HH: Now Senator, I want to belabor the point, because I’m trying to explain this to Steelers fan and to Michigan fans, so we’re going to go real slow. By first mover, I mean if the House managers who are the prosecutors here demand a witness, and the Senate allows that, that witness will be John Bolton. And what you’ve just said is the President’s defense team will be able to call a witness of their choosing, which I assume would be either the whistleblower or Hunter Biden. But I also believe that due process would oblige the Senate that if the House managers are granted the right to call a witness, if they’re the first mover for a witness, that the President get the right to be the first mover for a second round. In other words, round for round. I want a round, fine. But we get a round, and that would mean at a minimum two witnesses for the President. Democrats wouldn’t have to answer, or the House managers wouldn’t have to answer. Do you agree with my assessment? I’m just working off of fundamental fairness, the due process, you’re not going to find this in the Senate rules as they exist currently. But I think you’re going to find this tradition of one for one deeply embedded in our law.
TC: Well, I do think that if we go down the road of witnesses, and by the way, I think the Senate is likely to resolve the question of whether witnesses are going to be called in about two weeks. I think the way we’re going to proceed initially is that we’ll proceed the same way the Clinton impeachment trial proceeded, which is we’ll start with opening arguments from the House managers. We’ll then move to opening arguments from the White House defense team. And we’ll then move to questions from the senators. Now it’s different from what some folks might expect in that under the Senate rules of impeachment, senators are not allowed to speak in open session. That means that you’re not going to be seeing me going 15 rounds head to head with Elizabeth Warren arguing this on the floor of the Senate.
HH: Much as we would like to see that. We would love to see that.
TC: She isn’t ready. I would enjoy that very much, but instead, the way the questions are going to be handled, senators write their questions, submit them in writing, and then the Chief Justice asks the questions on our behalf. So it’s a bit of an unusual process. And after all…
Duplicitous Ted will join Merky, Whiner, Mittens and some others along with all the Dems to Convict.
+
ping
Proof ? Evidence ?
Just call the vote on Tuesday and end this insanity!!! It is NOT the job of the defense to bring in witnesses(We all know if they called Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, Schiff, etc, they would NOT be forced to testify) just end this stupidity already we have better things to do than this nonsense
Thanks for posting.
oh bs-
Experience coupled with intelligence.
Vote your conscience.
Willard Romney says he’s got nothing better to do.
Of course he doesnt..its not like he is going to run for re election or anything..and even if he does, he would probably win again
Neither proof nor evidence.
Nothing to worry about from Ted, I have no idea who “whiner” is supposed to be, but there may be enough Republicans who want to call witnesses that it just might happen.
Collins, Murkowksi, Gardner, Romney, Lee, Alexander and maybe one or two others. Maybe there will be a couple of Dems who will vote against witnesses (like Manchin or Jones), but I guess we will have to just wait to find out.
IMO, they should finish the debacle with calling no witnesses. Having witnesses testify would just lend credence to this fraudulent proceeding that it doesn’t deserve.
“Duplicitous Ted will join Merky, Whiner, Mittens and some others along with all the Dems to Convict”.
What a crock of crap you spew. What BS.
Cruz claimed Trump encouraged violence.
-100000000!! What a bunch of unmitigated BS piled 70 ft high.
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