House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Devin Nunes (R-CA) shed a light on the House Intelligence Committee Democrats’ lack of objectivity, noting in his opening statement that five of the Democrats sitting on the committee voted in favor of impeaching President Trump prior to his phone call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Not one Republican voted in favor of the partisan impeachment inquiry resolution due, in part, to concerns that it allowed Democrats to act under the guise of transparency and objectivity – a point Nunes emphasized in his opening statement.
“It’s unfortunate that today, and for most of next week, we will continue engaging in the Democrats’ day-long TV spectacles instead of solving the problems we were all sent to Washington to address,” Nunes began, mentioning the “major trade agreement with Canada and Mexico ready for approval” and approval for government funding, which runs out next week.
Nunes reminded the American people that Democrats on the committee are far from objective, as five Democrats on the committee voted to impeach the president prior to the infamous Trump-Zelensky phone.
“Instead, the Democrats have convened us once again to advance their operation to topple a duly elected president. I’ll note that five—five—Democrats on this committee had already voted to impeach this president before the Trump-Zelensky phone call occurred,” Nunes stated, adding that the call to impeach Trump began almost immediately after he was elected and ultimately sworn in.
“In fact, Democrats have been vowing to oust President Trump since the day he was elected. So Americans can rightly suspect that his phone call with President Zelensky was used as an excuse for the Democrats to fulfill their Watergate fantasies,” Nunes continued.
“But I’m glad that on Wednesday, after the Democrats staged six weeks of secret depositions in the basement of the Capitol—like some kind of cult—the American people finally got to see this farce for themselves,” he added, knocking what Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) has described as Schiff’s star witnesses, whose testimonies relied heavily on “second-hand, third-hand, and fourth-hand from other people”:
They saw us sit through hours of hearsay testimony about conversations that two diplomats, who’d never spoken to the President, heard second-hand, third-hand, and fourth-hand from other people—in other words, rumors. The problem of trying to overthrow a president based on this type of evidence is obvious.
“But that’s what their whole case relies on, beginning with the second-hand and third-hand information cited by the Whistleblower,” Nunes continued.
“That’s why on Wednesday, the Democrats were forced to make the absurd argument that hearsay can be much better evidence than direct evidence,” he added.