Episode 17 Show Notes- The Weaponization of Impeachment

Episode Description

In this episode, Professor Giordano takes on those who have decided to weaponize impeachment and the advocacy news media for their failure to report facts as opposed to gossip and innuendo. He calls out those who want to remake America and undo our political institutions in their effort to seize power and control. This episode focuses on one of the biggest political miscalculations in history and we examine the far-reaching political implications for America and our future. It is time to take off our ideological blinders and provide real analysis.

Intro

Welcome everyone to another episode of The PAS Report Weekly Roundup Podcast. This is your host Nick Giordano. We just witnessed one of the biggest political miscalculations, certainly in my lifetime, and for this episode, I want everyone to take off their political blinders. I want you to approach what took place over the last few days from a non-ideological perspective.

But before I begin, a quick follow-up on last week’s PAS Report episode. There is no new news about the situation with Iran, and we still wait to see what the Saudi/U.S. response would be. Some are concerned because the United States deployed more troops to Saudi Arabia, but the increase in troops does not concern me much and it was something I expected. Now if it we announced that naval destroyers and aircraft carriers have been dispatched from the Pacific to the Persian Gulf, it would concern me that conflict was inevitable.

As far as this week goes, I am continuing to focus on the attempt by some to try and remake America and our intuitions. Last week I focused on miscalculations on the international front. This week, the I-word has been deployed and Speaker Pelosi may have just made one of the greatest political miscalculations in history on the domestic front. I want to touch on the latest media faux outrage. At what cost are we going to allow the continued destruction of our political institutions all in the pursuit of power and control? Ideology has infected every aspect of life, and nearly all aspects of government have now been weaponized. If we continue down this path, it will not end well.

As always, if you want to see the show notes go to thepasreport.com.

The latest media outrage

Once again, the advocacy news media proves that they have nothing to do with journalism, and are more an extension of a political party. Beginning over the weekend, the advocacy news media went wall-to-wall coverage over a whistleblower report that alleges misconduct in the administration obviously focusing on President Trump. It has been alleged that President Trump put pressure on the Ukrainian government to investigate Joe Biden and his son.

The phony outrage is amazing, and the calls for impeachment began to grow louder. The debate quickly devolved into speculation as opposed to facts. Wild accusations were thrown around. This astonishing me considering:

Here is what we know:

• A whistleblower filed a complaint, but what we didn’t know was what the complaint alleged
• The complaint was filed after a call with a foreign leader
• The whistleblower followed the proper channels, and the head of the DNI, Joseph Maguire, stated it might contain privileged information. From that, we were able to deduce it deals with administration considering only the President can invoke Executive Privilege.
• The whistleblower was not listening in on the conversation, and based their complaint on second or even third-hand information
• The President is aware that numerous people listen in on phone calls, and transcriptions are made to the various intelligence agencies
• The existence of the complaint was leaked to Congressman Adam Schiff

Here is the problem that the media and those who have pure hatred for President Trump were to blind to see

• How many times over the last two years have we heard about a smoking gun that will take down President Trump? The advocacy news media reports breaking news, everyone ramps up, and then the truth comes out and the allegation is proven wrong. It’s like the media and democrats are on a repeat cycle and learn nothing. I would advise them to be cautious in their approach.
• Over the last several days, we have heard the word impeachment a million times, which I will get into in a minute. Interesting that the media and democrats would push the impeachment crap without before seeing the actual whistleblower complaint or the transcript of the President’s call with the Ukrainian leader. It would be one thing if they viewed the complaint and had the transcript of the call, but they didn’t and that did not matter to them. Speaks volumes.
• This latest fake scandal highlights that no one cares about facts anymore, and would rather jump to conclusions and speculate rather than to analyze the information currently available, and patiently wait for the facts to emerge.
• While the whistleblower did follow the normal procedures, the whistleblower was not in on the conversation and is relying on a second or third hand account. Second and third-hand information can be inaccurate or interpreted incorrectly. This incident would be much more serious had it been a first-hand account of someone listening in on the call.
• The existence of the complaint leaked to Congressman Schiff. While Congressman Schiff is Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, he is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, weasel in Congress. Here is someone who said he had more than circumstantial evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russia. He said he had hard evidence, yet he never turned it over to the Special Counsel or released it to the public. Why? It would achieve his objective of destroying the Trump presidency. Sometimes the simplest questions can lead to the honest answers. He lied consistently to the American public, and never released the so-called secret evidence. Congressman Schiff is a partisan hack and a disgrace. He should be held accountable and forced to resign by lying about such serious allegations.
• If the allegation is nonpartisan, why leak it to Congressman Schiff? Why not leak the allegation to a well-respected moderate Democrat or to someone like House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer? That would give the allegation far more credence.
• The irony and hypocrisy of politicians never cease to amaze me. So, the left accuses the Trump administration of pressuring a foreign government to launch investigation on a political opponent. This is interesting because I heard this story before, and this is exactly what the Obama administration did by getting foreign intelligence agencies and governments to spy on the Trump campaign, but Democrats do not care about that. In fact, they will say but this is different.

