The Daily Signal - Sen. Cruz: Impeachment Is a '1-Sided Show Trial,' 'Not Driven by Facts'

Episode Date: January 7, 2020

President Donald Trump is only the third president to be impeached. Impeachment is a rarely used tool that the Founders intended to be a serious and fair process. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is concerned President Donald Trump hasn't gotten the due process he deserves. I spoke with him about the impeachment process and how it will likely play out in the Senate. Listen to the podcast or read a lightly edited transcript below. The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, Apple Podcasts, Pippa, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [e-mail]. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Tuesday, January 7th. I'm Kate Trinco. And I'm Daniel Davis. Congress is back in Washington, and so is impeachment. Today, you'll hear an exclusive take from Senator Ted Cruz. Our colleague Rachel Del Judas sat down with him recently to talk about impeachment. We'll also share a conversation Virginia Allen had with Greg Jarrett, a Fox News commentator and author of the new book, Witch Hunt, the story of the greatest mass delusion in American political history.

And if you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or a five-star rating on iTunes, and please ask your friends and family to subscribe. Now on to our top news. President Donald Trump remains frustrated about the impeachment process, which is likely soon headed to the Senate. Congress and the president should not be wasting their time and energy on a continuation of the totally partisan impeachment hoax when we have so many important matters pending, the president. tweeted Monday, this was not what the founders had in mind. He also tweeted, the impeachment hoax, just a continuation of the witch hunt, which started even before I won the election, must end quickly. Read the transcript, see the Ukrainian president's strong statement, no pressure. That latter sentence

is a reference to Ukraine President Waldemir Zelensky's remarks last September at a press conference with President Trump. In response to a question from a reporter about whether Trump had pressured him regarding former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, Zelensky said, nobody pushed me. John Bolton says that for his part, he's willing to testify before a Senate impeachment trial if he gets subpoenaed. On Monday, Bolton said he would do his best to meet his obligations, both as a citizen and as former national security advisor. Bolton was never formally subpoenaed by the House, but senators may do so given his central role in the White House during the period of the Trump-Ukraine phone call. So far, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has resisted Democrats' calls to have witnesses testify in an impeachment trial.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement, given that Mr. Bolton's lawyers have stated he has new, relevant information to share, if any Senate Republican opposes issuing subpoenas to the four witnesses and documents we have requested, they would make absolutely clear they are participating in a cover-up. Tehran streets were packed on Monday with mourners at a funeral procession for General Kasim Soleimani. Soleimani is a terrorist who was ordered killed by President Donald Trump in an eirstrike Thursday. Trump said of Soleimani, Soleimani made the death of innocent people his sick passion,

contributing to terrorist plots as far away as New Delhi and London. Now, the Wall Street Journal reports it hundreds of, hundreds of thousands were present for the procession on Monday, and CNN says, many of those on the streets of the Iranian capital were visibly upset and angry. Others shouted, down with the USA, and death to the USA. Soleimani's death is also causing other ripples in the region. In a non-minding resolution, Iraq's parliament voted Sunday to ask American forces to leave the region. The Wall Street Journal reports that lawmakers during and after the session chanted,

out-out-occupier, no-no to America, no, no to Israel. Trump reacted by threatening sanctions in saying, We have a very extraordinarily expensive airbase that's there, meaning in Iraq. It costs billions of dollars to build. We're not leaving unless they pay us back for it. President Trump is keeping the rhetorical pressure on Iran in the wake of last week's killing of Major General Kasim Soleimani. On Monday, he tweeted in all caps, Iran will never have a nuclear weapon.

The president was likely responding to Iran's decision over the weekend to officially ditch the 2015 nuclear deal signed by President Obama and European allies. Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced there would be a vote this week on a resolution to limit President Trump's military actions against Iran. The war powers resolution, as it's being called, would limit President Trump's military actions against Iran to 30 days without further congressional approval. The resolution will face a Republican-controlled Senate and potential presidential veto. In a new annual report, Planned Parenthood reveals it performed more abortions in 2017 through 2018 than in the previous year.

