Even CNN Is Calling out Chuck Schumer’s Impeachment Trial ‘Impartiality’ Hypocrisy
Someone should alert New York’s senior senator to make him aware that when he’s lost Democrat-friendly news outlets like CNN he’s, ya know, lost.
Two weeks ago, Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) made it very clear to Democrats that he had no intention of playing by the left’s rules when it came time for the Senate to conduct the impeachment trial.
In an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity at the time, McConnell promised “total coordination” between Senate Republican leaders, the White House counsel’s office, and President Trump’s attorneys.
Predictably, Democrats erupted, with some calling for McConnell to recuse himself from the trial.
In a follow-up interview a few days later in front of a gaggle of reporters, McConnell iterated his position, stating “I’m not and impartial juror. This is a political process, there’s not anything judicial about it.”
Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) spoke just a short time after McConnell’s remarks, noting he was “utterly amazed” that his Republican Senate colleague would make such an admission.
Watch both McConnell and Schumer speak in separate interviews on this issue:
McConnell declares, "I'm not and impartial juror."
Schumer responds, "I'm utterly amazed… Do the American people want Mitch McConnell not to be an impartial juror in this situation?" pic.twitter.com/9dkD4BjLvi
— Michael McAuliff (@mmcauliff) December 17, 2019
Schumer’s line of attack is a drum that he and other Democrats have continued to bang since McConnell told Hannity and the reporters earlier this month, in so many words, that he was not going to let Democrats dictate how the Senate’s impeachment trial would be run.
Unfortunately for New York’s senior senator, his own words from 1998 and 1999 on President Bill Clinton’s impeachment have come back to haunt him.
Surprisingly enough, it was CNN that did the digging and found comments Schumer made both when he ran for Senate in 1998 and after he was elected in which he let people know he had already made up his mind before the Senate trial started:
But in several appearances on television in 1998 and 1999 reviewed by CNN’s KFile, Schumer noted that senators had previously formed opinions heading into the trial and that the Senate was “not like a jury box.” Schumer was elected to the Senate in 1998 after saying during his campaign that a vote for him would be a vote to not impeach Clinton.
[…]
Speaking on CNN’s “Larry King Live” in January 1999, Schumer said the trial in the Senate was not like a jury box.
“We have a pre-opinion,” Schumer said, citing himself and two newly-elected Republican senators who had voted on impeachment in 1998 as members of the House of Representatives who said they would vote in the Senate. “This is not a criminal trial, but this is something that the Founding Fathers decided to put in a body that was susceptible to the whims of politics.”
“So therefore, anybody taking an oath tomorrow can have a pre-opinion; it’s not a jury box,” King asked Schumer.
“Many do,” Schumer responded. “And then they change. In fact, it’s also not like a jury box in the sense that people will call us and lobby us. You don’t have jurors called and lobbied and things like that. I mean, it’s quite different than a jury. And we’re also the judge.”
[…]
At the time of the vote to remove Clinton, Schumer announced in a Newsday op-ed that he would be voting to acquit.
Schumer said he made up his mind in September 1998, when in the midst of his campaign for Senate, he voted against proceeding with impeachment as a member of the House Judiciary Committee.
Watch two different highlight reels of Schumer speaking on “pre-opinions” in the late 1990s below:
https://twitter.com/KFILE/status/1210615849234681863
Schumer had attacked his Senate opponent Al D’Mato for not taking a position on impeachment during their 1998 debate. D’Mato said he would not take a position until “the proof is presented” at the Senate trial – calling it “inappropriate.” https://t.co/nPMyvjZE6V pic.twitter.com/tYAc6hkwzd
— andrew kaczynski? (@KFILE) December 27, 2019
To top it off, Fox News reported last week that Senate Democrats did indeed coordinate with the Clinton White House during impeachment proceedings:
According to then-Washington Post reporter Peter Baker’s book, “The Breach: Inside the Impeachment and Trial of William Jefferson Clinton,” Senate Democrats coordinated with the White House on a number of impeachment-related issues behind the scenes.
According to Baker, one of those arrangements involved White House Counsel Charles Ruff arranging a “secret signal” with Democratic leadership. If Ruff wanted to rebut anything from the Republican House managers, something rules didn’t allow for, he pre-arranged with then-Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle’s aides for a senator to submit a question to then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist asking the White House to respond.
Aides reportedly would “fill in the name” of one of several “default senators” — such as Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and then-Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn. — who had agreed to allow themselves to “be used in this way.”
That Democratic Senate leaders worked closely with Clinton’s attorneys was even confirmed by former Sen. Minority Leader Tom Daschle (SD) in a statement to Axios reporter Jonathan Swan two weeks ago.
It’s almost as if Senate Democrats have two sets of standards when it comes to impeachment trial impartiality. None for them, but strict standards for Republicans. Imagine that.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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Comments
Schumer is really something else. Another Harry Reid. Did anyone get him exercise equipment for Christmas? Something with rubber bands? Does he have a brother named Larry?
Chuckie the Screamer?
He’s got two brothers named Larry.
But he didn’t get any rubber exercise bands for Xmas, just
atomic wedgie thongs…..
