Most Americans elect representatives to Congress with the intended directive to pass laws in D.C. After all, it is the legislative branch of government which is solely designated by our constitution to do just that. Some feel that our executive branch may be taking more power than our Forefathers had intended. And our judiciary may be legislating repeatedly from the bench.
Furthermore, our fourth branch of government, our bureaucracy, may even get their feathers ruffled when prevented from imposing state policy as law over the wishes of our chief executive.
What is factually clear is that our Congress is not being productive. From govtrack.us, our current 116th Congress (01/03/19 – present) to date has enacted into law a total of 69 bills and joint resolutions. Compare this to the 115th Congress (01/02/17 – 01/03/19), which enacted into law 443 bills and joint resolutions. Correcting for 11 versus 24 months, that is still only 34% of the total number of laws enacted. In other words, our current Congress is one-third as productive as that Congress which convened when President Trump was sworn into Office.
Why is this? Well, some people can walk and chew gum at the same time and some can’t. Trump can. Schiff can’t. Members of either political party, if focused on removing a President in preference to writing and passing laws, will simply be unable to legislate. If the Congressional members of the Republican Party had spent every working day focused on removing President Obama from Office, they would have been sorely unproductive as well. Fortunately for this Nation, they chose not to.
Today’s impeachment started a long time ago. It began before Trump was sworn in. Just two days after Trump was inaugurated on 01/20/17, the Washington Free Beacon announced Media Matters Founder David Brock’s detailed plans for reversing Trump’s presidency through impeachment using his American Bridge Super PAC. Impeachment for what you may ask. Even Chairman Adam Schiff would be hard pressed to find anything Trump did in his first 48 hours in Office that would have risen to the level of Impeachment.
Impeachment began during the period when Trump became the RNC nominee in Cleveland on 07/21/16. Two days earlier, the unverified Steele Dossier was first submitted to the FBI, launching the Crossfire Hurricane counterintelligence investigation into the Trump Campaign on 07/31/16. Glenn Simpson of research firm Fusion GPS paid the former British Intelligence Agent Christopher Steele for dirt on Trump. The Clinton Campaign and the DNC together hired Fusion GPS through their law firm, Perkins Coie. The “insurance policy” text message between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page of the FBI was sent on 08/15/16.
Robert Mueller was appointed as Special Counsel on 05/17/17 and the Mueller Report was delivered to Attorney General William Barr 675 days later on 03/22/19. Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller testified before Congress on 07/24/19 and in so doing, gave the impression that he was author in name only for being unfamiliar with Fusion GPS among other telling clueless testimony. But one thing was very clear. The investigation was over; the report was dead. Donald J. Trump had not colluded with Putin and the Russian Government to swing the 2016 election against Hillary Clinton. He had not obstructed the investigation. So, the Democrats had to come up with something else to remove him from Office.
The very next day began a new attempt to remove President Trump from Office with the advent of the infamous phone call between him and newly elected Ukrainian President Zelensky. What Trump truly needs is a superior vetting team in place to remove people from his administration who are not in line with instituting his policies. Only 6% of the D.C. voters are registered Republicans; they would make Vermont proud! From a purely political perspective, Trump has a one-in-twenty chance of selecting someone to work with who is copacetic with his agenda for America.
Fast forward to today and a summary of the timeline for the Democratic Impeachment of President Donald J. Trump. The Steele Dossier, Russian meddling in the 2016 elections, the Mueller Investigation into Russian collusion, Schiff’s Impeachment hearings, and Ukrainian meddling in the 2016 elections; these are all the same investigation and are all the same scandal. Regarding the latter, President Trump had Ukrainian oligarchs and officials working against him during his campaign according to many reports from journalist John Solomon. Alexandra Chalupa, a contractor for the DNC, solicited Ukrainian officials in Spring 2016 on then Trump Campaign Manager Paul Manafort to stage a Congressional hearing to coincide with the 2016 elections. Ukraine’s Ambassador to D.C., Valeriy Chaly, wrote an article in August 2016 slamming then GOP nominee Trump for his policies on Russia, before ever being elected as President. Then there is so very much to say about Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings by fired former Prosecutor General of Ukraine Viktor Shokin.
At this point, the outcome for the 2020 elections will be the same. This is true whether the House voted to impeach or not and whether the Senate holds a trial or not. Most of the U.S. electorate, Trump’s base together with most Independents, are angered and weary of this continuous attempt to overturn the results of the 2016 elections and our dually elected President.
Dan Monger
New Haven