Specifically, the abortion giant performed 345,672 abortions. According to the pro-life group, Susan B. Anthony List, that means Planned Parenthood effectively provided one adoption referral for about every 80 abortions it did. Planned Parenthood also racked in $1.6 billion in income. How much of that came from taxpayers? Well, according to Susan B. Anthony list, about 38% of revenue, or $617 million, came from government funding. The Golden Gloves are usually ground zero for Hollywood. virtue signaling, not so much this year. Comedian Ricky Chervais took the mic as the emce

and roasted his audience in a quite savage manner. Here's part of what he said. You could binge watch the entire first season of afterlife instead of watching this show. That's a show about a man who wants to kill himself because his wife dies of cancer. And it's still more fun than this. Spoiler alert, season two is on the way. So in the end, he obviously didn't. kill himself, just like Jeffrey Epstein.

Shut up. I know he's your friend, but I don't care. He also said this. Apple roared into the TV game with a morning show. A superb drama, yeah. A superb drama about the importance of dignity and doing the right thing, made by a company that runs sweatshops in China. So, well, you say you're woke, but the companies you work for, I mean, unbelievable.

Apple, Amazon, Disney, if ISIS started a streaming service, you'd call your agent, wouldn't you? So if you do win an award tonight, don't use it as a platform to make a political speech, right? You're in no position to lecture the public about anything. You know nothing about the real world. Most of you spent less time in school than Greta Thumburg. Well, despite that admonition, one actress, Michelle Williams, did speak her mind on a controversial issue, abortion. The currently pregnant actress said that abortion was crucial to her career success. I've tried my very best to live a life of my own making, not just a series of events that

happened to me, but one that I had carved with my own hand, and I wouldn't have been able to do this without employing a woman's right to choose, to choose when to have my children and with whom, when I felt supported and able to balance our lives, knowing as all mothers know that the scales must and will tip towards our children. Now, I know my choices might look different than yours, but thank God or whomever you pray to, that we live in a country founded on the principle, that I am free to live by my faith, and you are free to live by yours. Next up, we'll feature Rachel's interview with Senator Cruz on impeachment. It's because of support from listeners like you that we can continue to produce podcasts like

Heritage Explains and SCOTUS 101. And you can help us keep it up by going to www. www.heritage.org slash podcast today to make your tax deductible gift. We are joined today on the Daily Signal podcast by Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. Senator Cruz, thank you so much for being with us today. It's great to be with you. Thank you for having me. So even though it's a new year, it's no secret that impeachment will continue to overtake the news and even Congress, even though this is something we've been hearing about for, you know, actually four years now, what should Americans know about this impeachment that maybe they're not hearing on mainstream media? Well, what we saw in the House of Representatives was really a sad display.

It was a one-sided show trial. And it was the culmination of three years of hatred and partisan venom. House Democrats had been calling to impeach the president literally since Election Day 2016. This impeachment was not driven by facts. It was not driven by evidence. It was driven by partisan rage because the far left hates the president. What we saw in the House was a one-sided show trial where the White House was denied the opportunity to cross-examine witnesses. And Republicans were denied the opportunity to call witnesses. even so, even after setting up a kangaroo court of only one-sided prosecution witnesses, the House Democrats case fell apart.

Compare what the Democrats were saying in November to the ridiculous articles they ended up voting out. In November, you had House Democrats all saying, bribery, bribery, bribery, we're going to prove bribery, we're going to prove obstruction of justice, we're going to prove all these crimes extortion. Now look, bribery, obstruction of justice, extortion, those are serious crimes. And then, after they actually heard evidence, the evidence didn't back up any of that. So everything they alleged, they got to it and said, well, we can't, and there's a reason. So all of those are federal crimes. Federal crimes have things called elements, elements of the crime. If you're a prosecutor and you're approving a crime, you've got to

prove the elements. The testimony came in and they couldn't prove the elements of a crime. For example, bribery requires agreement. Testimony was undisputed. Ukraine didn't even know this was going on. Well, you can't have agreement if the testimony is clear. The other side doesn't even know about it. So the Democrats' problem was everything they'd promised collapsed, but they hated the president wanted to impeach him anyway. And so they voted out articles of impeachment that on their face don't meet the constitutional standard. The Constitution specifies what has to be proven for impeachment of a president, and that is treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. On its face, the House articles of impeachment don't meet that. Now, here's the good news.

