Gaetz challenges impeachment witnesses, exposes a deep anti-Trump bias

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R) questioned the key witnesses of the House Judiciary Committee's impeachment inquiry about their past allegiances to Democratic presidential candidates, and about their past and present support for impeaching President Donald Trump.

This video speaks for itself, as does the transcript, so I will just leave it at that.

Transcript

Rep. Gaetz: The will of the American people also elected Donald Trump to be the President of the United States in the 2016 election and there's one party that can't seem to get over it. We understand the fact that in 2018 you took the House of Representatives and we haven't spent our time during your tenure in power trying to remove the Speaker of the House and delegitimize your ability to govern. Frankly, we'd love to govern with you. We’d love to pass USMCA. We’d love to put out a helping hand to our senior and lower prescription drug prices, it's the will of the people that you ignore when you continue down this terrible road of impeachment.

Professor Gerhardt, you gave money to Barack Obama, right?

Professor Gerhardt: My family did, yes.

Rep. Gaetz: Four times?

Professor Gerhardt: That sounds about right, yes.

Rep. Gaetz: Mr. Chairman, I have a serious unanimous consent request relating to Professor Feldman's work.

Chairman Nadler: The gentleman will suspend. We'll take that time off. Has the gentleman submitted…have we seen the material? We'll consider the unanimous consent request later after we review it.

Rep. Gaetz: Thank you Mr. Chairman. Mr. Feldman wrote articles entitled, “Trump's wiretap tweets raise the risk of impeachment.” He then wrote “Mar-A-Lago Ad belongs in impeachment file” and then Mr. Jake Flanagan wrote in courts a Harvard Law Professor thinks Trump could be impeached over fake news accusations.

My question is since you seem to believe that the basis for impeachment is even broader than the basis that my Democratic colleagues have laid forward, do you believe you're outside of the political mainstream on the question of impeachment?

Mr. Feldman: I believe that impeachment is warranted whenever the President abuses his power for personal benefit or to corrupt the democratic process.

Rep. Gaetz: Did you write an article entitled, “it's hard to take impeachment seriously now.”

Mr. Feldman: Yes, I did.

Rep. Gaetz: Did you write since then the 2018 midterm election House Democrats have made it painfully clear that discussing impeachment is primarily or even exclusively a tool to weaken President Trump's chances in 2020. Did you write those words?

Mr. Feldman: Until this call on July 25th, I was an impeachment skeptic. The call changed my mind and for good reason.

Rep. Gaetz: Thank you. I appreciate your testimony. Professor Karlan, you gave $1,000 to Elizabeth Warren, right?

Mrs. Karlan: I believe so.

Rep. Gaetz: You gave 1,200 bucks to Barack Obama?

Mrs. Karlan: I have no reason to question that.

Rep. Gaetz: And you gave $2,000 to Hillary Clinton?

Mrs. Karlan: That's correct.

Rep. Gaetz: Why so much more for Hillary than the other two.

Mrs. Karlan: Because I have been giving a lot of money to charity recently because of all the poor people in the United States.

Rep. Gaetz: Those aren't the only folks you have been giving to. Have you ever been on a podcast called Versus Trump?

Mrs. Karlan: I think I was on a live panel that will the people that ran the podcast called Versus Trump.

Rep. Gaetz: On that do you remember saying the following? “Liberals tend to cluster more. Conservatives, especially very conservative people tend to spread out more, perhaps because they don't even want to be around themselves. Did you say that?”

Mrs. Karlan: Yes, I did.

Rep. Gaetz: Do you understand how that reflects contempt on people who are conservative?

Mrs. Karlan: No, what I was talking about there was the natural tendency, if you put the quote in context, the natural tendency of a compactness requirement to favor a party whose voters are spread out.

Rep. Gaetz: I have limited time professor so I just have to say when you talk about how liberals want to be around each other and cluster, and conservatives don't want to be around each other and have to spread out, you may not see this from the ivory towers of your law school but it makes people in this country…excuse me, you don't get to interrupt me on this time.

Now let me also suggest that when you invoke the President's son's name here. When you try to make a little joke out of referencing Barron Trump, that does not lend credibility to your argument. It makes you look mean and like you're attacking someone's family, the minor child of the President of the United States.

So, let's see if we can get into the facts to all of the witnesses. If you have personal knowledge of a single material fact in the Schiff report, please raise your hand.

<<<NO WITNESS RAISES THEIR HAND>>>

And let the record reflect no personal knowledge of a single fact and you know what, that continues on the tradition we saw from Adam Schiff.

Where Ambassador Taylor could not identify an impeachable offense. Mr. Kent never met with the President. Fiona Hill never heard the President reference anything regarding military aid. Mr. Hale was unaware of any nefarious activity with aid. Colonel Vindman even rejected the new Democratic talking point that bribery was invoked here. Ambassador Volker denied that there was a quid pro quo. And Mr. Morrison said there was nothing wrong on the call. The only direct evidence, came from Gordon Sondland, who spoke to the President of the United States and the President said ‘I want nothing. No quid pro quo.’”

And you know what? If wiretapping a political opponent is an impeachable offense, I look forward to reading that Inspector General report because maybe it’s a different president we should be impeaching.