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| Photo by Gage Skidmore (CC-BY-SA 2.0) |
By John Paluska, Founder and Senior Editor
The Democrat-led impeachment inquiry into President Trump will continue after a House vote on Thursday formalized the steps ahead.
Just over a month since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) announced an impeachment investigation into President Donald Trump, members of the U.S. House of Representatives sat on Thursday to vote on the rules and continuation of the impeachment inquiry in the President.
What was expected to be a highly partisan vote proved to be just that. H.R. 660 passed by a vote of 232-196, only needing 217 votes to pass. The votes came in along party lines with 231 Democrats voting "yes," 2 "no" and 1 "abstaining," and 194 Republicans voting "no" and 3 not voting. One independent, Justin Amash, voted "yes." Amash was a member of the Republican party until he made national headlines in July of 2019 when he was kicked out of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, chose to leave the party, and called for the impeachment of President Trump.
A statement from White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham called out the fact that the resolution would "enshrine unacceptable violations of due process into House rules."
She went on to say that "Speaker Pelosi, Chairman Schiff, and the Democrats conducted secret, behind-closed-door meetings, blocked the Administration from participating, and have now voted to authorize a second round of hearings that still fails to provide any due process whatsoever to the Administration. The Democrats want to render a verdict without giving the Administration a chance to mount a defense. That is unfair, unconstitutional, and fundamentally un-American."
The Impeachment Inquiry's Dark and Tortured History
Trump impeachment talks began before Trump even stepped foot in office. And the Mueller Report, which was conducted based on salacious and unverified Intelligence Community leaks to the press, investigated a now-debunked hoax that Trump was working for the Russian government.
According to Christopher Steele in a court filing. his infamous "Steele Dossier" that was used as the basis for the Russia Investigation was compiled to provide information for Hillary Clinton to challenge the validity of the 2016 election. The salacious and unverified dossier remained, by the FBI's own admission, unverified clear into May of 2017.
When Robert Mueller's much anticipated report was released in 2019, it exonerated Trump of any collusion with Russia but provided a decidedly ambiguous ruling concerning obstruction of justice. While the Mueller Report did not say Trump obstructed justice, it did not deny it, either.
This was when the Impeachment Inquiry took a different turn. Democrats began arguing Trump should be impeached due to obstruction of justice, but the legal case for obstruction was debunked once Robert Mueller declined to affirm obstruction of justice in his testimony. Further, Attorney General William Barr and Inspector General Rod Rosenstein both concurred Trump did not obstruct justice during the Mueller Investigation.
But new life was breathed into the Impeachment Inquiry when a then-unnamed and unknown whistleblower, who was finally outed by attorneys as Obama-appointed CIA officer Eric Ciaramella, filed a complaint that Trump demanded a quid pro quo from the newly-elected President of Ukraine to investigate Biden and his son in return for military aid.
When the President of Ukraine himself stated he felt there was no quid pro quo, and the release of the transcript of the phone call corroborated this assertion, known liar Democrat Adam Schiff (CA) falsified parts of the transcript on live television to build an impeachment case based on a quid pro quo.
But the President was not doing anything illegal. According to Article 1 of the 1998 treaty negotiated between Ukraine and the United States, the president can request the following from Ukraine:
"taking the testimony or statements of persons; providing documents, records and other items of evidence; locating or identifying persons or items; serving documents; transferring persons in custody for testimony or other purposes; executing requests for searches and seizures; assisting in proceedings related to immobilization and forfeiture of assets, restitution, and collection of fines; and, rendering any other form of assistance not prohibited by the laws of the Requested State. The scope of the Treaty includes not only criminal offenses, but also proceedings related to criminal matters, which may be civil or administrative in nature."
"taking the testimony or statements of persons; providing documents, records and other items of evidence; locating or identifying persons or items; serving documents; transferring persons in custody for testimony or other purposes; executing requests for searches and seizures; assisting in proceedings related to immobilization and forfeiture of assets, restitution, and collection of fines; and, rendering any other form of assistance not prohibited by the laws of the Requested State. The scope of the Treaty includes not only criminal offenses, but also proceedings related to criminal matters, which may be civil or administrative in nature."
Following the false assertion that President Trump demanded a quid pro-quo from the President of Ukraine, the Trump administration provided the military aid to Ukraine anyway and Adam Schiff began to hold secret, closed-door impeachment meetings, with many commentators fearful of the Stalin-esque nature of the inquiry.
Those fears were confirmed when 30 Republican Congressmen attempted to sit in on one such meeting. House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) demanded the sergeant at arms "take action."
The Epoch Times reports that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has admitted the Impeachment Inquiry has not yet "found whether Trump has committed an impeachable offense."
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