How quickly events changed on Tuesday

Everything changed rapidly on Tuesday. I expected the next couple of days that I would be discussing President Trump’s speech at the United nations and potentially Iran in my classes. However, everything changed that morning when Speaker Pelosi announced that she would be holding a meeting with her caucus at 4pm to discuss the accusations even though no member of Congress or the media saw the allegation or the transcript of the phone conversation. The meeting was going to be about impeachment.

At about 2pm, President Trump sent out a tweet that he ordered the transcript of the conversation between himself and the Ukrainian leader to be declassified and released completely unredacted. Since the report of complaint allegedly was referring to this conversation, surely getting the first-hand account of what was discussed in the President’s own words would be enough to clear the air.

At about 2:30, Speaker Pelosi was at a forum where she took questions from the moderator. The moderator informed Speaker Pelosi of President Trump’s tweet that he will be releasing the entire transcript. Her response started-off innocuously, but then she made two critical errors. She stated that the transcript would not be enough, and she stated that it is more about a “sequence of events” rather than just the conversation. However, there are two problems with that.

• First, the whistleblower complaint is second or third-hand information. Meaning the whistleblower was not there, had no direct knowledge of what the conversation was about, didn’t speak to the principle actors involved with the call, and relied on another party to discuss the contents of the call. That’s hearsay, and could never be used in any type of legal proceeding. This is something Judge Judy routinely bashes plaintiffs and defendants on, and that’s small claims court. We are talking about the President of the United States here.

 

• The second problem, if we are going to judge by the standards of sequence of events, wouldn’t Joe Biden have to be held to the same standard. In 03/2014, Russia takes over the Crimea. The very next month, Hunter Biden was appointed to sit on the board of a Ukrainian natural gas company pulling in $50k a month without having any in-depth knowledge of the Ukraine and no experience in the energy sector. Are we really to believe that this appointment wasn’t meant to buy influence over the Obama administration. But the “sequence of events” gets worse.

 

• The New York Times warns Joe Biden that the company his son sits on the Board of is under investigation by the Ukrainian government. Talk about a chummy relationship.

 

• Vice President Biden then begins to pressure the Ukrainian government to oust the chief prosecutor investigating the company. VP Biden threatens to withhold a billion dollars in aid, and sure enough the Ukraine capitulates. (Politico)

 

• VP Biden says he was working on behalf of the Obama administration and that the prosecutor was corrupt. However, why wouldn’t the Secretary of State be the one to pressure the Ukrainian government? It doesn’t make sense to task the Vice President to apply this pressure. And if President Obama was so worried about the corruption, why wouldn’t he put the pressure on? His voice certainly holds much more weight than the Vice President’s.

 

• Surely the Obama administration would know about Hunter Biden sitting on the Board of a Ukrainian company, and they would certainly be aware that the company was being investigated. So why would they task the Vice President with anything that has to do with the Ukraine, especially knowing of this major conflict of interest. Just from a political optics level, wouldn’t you want to avoid even the appearance of the conflict of interest?