In the Senate, we're going to see a very, very different proceeding. We're going to see a fair trial in the Senate. What does a fair trial mean? It means both sides are going to have the chance to present their case. We're going to allow the House managers to present their case. They can argue whatever they want to argue. They can rely on whatever evidence they can. But you better believe we're also going to allow President Trump to present his case. He wasn't able to do that in the House. He wasn't able to do that. We're going to respect due process. We're going to give the president an opportunity to present a full defense on the merits, on the facts. And then at the end of that process, this entire charade is going to be thrown out.

And why is it going to be thrown out? It's going to be thrown out because it doesn't meet the constitutional standards. On its face, the House didn't even allege high crimes or misdemeanors. So the result of the fair trial of hearing both sides will be that the case will be thrown out at the end of the trial. You were just recently at the Heritage Foundation, and you said something really interesting that a lot of people aren't talking about. You said that this impeachment cycle that we're seeing with President Trump, it's now being used. this is a political tactic and really nothing else. Can you talk to us about that?

Well, sure. And this is something actually the framers of our Constitution worried about, worried about a great deal. They didn't want to see impeachment just used as a political weapon. And if you go back, and as you know, at Heritage, I talked through at considerable length some of the constitutional history of where the language of treasoned and bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors came from. And there were a couple of early iterations.

but then going into the convention, the language for impeachment of the president just said treason or bribery. And George Mason, one of the most well-respected of the framers, stood up and he made a motion to add the word maladministration, so that the phrase would have read, treason, bribery, or mal-administration. James Madison, widely recognizes the father of the Constitution, stood up and objected to Mason's suggestion. And he said, this is a bad idea because maladministration is such a general, such a broad and capacious term. He said what it would mean is any time Congress disagreed with the president, they could impeach the president. So let's not put maladministration in there because this shouldn't be a tool. just when you have a political or policy disagreement with the president.

So Madison came back and said, how about instead of maladministration, let's add other high crimes and misdemeanors, that's what they ended up doing. The consequence of the Democrats doing this, if this is the standard for the House of Representatives, every president from now to eternity will be impeached anytime the House is of an opposing party. The media will never point this out, but as conservatives, Barack Obama was president for eight years. I disagreed with Barack Obama profoundly.

I think he advocated, I think he implemented policies that were enormously damaging to this country that hurt Americans, that hurt Texans. But yet despite my very strong disagreements with Obama, I didn't advocate impeaching Obama. I wasn't out there arguing we should impeach Obama. Why? Because if you disagree with someone on policy or politics, the Constitution has a remedy for that. You go and win at the ballot box. You go make the case to the American people that the policies this guy is implementing are bad policies. Now, here's the Democrats' problem.

We've got a roaring economy. We've got the lowest unemployment in 50 years. We've got the lowest African-American unemployment ever recorded. We have the lowest Hispanic unemployment ever recorded. They can't make the case on policy. They're looking at it saying, well, if we actually have to argue on substance, we lose. So let's impeach him. That's an abuse of the Constitution.

and sadly it is where today's extreme radical Democratic Party is. So we've seen arguments on Twitter and even mainstream news outlets. I saw an article last week saying that, you know, oh, this Trump impeachment is similar to the Clinton impeachment. There are two very different situations. Can you detail that real quickly for us? Well, sure. Most fundamentally, Bill Clinton was impeached for committing high crimes and misdemeanors. And in particular, he was impeached for perjury.

and obstruction of justice. It's quite clear that perjury and obstruction of justice are high crimes and misdemeanors. They're felonies. They're serious felonies. If you or I commit perjury or obstruction of justice, we could face years in prison. The House Democrats haven't alleged that. And it's interesting if you contrast, so there are two articles that the House Democrats voted out. Number one, where they were threatening bribery, extortion, they didn't impeach on any of that. that they made something up called abuse of power. And their argument is they don't have to allege any violation of criminal law. They don't have to allege any federal law whatsoever was violated.

They don't have to argue, in their view of the world, that Donald Trump had a speeding ticket. They just disagree with his foreign policy and how he implemented it. That's Article 1. Let me tell you, as weak as Article 1 is, Article 2 is orders of magnitude weaker. Why is that? Because Article 2 is obstruction, but it's not obstruction of justice. It's obstruction of Congress. Now, it's interesting because for months, Democrats have been saying that Donald Trump committed obstruction of justice. Obstruction of justice is a high crime or misdemeanor, but the facts don't back it up.

