Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) slammed the impeachment efforts by Democrats, his first comments on the issue since Congress went on a two-week break.
“House Democrats are finally indulging in their three-year-old impeachment obsession. Full steam ahead,” McConnell said on the Senate floor on Oct. 15.
“Many of us remember the Washington Post headline that was literally published on inauguration day back in 2017. Here’s what it said: ‘The campaign to impeach President Trump has begun.’ And sure enough, House Democrats have been at it ever since,” McConnell said.
He accused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) “finally crumbled and allowed her left-wing impeachment caucus to dictate the House’s actions.”
“I don’t think many of us were expecting to witness a clinic in terms of fairness or due process. But even by their own partisan standards, House Democrats have already found new ways to lower the bar,” McConnell said.
The impeachment process is “about the most consequential process” it can engage in, McConnell said, making it imperative to be conducted “with the utmost fairness and transparency.”
“And yet, House Democrats wasted no time in throwing fairness and precedence to the wind,” he added.
“Already, they’ve denied their Republican counterparts certain minority rights, like equal subpoena power that Republicans provided Democrats during the [Bill] Clinton impeachment. Already, they’ve made clear that President Trump’s counsel will not be allowed to participate in hearings, present evidence, and cross-examine witnesses. All important rights that Republicans provided to President Clinton. Already, one House chairman has been caught mischaracterizing his committee’s handling of the whistleblower inquiry on which this whole investigation hinges.”
House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said he regretted saying in mid-September: “We have not spoken directly with the whistleblower.”
McConnell accused Democrats of moaning about norms being destroyed while flaunting rules themselves.
“Of all the public hyperventilating over institutional norms that we’ve heard from House Democrats in recent years, it appears they have no intention of letting norms, precedence, or basic due process stand in the way as they seek to cancel out a presidency,” he said on Tuesday.
McConnell said that the Senate would stay focused on working on legislation and continuing to confirm some of Trump’s judicial nominees.
McConnell’s comments came just before Pelosi said the House would not hold a formal impeachment inquiry vote.
“We will not be having a vote,” Pelosi told reporters on Oct. 15, adding that “a path to truth” must be taken first.