 

• Now under Title 18 U.S. Code 208, executive branch officials can face criminal penalties if they fail to recuse themselves when their official duties conflict with financial interests. (Congressional Research Services) However, the President and Vice President are exempt from this statute, but why even create the appearance or the controversy? Are we to believe that this was all coincidence or is it part of a “sequence of events” that Speaker Pelosi laid out.

Speaker Pelosi Drops the Bomb

At 4pm, Speaker Pelosi meets with the Democrats on the path forward. I have to say, while I disagree with Speaker Pelosi on a variety of issues, I always praised her understanding of the blood sport politics is. I always gave her credit for being an effective leader, and understanding politics better than most. She has to manage all the competing factions within her political party which is a very difficult task.

But at 5pm, she dropped a bomb and it was clear that her authority had been usurped by the far-left, and she no longer has control over the Democrat caucus. Speaker Pelosi announced that an impeachment inquiry will now begin. This was an enormous political miscalculation, and they certainly over-played their hand.

I was shocked at the announcement. I expected her to say they will determine a course of action once they see the unredacted transcript and view the whistleblower complaint. All she had to do is tell her caucus to wait 24-72 hours, but instead they forced her to use the I-word.

Anyone who studies politics or is a political advisor knows not to commit themselves if they don’t know what the outcome is going to be.

You would think the Democrats would have been more cautious given the President’s quick response to release the transcript. If President Trump did something illegal, or even appeared to do something nefarious, why would he be so quick to release the report?

As President, he could have easily declared Executive Privilege. Under the implied powers clause, the President can withhold information from members of Congress and federal investigators based on national security grounds. The House would have sued the President, but the President would have easily won in the courts as conversations with foreign leaders are always deemed national security. So why was President Trump so eager to get this out there, and how did Speaker Pelosi and other Democrats get completely baited by the President?

Unfortunately, people now let their emotions dictate their actions. Their absolute hatred of the President has allowed their emotions to cloud their judgement, and that brings us to impeachment, who will be damaged the most and what we can expect over the next several months.

Impeachment

Not Really Impeachment

Some will argue that nothing really changes. That Speaker Pelosi didn’t actually trigger the formal Articles of Impeachment. They argue she was trying to walk a fine line between the various factions in her caucus.

However, this was a dumb move. Most Americans are unaware of the formal impeachment process, and most will assume that impeachment has started. People will now want to know what the impeachable offense is. They want to know what criminal statute the President is being accused of violating. People are going to want to see actual hard evidence.

What makes it worse is the fact that President Trump released the transcript showing that no crime was committed. There was no pressure on the Ukrainian government and there was quid-pro-quo. I encourage every listener out there to put aside their ideology and read the transcript for yourself. It’s only five pages long. Don’t let the snakelike politicians or the advocacy media tell you what’s in the transcript. Read it yourself and come to your own conclusions.

In fact, weasels like Congressman Adam Schiff said that he doesn’t believe this is the full transcript. These people are nuts.

Democrat Presidential candidates will suffer

Democrat Presidential Candidates will surely suffer. The candidacy of those with little name recognition ended yesterday. The top tier candidates will also suffer. The media will now go 24/7 coverage of impeachment. Every hearing will be broadcast live. The nighttime programs will then have their pundits and panels to analyze what took place in the hearings.

There will be no time to cover the lesser tier candidates, and the top-tier candidates will not be able to get their message out on media airwaves. The impeachment and Donald Trump will suck all the oxygen from news coverage.

Joe Biden is done

Joe Biden’s campaign is effectively over. The campaign was already stumbling along. Joe Biden seems tired, and he has too many gaffes. It already appeared his heart was not in the race, and now an enormous amount of attention will be paid to him.

The media tried to protect and shield Biden. Unfortunately for Biden, now the media will be forced to ask questions. You can be certain that he will hounded with questions of conflict of interest and the Ukraine. The bigger story will be Joe Biden and China. In 2013, Hunter Biden accompanied his father, Vice President Biden, on Air Force Two to China, about two weeks later, the Chinese government infused $1 billion, and received an additional $500,000, in a private equity fund created by Hunter Biden and Chris Heinz, who is the stepson of former Secretary of State John Kerry. Why would China infuse this kind of money into an unknown, and unproven fund.