They couldn't meet the elements and prove obstruction of justice. So they backed away, and here's their argument. Their argument is because administration, officials claimed various forms of privilege, primarily executive privilege, that the mere act of claiming a legal privilege is obstruction of Congress and it is a high crime or misdemeanor that is impeachable. That is a ludicrous, laughable standard. If that were a standard, and this is not hyperbole, every single one of the 45 presidents we've had

would have committed high crimes or misdemeanors that can be impeached. Because going back to George Washington, every president has asserted executive privilege and other privileges. And let's dive down a little bit more because I want to show just how ridiculous this is. Let's take the case of John Bolton. All right. So John Bolton was the national security advisor to President Trump for a year and a half. House Democrats wanted John Bolton to testify in the House. John Bolton did something, I think, very clever and very wise.

through his lawyer, he went to federal district court in D.C. And he went to the judge and he said, judge, I've got a demand from the House of Representatives to testify. And I've been instructed by the White House not to testify based on executive privilege. And John Bolton said, Judge, you tell me what to do. I'll follow the law. I've got two conflicting legal obligations here. So I'm going to you, Judge, asking for what is the right answer under the law. You know what House Democrats did?

they said, never mind. They literally just said, never mind, okay, we'll go away. The fact that you went to court to ask for an answer, they said that's obstruction, going to court. Contrast that, say, to the Nixon case. Nixon, there was a grand jury subpoena for the White House tapes. Remember Richard Nixon had a secret tape recording device in the Oval Office. Very stupid, by the way, bad, bad idea. But he did.

grand jury issued a subpoena. That was litigated all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. U.S. Supreme Court issued an order to the Nixon White House hand over those tapes. Nixon resigned, I think, two days later. That's actually how these issues are typically resolved. If the House wants to get testimony, they can issue a subpoena, they can go litigate it, they can take it to the court, they can take it to the Supreme Court. Their position is, nope, we're not going to do any of that.

any president who asserts any privilege, that is, quote, obstruction of Congress and impeachable, that it is difficult to find a more ludicrous argument in support of impeachment. I think you're right that we're going to keep seeing this unless we reel this in somehow. Senator Cruz, thank you so much for joining us on the Daily Simmel podcast. Always a pleasure. Tired of high taxes, fewer health care choices, and bigger government, become a part of the Heritage Foundation. We're fighting the rising tide of. homegrown socialism while developing conservative solutions that make families more free and more

prosperous. Find out more at heritage.org. I'm joined on the Daily Signal podcast by Greg Jury. Fox News Legal Analyst and New York Times bestselling author. Greg, thank you so much for joining me. My pleasure to be here. Now, you've been very vocal about the left's constant attacks on President Trump. You actually wrote a book titled Witch Hunt, which will address in just a moment here. But why do you think that the left has been so vehemently against President Trump since even before he was elected? Hatred and, you know, blinding bias that has, you know, driven them to accuse him of the most noxious crime imaginable, a treasonous conspiracy with Russia that proved to be nothing more than a hoax. knocked down by the Mueller report and even further evidence of it in the Inspector General's report. And, you know, it has been driving the impeachment of the president.

And, you know, it was very revealing that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said recently in a forum caught on videotape that she'd been trying to do this for two and a half years. That tells you everything you need to know. They didn't care whether they had a valid reason or not. They were determined to undo the election result, damaged Trump's presidency and drive him from office by hook or by crook. They chose the latter. Now the president has been impeached by the House. What are the differences between Trump's impeachment

and the impeachment of Bill Clinton and Andrew Johnson? Look, in the Bill Clinton case, the most recent one, in 1998-99, There was an extensive investigation by an independent council, but the name of Ken Starr went on for two years. He interviewed, you know, hundreds of witnesses, examined millions of documents. He identified 11 felony offenses by President Bill Clinton. Here, in the case of Donald Trump, there are no felony offenses. identified. There are no misdemeanors identified. Read through the articles of impeachment.

