Articles establish nothing impeachable and allege no crime: GOP leader of House Judiciary

Americans are fair minded. They deserve the truth and can spot it when given even half a chance.

If Tuesday’s Quinnipiac poll is any indicator, many Americans recognize that the path to impeachment was paved with lies. As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., presented articles of impeachment to the American electorate, more than half the country balked.

Apparently, voters understand that the articles — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress — establish nothing impeachable and allege no crime. The notion that withholding foreign aid from a historically corrupt country, and releasing the aid after the country’s new administration enacted anti-corruption reform, represents an abuse of power has failed to enrage the taxpayers whose paychecks fund that aid.

Americans also recognize the lie that President Donald Trump has obstructed a Congress that concluded its impeachment investigation 20 times faster than the investigation that led to the Clinton impeachment.

When the executive and legislative branches disagreed, Schiff refused to allow the courts to weigh in on constitutional questions. Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., declined to call any of the witnesses requested by Republicans, and Schiff withdrew his own subpoena for John Bolton’s deputy.

With inconvenient witnesses ignored and exculpatory evidence dismissed, House Democrats have chronically worked to mislead the public.

EDITORIAL BOARD: Impeach President Donald Trump

Under Pelosi’s unilateral leadership, Schiff replaced Nadler as Democrats’ impeachment Sherpa. What Schiff’s case lacked in direct evidence and eyewitness testimony, he made up for in literary license.

Americans remain unmoved in the wake of Schiff’s Ukraine report not because they are incredulous, but because Schiff is incorrigible. Schiff lied about his committee’s contact with the whistleblower and about whether a statutory right to anonymity shielded the whistleblower from testifying.

Schiff lied about having more than circumstantial evidence that Trump colluded with Russia, and the Mueller report debunked that lie. Schiff told a similar lie this Tuesday when he said the evidence for impeachment was “overwhelming and uncontested,” ignoring the fact that all 17 Judiciary Republicans dispute Schiff’s report.

Schiff also defended the Justice Department’s surveillance of a former Trump campaign aide, even though the department’s inspector general later found 17 errors or omissions in the FBI’s warrant applications. Democrats have been hurtling toward impeachment for years, facts be damned, and Americans are right to suspect Schiff of abusing his power as chairman.

Sadly, the Schiff syndrome seems contagious. Democrats lied about the criterion for their own impeachment. Their speaker promised it would be bipartisan, compelling and overwhelming. The only bipartisan stance here is opposition to the inquiry.

Since not even all of Pelosi’s caucus is willing to vote with her, we can hardly grant that her case is compelling, let alone overwhelming. Democrats told America the president is guilty of bribery, but there is no evidence to support such a charge.

The most dangerous lie told by leading Democrats, however, is that the president stands guilty until proven innocent. An extension of that lie made by multiple Democrats is that only a guilty person would resist being railroaded. When Pelosi puts the onus on the president to produce “information that demonstrates his innocence in all of this,” the Speaker of the People’s House is denying an American the presumption of innocence.

Like the people we represent, Republicans are fair minded. We know high crimes and misdemeanors when we see them, and we have not voted to advance this impeachment charade.

Pelosi has championed the political impeachment — divorced from facts and fairness — the Founders warned us against. She hasn’t proved anything impeachable, so she’s shifting the burden of proof to the accused. That may be the most un-American lie our nation’s capital has ever witnessed.

Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., is the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: House articles establish nothing impeachable and allege no crime