Page:Impeachment of Donald J. Trump, President of the United States — Report of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives.pdf/355

 The Democrats and their adherents in the Left-wing media have propounded a seemingly endless parade of reasons to impeach President Trump. In a "tweet" he used the term "fake news" and some saw that as grounds for impeachment. They asserted he should be impeached for the Muslim Ban (upheld by the Supreme Court), exercising his legitimate constitutional power to pardon (someone they didn't like), his tweet about FBI and U.S. intelligence surveillance of his presidential campaign (confirmed by the 2019 Inspector General report), tweeting about NFL players disrespecting the Flag and law enforcement officers, and just about everything else. One congressman suggested he should be impeached for slavery.

All of these were either policy disputes or personality conflicts. Some were outlandish and nonsensical. But the media and Democrats often repeated them.

Democrats helped perpetuate the Russian collusion hoax and even suggested an invocation of the 25th Amendment to remove the President.

Is it any wonder that this impeachment process has been greeted with such skepticism? And, once the Schiff show in the top-secret basement bunker started, without the presence of the traditional committee of jurisdiction, the Judiciary Committee, the Democrats demonstrated that Americans' mistrust was justified.

The entire process was based on a foundation of deception. Chairman Schiff opened the informal impeachment - the first time in history an impeachment inquiry has been opened without a full vote of the House - by deceiving the American people into thinking a whistleblower expressed concern over the July 25 call between President Trump and President Zelensky. But Democrats' own New York Times broke the news that the whistleblower had communicated with Chairman Schiff's staff before coming forward publicly. To this day, it is still unclear whether Chairman Schiff himself met with the whistleblower or how his staff conspired to help craft his statement because Chairman Schiff and his staff refuse to answer questions about their dealings.

Once the transcript of the July 25 call was released by the White House and Chairman Schiff found that it did not support, and in fact, conflicted with his narrative, he created his own. After all, he needed some claim such as conditionality that would allow him to propound his false narrative.

Because there was no evidence of a this-for-that in the transcript of the call, Schiff wrote his own dialogue. He made up a conversation and told this fabrication to the world. He made it sound like President Trump directly asked President Zelensky for an investigation of his political opponent. But it was false. A lie. He had to make it up because the evidence he hoped for wasn't there. The oddest part is that Democrats quoted liberally from his report in the impeachment markup and Democrats continue to perpetuate the myth.

Next up, Democrats started calling witnesses to testify, hoping one of them would give them some facts to support their narrative. In violation of House rules, they held these interviews and depositions in a top-secret room in the basement of the Capitol, denying access to most members of Congress (including the Judiciary Committee) and prohibiting attending members from discussing the substance. The secret room and gag rules allowed Democrats to get their story 6