There are no crimes stated. And this wasn't an exhaustive investigation by an independent counsel now. This was a largely secret process by Adam Schiff in the House of the course of several weeks. And his only witnesses were offering opinion, speculation, and multiple hearsay, there was only one fact witness who actually spoke to Donald Trump, who recounted how the president said, I want nothing. I want no quid pro quo. So there's no direct evidence that the president did anything wrong that constitutes an impeachable offense. This is, you know, rage instead of reasoning. There is no clear and convincing evidence, which is the impeachment standard. This is exactly what the framers of our Constitution feared

that the impeachment clause would be weaponized for partisan purposes. They feared that an opposing party who disliked a particular president would seek to impeach him for purely political reasons. And that's what's happened. Are you worried about the future? I mean, now that we have seen impeachment be used as this political weapon, do you think it's likely that this is going to be a pattern? that we see in future generations.

Absolutely. This is a dangerous new standard. Every perceived slight or misconduct by a president will now be immediately branded an impeachable offense. Because Democrats in the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi in particular, has set the standard so low that anything is impeachable.

You know, when you read article, One impeachment, it's entitled Abuse of Power, which is this wonderfully amorphous phrase that can mean anything. It's found nowhere in the Constitution, and it's exactly what the framers rejected. There was great debate in consideration to use the term maladministration during the Constitutional Convention as a vehicle for impeachment. It was debated and deliberately rejected because the framers, and you can read the debate, as it's recounted, said it's too vague. It's too ambiguous. It could mean anything, and it would be used as a political cudgel by an opposing party. So they rejected it, and they arrived at a pretty clear standard, treasoned bribery, high crimes, and misdemeanor.

Stated nowhere in these articles of impeachment against Trump. Yeah. Let's talk for a moment about your book, Witch Hunt, the story of the greatest mass delusion in American political history. Why did you decide to write the book? Well, I wrote the first book. It came out a year and a half ago called The Russia Hoax. And it told the story of how, you know, powerful, unelected officials operating in the shadows of secrecy, created the greatest mass delusion in American political history. But since that book came out, a wealth of new information and evidence has emerged from the original Inspector General's report, now the Sexton Inspector General's report,

Robert Mueller's report. We received the redacted FISA warrant applications, to spy, the story of Rod Rosenstein's attempted coup to recruit cabinet members to evict the president. All of this came to light. And so it deserved another book that was updated with more information. When you think about sitting down with your grandchildren or future generations in years to come and talking about this time in history, what would you, want them to know? I would want them to know that this was a period in American history where

democracy was at the precipice, where a group of people decided that they didn't like the electoral results and sought to undo those results and to drive a duly elected president from office. and that the people became outraged over it and stopped it, and that in the end, justice prevailed. You know, the only remedy for a lie is the truth, and the only cure for lawlessness is justice. And I think you see now, first with the Inspector General report, and the Attorney General William Barr and his U.S. Attorney John Durham,

that they are dedicated to getting to the bottom of the Russia hoax. How did and why did the FBI launch its investigation without any credible evidence? Why did they lie to a FISA court to spy on the Trump campaign and deceive them concealing exculpatory evidence? And I, you know, I think Barr and Durham are looking into this, and I feel fairly confident that, in the end, the reckoning awaits and people will be held accountable. They say that history repeats itself. What would you want to tell the next generation to fight that we don't repeat these mistakes that we've made? Don't always trust your government, that they're doing the right thing.

You know, government is only as good as the people in government, serving the public's need. and they, you know, are susceptible to the same human frailties that afflict all of us. They don't just make mistakes, but some of them act out of malice. And the people that we entrust to uphold the law in this particular case broke the law in my judgment. And so don't automatically assume that the government is acting honestly. We must always remain vigilant in a democracy. Greg, we really appreciate your constant legal analysis on Fox and the work that you're doing. How can our listeners follow your work, find out more about your books?

Well, my latest book, Witch Hunt, The Story of the Greatest Mass Dillusion in American Political History, is available in bookstores everywhere. You can buy it online, Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com. I write weekly columns, sometimes two or three or four columns a week for Fox News.com. You can also check out my website, the gregggeret.com. Check out Twitter at Greg Jarrett. So there's lots of ways to communicate and follow what I do. Great. Thank you so much for your time today.

You really appreciate it. Thanks. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to The Daily Signal Podcast, brought to you from the Robert H. Bruce Radio studio at the Heritage Foundation. Please be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or Spotify, and please leave us a review or a rating on Apple Podcasts to give us any feedback. We'll see you in tomorrow.

The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by Kate Trinko and Daniel Davis. Sound designed by Lauren Evans, the Leah Rampersad, and Mark Geinney. For more information, visit DailySignal.com. com.