Gabbard Trashes Pelosi Over Impeachment: You Can't Make Up the Rules as You Go Along

The Democrats' sham impeachment process has been a mess since the beginning. We knew that when Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) announced their "impeachment inquiry" the night before President Donald Trump released the transcript of his call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. They made the argument that Trump threatened to withhold military aid to Ukraine unless Zelensky he investigated former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, for corruption. After all, Hunter was being paid more than $50,00 a month to sit on the board of a Ukrainian gas company despite having no natural energy experience.

We knew it was a sham, yet again, when the House voted to start the formal impeachment inquiry into the president roughly three weeks later.

And it was confirmed, yet again, when Democrats continued pushing this witch hunt with the goal of attempting to jam through impeachment before Christmas. That is why the full House voted on and passed two articles of impeachment last week. The problem, however, is Speaker Pelosi might not actually send the articles of impeachment over to the Senate for a trial.

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), however, broke from her Democratic colleagues and voted "present." And she was the only one to do so. The reason? She does not agree with the Democrats' partisan witch hunt but, at the same time, she believes President Trump committed wrongdoing.

“I am standing in the center and have decided to vote Present,” Gabbard said following the vote. “I could not in good conscience vote against impeachment because I believe President Trump is guilty of wrongdoing.”

But when Pelosi announced her intention to hold the articles of impeachment in an effort to "ensure a fair trial" in the Senate, Gabbard was shocked.

“I was surprised to hear that,” the Congresswoman told The Hill TV. “You can’t kind of just shift and change and make up the rules as you go along. If you’re going to pursue this process, you’ve got to let it play out the whole way through.”

Gabbard argued that failing to deliver the articles of impeachment to the Senate reinforces the hyperpartisanship that is currently taking place, something she believes is the fault of both political parties.

This is not just on part of the Democrats. You see on those who are defending Donald Trump. You see a blind loyalty to their party’s leader,” she said.

Gabbard is right about one thing: if Democrats are going to push this partisan witch hunt, then they should not be able to pick and choose what processes they follow and which ones they do not. The Democrats have chosen to go down the impeachment road. They need to follow prior precedent – which they have failed to do so far – to make sure it is "fair" for the president. They cannot claim to follow the precedents that were followed during Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton's impeachment proceedings when there is absolutely zero bipartisan support for President Donald Trump's impeachment. They cannot claim to be following prior precedents when there the White House has had no chance to defend the president against these baseless claims.

You raise some good points, but why in heaven's name would you ever expect the Supreme Court to rule one way or another in ANY case?

The Court is likely to rule the impeachment articles are invalid, nullifying the impeachment.

I don't know what evidence you have to support this. In fact, I'd go so far as to suggest that the Court is treading on very dangerous ground if it makes a ruling that comes anywhere close to this.

Let's consider this in the context of a completely different angle. If the U.S. Supreme Court can rule that a House impeachment is invalid, then what prevents the Court from ruling that a Senate ACQUITTAL in this case is invalid?

You see the danger here? Of all the branches of the Federal government, it's the judicial branch that is most likely to operate in a rogue manner with no oversight. The best way to avoid this kind of disastrous scenario is to keep cases out of the judicial branch that have no business being there.

The 2014 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the NLRB v. Noel Canning case is very relevant here. In that case, a company targeted for enforcement action by the National Labor Relations Board fought the case on the grounds that most of the NLRB board members were appointed illegally by Barack Obama as "recess appointments" even though the Senate was not actually in recess when they were appointed.

Several items worth noting here:

1. The Supreme Court ruled against the NLRB by stating that the President has the authority to make recess appointments, but the Senate was the sole arbiter to determine when exactly it was in recess. The President has no authority over the Senate, and has no business telling the Senate what constitutes a legitimate "recess" for the purpose of presidential appointments.

2. There were two different opinions drafted by the Supreme Court justices, but there was no dissent. This was a 9-0 ruling, with the majority opinion supported by the four liberal justices and one "swing" justice at the time (Anthony Kennedy). The four conservative justices concurred with the ruling, but issued a separate opinion that disagreed with one particular application of the majority opinion under the Constitution.

3. The U.S. Senate didn't file a legal challenge to the Obama appointments. The Senate determined (correctly, in my mind) that the best course of action was to simply ignore the illegal Obama appointments and act as if those NLRB appointees had no legal right to rule on anything.

4. The opportunity for a solid legal challenge arose when the NLRB with its illegal appointees issued a ruling against a company that could legitimately claim that is was being harmed by the rogue NLRB. At this point the company (Noel Canning) had the proper legal standing to challenge the legitimacy of the NLRB.

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Now fast-forward to 2019 and early 2020. There is nothing in the House's idiotic "impeachment" that prevents anyone in the U.S. government from doing its job. If the President of the United States somehow feels constrained by the sham impeachment, then that's really HIS problem.

One of the first rules of construction is that you look to the plain wording of the statute or, in this case, the Constitution. The wording is clear - (Read carefully - pay attention to commas)

“The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors”.

Note that the required basis for BOTH impeachment AND conviction must be ‘Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors.’

If the wording of a statute or Constitution is clear on its face the Court is bound to apply the plain wording and not look elsewhere. Since Pelosi’s articles clearly fail the test for what rises to the level of an impeachable offense, there has been no impeachment. Not just any old conduct suffices, the conduct must meet Constitutional muster.

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