On Thursday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi invoked America's founding documents in explaining why she was asking Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler to begin drafting articles of impeachment. Democrats, Pelosi said, were approaching this "with confidence and humility" because President Trump's Ukraine shakedown "leaves us no choice but to act."
Indeed, the investigation thus far has persuasively demonstrated that Trump directed a lengthy and broad-based scheme to force Ukraine into interfering in the next U.S. election, with vital military assistance used as bait _ then oversaw a cover-up.
Unable to defend the president, Republicans can only furiously deflect, accusing Democrats of plotting a scheme larger than the one they've been found guilty of.
In impeachment hearings, House Intelligence Committee ranking member Devin Nunes made an art form out of throwing undercooked spaghetti on walls: "it's not President Trump who got caught, it's the Democrats who got caught ... orchestrating this entire farce with the whistleblower and lying about their secret meetings with him."
Forgive Nunes his defensiveness. The committee majority's report revealed multiple calls between him and Rudy Giuliani during the time Trump's personal lawyer was orchestrating a smear campaign against former U.S. Ambassador to the Ukraine Marie Yovanovich.
Separately, Nunes spoke with indicted Giuliani associate Lev Parnas _ a conversation he claims not to recall. As for "secret meetings," Nunes previously shuttled information from earlier committee hearings into Russian election meddling over to the White House.
So silly and juvenile are Republicans' claims, they may as well be chanting "I'm rubber, you're glue, everything you say bounces off me and sticks to you."
