‘The idea that [Pelosi] and her stooges were going to dictate Senate process framed this whole thing and made it much, much easier to work…’
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) The Democratic Party is to blame for its failure to impeach President Donald Trump, said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.
Cruz explained how the blunders of several prominent Democrats, such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., made it easy for the Senate GOP to squash Democratic demands during the impeachment trial.
Most notably, Warren’s attempt to embarrass Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and force him to choose a side on impeachment persuaded a few moderate Republicans to vote against calling additional witnesses, Cruz explained.
“Elizabeth Warren helped defeat the impeachment of the president of the United States,” he said in his new podcast “Verdict.”
“That stunt helped deliver the votes of [Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska] and [Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.],” he continued.
How did a Democrat help defeat the impeachment of President @realDonaldTrump?
Listen to the latest episode of #Verdict with @michaeljknowles and SPECIAL GUEST @LindseyGrahamSC to find out: https://t.co/dej3tAx5N4 #ImpeachmentTrial
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) February 3, 2020
During the question-and-answer period of the impeachment trial last week, Warren submitted a question that read: “At a time when large majorities of Americans have lost faith in government, does the fact that the chief justice is presiding over an impeachment trial in which Republican senators have thus far refused to allow witnesses or evidence contribute to the loss of legitimacy of the chief justice, the Supreme Court and the Constitution?”
Roberts had to read Warren’s question before the chamber. Shortly thereafter, Murkowski slammed the Democrats’ efforts to “further politicize this process, and drag the Supreme Court into the fray, while attacking the Chief Justice.”
What Warren did, Cruz said, was prove to hesitant Republicans that impeachment was nothing more than a “political game” that Democrats would use to politicize the Supreme Court.
The House Democrats’ political maneuvering also helped unify the Senate GOP, Cruz said.
The decision by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., decision to delay turning the House’s articles of impeachment over to the Senate convinced the GOP that the Democrats were not interested in taking this process seriously, one White House official explained, according to the Washington Times.
“Senators despise the House. The idea that she and her stooges were going to dictate Senate process framed this whole thing and made it much, much easier to work,” the official said.
The Democrats’ constant threats didn’t help either. At one point, House impeachment manager Adam Schiff declared that the only reason Republicans continue to support Trump is because if they didn’t, their heads would be “on a pike.”
Other Republicans concluded that even if Trump’s dealings with Ukraine were “inappropriate,” as Alexander concluded, the House Democrats failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that his actions met “the Constitution’s ‘treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors’ standard for an impeachable offense,” Alexander said in a statement.