Jerry Nadler sticks it to Donald Trump’s crybaby House Republicans
For as long as House impeachment proceedings have been going on, Donald Trump’s House Republican allies have been acting in bad faith. They lack the moral or factual high ground when it comes to Trump’s crimes, and they lack majority power to run roughshod over the rules. So instead they’ve simply yelled, screamed, lied, made things up, tried to make motions that didn’t exist, and pitched fits in general.
This hasn’t stopped the House Democrats from moving forward with the impeachment process in a serious manner. But late last night, near the end of a marathon markup session for the articles of impeachment, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler decided to pull a maneuver of his own. Just as the Republicans on the committee thought they were finally going to get to vote against the articles, Nadler called an abrupt recess, ensuring the vote won’t take place until today.
There are some logical reasons for this. By pushing the vote from the middle of Thursday night to Friday morning, Nadler is ensuring that it gets real-time media coverage, and that more Americans hear about the fact that the articles of impeachment were in fact approved by the committee. It also forces the Republicans on the committee, who have visibly grown increasingly weary of dishonestly defending Donald Trump as the process has dragged on, will have to come back in the morning and potentially end up cracking in front of the live television cameras.
We don’t think Jerry Nadler is playing games just to play games. It’s just that the other side has been acting in bad faith throughout the entire process, and he had the power to do this, so why not do it? He’s fighting on the side of facts and truth and the law, so it’s just fine for him to get his hands a bit dirty. The kicker is that the Republicans on the committee are now whining and crying about how Nadler dared to play their own game against them. They can cry all the want. Trump is being impeached.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report