With the statement that Senator Murkowski would not vote for witnesses at the impeachment trial, coming on the heels of Senator Lamar Alexander’s announcement, the end of the impeachment circus was just a matter of time.
To be sure, Democrats will still have their pre-packaged talking points. They will claim that because there were no witnesses in the Senate it was an unfair trial. The truth is, the Democrats had 18 witnesses in the House. Seventeen testified in public and the Inspector General testified in private. Republicans were not allowed to call witnesses or even cross-examine the ones Democrats called.
If Democrats had wanted more witnesses, they could have waited for the courts to decide on their subpoenas. Instead, House Democrats refused to wait for the courts, claiming there was no time to wait, that they had to impeach immediately. Then Speaker Nancy Pelosi sat on the articles of impeachment for 33 days; plenty of time for the courts to have ruled on witness subpoenas. Of course, their haste has been driven by pure petty partisanship, rather than national altruism.
The Democrat impeachment managers spent three days making a case that could have been made in a few hours considering the exceedingly repetitive parroting of the same baseless charges. It was like the movie Groundhog Day where Bill Murray was fated to repeat the same day over and over again; however, instead of being fictional comedy, it was the real-life hijacking of the world’s most deliberative body. Thankfully—or should I say, as expected—Republican Senators did not fall for the conflation, obfuscation, and outright lies presented in the Democrats’ kangaroo court. Our own U.S. Senator, Martha McSally, rightfully said she had heard enough. We all had. Majority Leader McConnell made sure that the Senate fulfilled its Constitutional responsibility, while refusing to degrade the decorum of the chamber or allow the Majority Caucus to be bullied by the Democrats and the liberal mainstream media.
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We have rightly learned after years of leaks on the Mueller Report, the eleventh hour “witness” at the Kavanaugh hearings, and now from the impeachment trial that when Democrats and their media surrogates claim a last minute “bombshell,” it is little more than a partisan, Hail Mary attempt to further smear our president and Republicans at-large.
It is time for us all to move forward. There is work to be done for our nation. Throughout the last three years of false and exaggerated accusations, President Trump has kept himself laser focused and continues to work tirelessly to keep the promises he made to the American people.
As for the Democrats running for president—now that the distraction of an illegitimate impeachment is behind us—let them explain why they want to dismantle the policies that have led to record low unemployment. Let them explain why they want to take away your private health insurance when Obamacare was supposed to fix everything. Let them explain why they want a so-called Green New Deal that would bankrupt our energy sector—a sector that under President Trump’s leadership has eliminated U.S. dependence on volatile Middle Eastern oil. Let them explain why they want free healthcare for illegal immigrants, which would cost taxpayers many billions of dollars more than it would cost to finish the construction of a border wall.
No longer is there the distraction of the impeachment circus. Let the Democrats try to defend their ideas against the success of the president’s policies. Let’s see how well those radical left-wing ideas hold up without the smoke and mirrors of impeachment.
Dr. Kelli Ward is a family physician, two-term Arizona state senator, and the chairman of the Republican Party of Arizona. On Twitter: @KelliWardAZ.
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