House Speaker Pelosi Insists Impeachment Is Not about Ukraine, But against Russia

Dec. 6, 2019 (EIRNS)—In case anyone has forgotten about the purported evils of Russian President Vladimir Putin, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi went to great lengths yesterday in her press conference to remind us all that the attempt to impeach President Donald Trump has nothing to do with Ukraine. It’s all about Russia.

Just because the Democrats have been harping on this subject for almost three months, it doesn’t matter, she said. The Ukraine issue is just the continuation of the Russia investigation. After all, it was Russia which benefitted from Trump “withholding” military aid to Ukraine. “Russia invaded Eastern Ukraine,” and 10,000-13,000 people died because of that, Pelosi insisted. “All roads lead to Russia.... Sometimes people say, I don’t know about Ukraine, I don’t know that much about Ukraine—well our adversary in this is Russia.”

Perhaps Pelosi has figured out that the Ukraine story doesn’t hold water, so better to dredge up Russia again. A number of conservative media comment on the fact that the appearance of three Resistance “legal scholars” at this week’s Judiciary Committee hearing has hurt, not helped, the Democrats. There is deep concern among freshman Democrats in swing states that they’re likely to lose reelection because of the impeachment issue. Asked yesterday whether she were concerned about moderates pushing back on impeachment, Pelosi retorted: “This has absolutely nothing to do with politics.”

Yesterday, CNN reported, New Jersey Democrat Jeff Van Drew announced he will not vote for articles of impeachment, “unless there’s something that I haven’t seen, haven’t heard before.” He warned Democrats to “be careful what you wish for,” because impeachment is “tearing the nation apart.” When asked how he would vote, Minnesota Democrat Colin Peterson replied, “I don’t have any idea what they’re doing.”

Constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley reported in an op-ed in The Hill that after his Dec. 4 testimony before the Judiciary Committee, his home and office phone were inundated with threatening messages, with demands that he be fired from George Washington University Law School because he had argued that the case for impeachment hasn’t been made. He slammed Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank, and MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow for attacking his credibility. “There is an intense ‘rancor and rage’ and ‘stifling intolerance’ that blinds people to opposing views,” he wrote. “My call for greater civility and dialogue may have been the least successful argument I made to the committee.”