President Trump will still be President Trump

The idea that Democrats can remove President Trump from office based on what we know is ridiculous. Demoracts have pretty much inoculated the President from most attacks. By consistently crying wolf, and trying to make every issue that one that takes President trump down, they have only strengthened him.

The idea that at least 20 Republican Senators cross party lines, assuming all 47 Democrat Senators vote to remove the President from office, is a pipe dream based on what’s out there. So why even go down this road. Those that hate the President will do so regardless of any of the facts, and those that love and support the President will still do so. The optics of putting on an impeachment show, knowing there is zero chance of removing the President, will only make those who aren’t political, the swing voter, more sympathetic to President Trump.

Democrats put their House Majority at risk

The stupidity of the impeachment move is truly stunning. If we look back to 2018, only a handful of far-left progressives won. The Democrats gained the majority with centrist and blue dog Democrats who campaigned on working across party lines and working with the President. These candidates that won the Trump districts are going to have a hard time after many pledged they would not go down the impeachment road.

How the Squad hijacked the Democrat party is mindboggling. They may have a lot of followers, but they don’t have much political clout, and they are the new face of the party. Democrats live in a state of paralysis to take on the far-left progressives, and this is to their own detriment.

Speaker Pelosi is done

Speaker Pelosi also destroyed herself by this self-inflicted wound. When impeachment fails, who do you think Democrats will blame?

Closing

If we look at this from just an objective standpoint, take away the R’s and the D’s, take away President Trump and Speaker Pelosi, impeachment has now been weaponized to try and take down a sitting President, not based on facts, but based on emotions. This sets a dangerous precedent going forward. If Republicans did this to President Obama, I would be criticizing them as well.

Essentially, we have lowered the impeachment bar where every future President is at risk of being impeached. Remember, what one party does when they are in the majority, the other party will do, and take it a step further, when they get into the majority. This will not end well.

Regardless of how you feel about the President, no President has been investigated nearly as much as President Trump. Both Houses of Congress and the committees, the Special Council, the Southern District of New York, and several State Attorney Generals Office’s. We can all agree that there are many in these positions that despise President trump and want him removed from office. Sometimes the simplest question gives you the correct answer. With all of these investigations on all aspects of president Trump’s life, how come no hard evidence has leaked out? Everything leaks, and this would destroy the Trump presidency. If real evidence of criminal wrongdoing exists and leaked out, Republicans would be forced to move towards the Democrats with impeachment. Yet, nothing.

These people are looking to destroy our institutions for nothing more than power. They believe the ends justify the means. They are constantly attacking the President and allege he is throwing away the Constitution, yet they do exactly the things they accuse him of doing. Why do they show no interest in the abuses of power of the bureaucrats? Why do they show no interest of the alleged Ukrainian involvement with the Hillary campaign in 2016? Why do they show no interest in how the Russia investigation started? The answer is simple and it’s because they all had one thing in common, destroy the President.

Any fair-minded person not blinded by ideology would agree, and I would be speaking no matter which party is abusing power. Our founders were keenly aware and warned that government will gain too much power, and it will then abuse that power. However, this will not end well for the United States if people are not held to account. As a Political Scientist, I can put personal bias aside and see how dangerous this is. Sadly, even if you try to approach a topic with objectivity, people will accuse you of bias because it doesn’t fit what they want to hear.

This should not be a partisan debate. If you don’t like President Trump, then win an election. However, every aspect of government has now been weaponized. I implore Congress to get off their asses and introduce legislation that will prevent this from ever happen again, and anyone who violated the law because they believed they were working for the greater good should be fully prosecuted.

The PAS Report will continue to call out the wrongs within our society regardless of political party.

Please share this episode with others and leave a good review on whatever platform you listen to the podcast on.

As always if there is a topic or issue you would like me to focus on, send an email to podcast@pasreport.com.

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