HOLD IT! There still has not been any legal resolution re Hillary, & her criminality! Comey “decided” she didn’t do any criminality? She was never sworn to an oath, of honesty! Comey did not have the authority to “decide” anything!
33,000 e-mails destroyed, “after” she received her subpoena…..destroyed more than a dozen phones…..sold Uranium to the Russians, & received 170 million $’s, from the Russians into the Clinton Fdntn….{ & much more}…..Let’s thoroughly investigate that, { GRAND JURY}….See where that goes….Then we can address the trump “thingy”…{ “IF”, there is anything to look at}…..Old business first!
Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others.
Groucho Marx
I Don’t Want to Belong to Any Club That Will Accept Me as a Member. – Groucho
democrats lack of competence, honesty and ability to get anything done for the American people on full display. Instead of doing things that actually improve the lives of American citizens, they play political games. We elected President Donald J. Trump to work for us, and he’s done more in 3 years than schumer and pelosi have in decades.
“honesty…”
Follow the money. As we’re seeing, all these top democrats have been robbing us blind. Obama was the apex.
Must the the DEMS’ Apex – they’ve been practicing all the things Young points out for more than a Whole Century now!
Very peculiar, even by the lax standards of a Democrat.
The House hands down an indictment, and appoints some members as prosecutors. The Senate performs multiple functions, being judge (overlapping somewhat with the official presiding judge, the Chief Justice), jury, and . . . defense. Defense obviously can’t be handled by the House, as it’s already the prosecution. McConnell was just clarifying his job.
I can’t believe that Schumer doesn’t know this. He’s not, say, Barbara Boxer, who’s too dumb to know if it’s raining or Tuesday. Schumer knows better; he’s just a smarmy weasel. Which, of course, we already knew.
The Chief Justice isn’t there as a judge, he’s there as the temporary president of the senate. He doesn’t act as judge, or set the rules; the senate itself sets the rules and he doesn’t even get a vote. The only reason he’s there at all is because it would not be appropriate for the senate’s actual president, Mike Pence, to preside over a proceeding that seeks to make him president of the USA.
(Oddly enough, the constitution’s text implies that if the vice president is impeached he does indeed preside over his own trial.)
According to Milhouse a month ago, the Chief Justice was so important that he could force the senate to hold a trial.
Take whatever he says with a (several) grain of salt.
Of course, it was pure bullshit then and it remains so.
I wrote that if the House impeaches (and Pelosi ever sends the articles up) then a trial must be held. The Chief Justice will show up at the senate and convene one. I did not claim that he could set the rules for the trial, or control how it would be conducted. Of course as president he can make rulings from the chair, but they can be overridden by a majority of the senate. A trial there must be, but it can be as long or as short as the senate likes.
Nope, sorry, that’s not what you said. You said if the senate did not conduct a trial (which in the constitution is not require) that the Chief Justice could force them to conduct the trial.
You were completely wrong. Be a man. Just admit it.
Yes, the Chief Justice can show up and convene the trial. Because for that purpose he is the senate president.
Nope, sorry, nothing in the constitution allows the supreme court chief justice to go to the senate and convene a trial.
Not.One.Line.
As you seem to be fond of saying about others – it appears as though you’ve not read the constitution.
Further, the constitution does not require the senate even hold a trial.
And in the lower left hand corner is the ever lovely Senator for life from Washington State Patty Murray. Sigh….. we are in such good hands.
My ex and I used to refer to her as “Droopy Dog.”
“It’s almost as if Senate Democrats have two sets of standards when it comes to impeachment”
There is no almost about this. When are the real criminals going to face prosecution?
These days, schumer looks like the corrupt flea he is, doesn’t he?
Hey! That’s an insult to Fleas!
I demand Chuck Schumer recuse himself of all matters involving Republicans
The opportunity to set a standard of fairness and impartiality has already gone by. Had the House provided such a process for the impeachment they’d be on much firmer ground from which to make a demand of same from the Senate. As it is, McConnell doesn’t owe them a thing.
For CNN, this is not a change of course so much as a self-preservation tactic. I am sure they are reading the polls in detail and are alarmed at the series of body blows they have suffered as their audience continues to crater.
It’s like when I worked for an NPR affiliate in the late 1970s/early 1980s and our chief engineer, after reviewing the results of our in-depth CPB review, declared “We are in the communication business and bouncing radio waves off of buildings, trees and rocks is not communication regardless of how strong and clear our signal.”
Like all Leftists through history, Chuckie does nothing but lie. The entire Leftist agenda is, and has always been, based on lies, misinformation, and deception. And everywhere that Leftists have been allowed to lie, cheat, and steal their way into power and control, unmitigated disaster has always been the result. And that is what the Communists – er, I mean the Democrats – have planned for this nation should we ever be foolish enough to allow them to gain complete control of our government.
Maybe one of these days the dim/lib will figure out that the camera that they sooooooo love to schmooze up to also records ……but then again we do call them Dims.
The Senate should schedule the trial and acquit if the articles of impeachment aren’t delivered. Otherwise, go thru the evidence and throwout anything that violated normal jurisprudence which will leave no evidence so they should acquit.
Dems have two sets of standards? One for thee and one for me? Uhhhh…..yeah. That’s like re-stating that the sun rises in the East and sets in the west.