Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., suggested Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., should be impeached for inciting violence, if that’s the standard Democrats are going to use against former President Donald Trump this week.
Referencing comments Schumer made about Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch last year, Paul argued Schumer should be held accountable just as Democrats want to hold Trump accountable for supposedly inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
“If we’re going to criminalize speech, and somehow impeach everybody who says, ‘Go fight to hear your voices heard,’ I mean really we ought to impeach Chuck Schumer then,” Paul said in an interview on Fox News on Sunday. “He went to the Supreme Court, stood in front of the Supreme Court and said specifically, ‘Hey Gorsuch, Hey Kavanaugh, you’ve unleashed a whirlwind. And you’re going to pay the price.’ This inflammatory wording, this violent rhetoric of Chuck Schumer was so bad that the chief justice, who rarely says anything publicly, immediately said this kind of language is dangerous as a mob tried to invade the Supreme Court.”
Last spring, as the Supreme Court was preparing to hear oral arguments in a case about abortion rights, Schumer led a pro-abortion rally and said, “I want to tell you, Gorsuch, and I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”
In response, Chief Justice John Roberts condemned Schumer’s “dangerous rhetoric.”
But Schumer will not be held to the same standard, Paul argued, because Democrats are not interested in holding themselves accountable.
“If people want to hold President Trump accountable for language, there has to be a consistent standard and to my mind it’s a partisan farce because they’re not doing anything to Chuck Schumer, not doing anything to Rep. Omar, not doing anything to Maxine Waters. It’s just not fair. It’s just partisan politics under a different name,” Paul said.
