Dems' Frightening Abuse of Power
WASHINGTON, D.C.—House Republican Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) strongly criticized Democrats' abuses of power and legislative irresponsibility in today's colloquy with Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). Whip Scalise once again pressed Majority Leader Hoyer on when the American people can expect Democrats to bring USMCA to the House floor. Whip Scalise also blasted Chairman Schiff's apparent abuse of power in selectively leaking the subpoenaing of his colleagues' phone records, and the complete lack of transparency throughout this sham impeachment inquiry.
Democrats simply do not have the facts to support their assertion that President Trump committed impeachable offenses. Congress should get back to legislating, and let the American people decide who will be our next president.
See highlights from the colloquy below.
On Chairman Schiff's apparent abuse of power:
"Well, I would hope that [Majority Leader Steny Hoyer] would work with us to get to the bottom of this. As the gentleman pointed out, he's not aware of what [Chairman Schiff] is really doing, neither am I. But I'm very concerned about what the Chairman has done and that is still, and I'll yield in a moment, but he's selectively put in a report the names of members of the press, of Members of Congress, who he has had political disagreements with. He didn't put the names of everybody else in there. If he's got 3500 pages of reports of phone records of people he's been spying on, he won't share all of those people that he's spying on, but he's selectively going to leak out names of members of the press who've written articles maybe that he disagrees with. That's frightening.
"That would be an abuse of power, but we don't know because the Chairman won't share the details of what he's up to, but he did selectively put some of that in a report that wasn't even discussed in the hearings. And so yes, it raises alarms, it raises concerns, and I would hope we get to the bottom of it."
On Democrats' liberal law professor witnesses failing to justify that President Trump should be impeached:
Click here or on the image above to watch the clip.
"But even one of the witnesses, all of whom said they voted against the President, said it would be abuse of power of this committee, of your [Democrat] majority, to impeach a President based on him exercising his rights, and frankly, following the law. Which part of the law says – [the law] that the gentleman from Maryland [Majority Leader Steny Hoyer] voted for, the Chairman of the [Intelligence Committee], even the Speaker of the House voted for – that requires a President of the United States, prior to sending hard-earned taxpayer money to a foreign country, to ensure that they're rooting out corruption. Which President Zelensky ran on a platform of. But the old Reagan doctrine of trust but verify was in process where they were verifying that President Zelensky was in fact the real deal, and we determined that. And we have high confidence that President Zelensky is following through on rooting out corruption and the money was released – prior to the deadline for the money to be released. And there was no investigation, there was no announcements and all these other things.
"So, let's keep in mind, the bias of those witnesses. But ultimately, the people of this country I think are deciding this already. But the people of the country are the ones next year who should be the ones to select the President of the United States. Not some people who have said since 2016 that they didn't like that election so they're going to try to impeach the President regardless of facts."
On the lack of facts to support Democrats' assertion that President Trump committed impeachable offenses:
Click here or on the image above to watch the clip.
"Well, we're beyond the process arguments because we are into the details now, and the facts have been very clear that the President did not abuse power. The President did not commit impeachable offenses. The Mueller report confirmed that first of all, and then even the witnesses, the witnesses that the Democrats brought forward time and time again were asked ‘can you name an impeachable offense?' Not one. ‘Can you name bribery?' Which was the new term after the majority party focus grouped quid pro quo and realized that wasn't getting them where they wanted to go. Bribery, they were asked, ‘can you name any cases of bribery?' Not one. Even the witnesses earlier this week, none of whom had any firsthand knowledge of anything. You know, why they were there, who knows, but not one of them could name any firsthand account of wrongdoing.
"What we do know, is that over 100 Democrats in this chamber voted for impeachment prior to the phone call with President Zelensky. Voted for impeachment without any facts, because that was the objective of many in the majority was to impeach the President just because they didn't agree with the results of the 2016 election. Not because there were high crimes and misdemeanors. [They] still haven't been able to lay out any innuendo, hopes and dreams, none of which have come to fruition when the witnesses have come forward. And basically, the two people that are really most pertinent to this are President Trump and President Zelensky, because they were the two who participated in the phone call.
"Both of them said there was nothing wrong done. In fact, President Zelensky appreciated the phone call from President Trump. Thanked him for help he's given, that President Obama didn't give to stand up to Russia and ultimately said there was no pressure and got the money for additional aid that he requested. Those are the facts."