Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) visited Fox & Friends this morning where host Brian Kilmeade said he “asked some great questions” in yesterday’s impeachment hearing before asking any questions himself.
Kilmeade continued the spin: “It looked to me to be a disastrous day for Democrats when I saw those three partisan professors come out. All four didn’t vote for Trump, did it surprise you?”
“It pleased me,” Ratcliffe said. “As you said, Brian, when one of your star witnesses has to apologize on national TV - you know, the talk before this was that three witnesses against one wouldn’t be fair. Turns out it wasn’t fair.”
Ratcliffe was referring, of course, to the manufactured outrage over witness Professor Pamela Karlan invoking Barron Trump’s name in a joke that was all about his father and for which she later apologized. Kilmeade now called her innocuous remark “embarrassing for the country.” In another segment, he called Karlan “unhinged.”
“All three of their witnesses came off as partisan, if not hyper partisan, and Jonathan Turley came off as the one honest broker in the room,” Ratcliffe added. Nobody mentioned that Republican witness Turley hardly defended Trump’s behavior as unimpeachable, he merely argued against the process. In fact, Turley said that the quid pro quo, “if proven, can be an impeachable offense.”
Ratcliffe called the pending articles of impeachment “terrible” for America and “a process that we be shouldn’t be involved in.” He claimed, “There’s no bribery, no extortion, no obstruction of justice, no abuse of power. So, they shouldn’t be doing this.”
But Ratcliffe is ready to call it a political victory. “As a Republican, it’s good for us,” he claimed. “It’ll give me a chance to be one of the first people to congratulate President Trump on his re-election and maybe congratulate Kevin McCarthy on being Speaker of the House.”
Kilmeade kissed up one more time, saying, “It was nice watching you yesterday and through the last few weeks ask questions.”
Watch Kilmeade ignore the damning substance of the arguments for impeachment laid out by Karlan and the other two witnesses below, from the December 5, 2019 Fox & Friends.
I simply love that phrase. It’s a perfect description of what they’ve been doing.
First, they wanted open hearings, willfully ignoring the need to ensure that any testimony that should remain secret won’t leak out.
Then, they complained that the WH was not involved in the hearings, only to refuse to participate when the opportunity was offered to them.
Then, they complained about the one-sided-ness of the hearings, willfully ignoring the fact that the WH had systematically refused to allow crucial witnesses to obey the subpoenas.
Only the wilfully ignorant and totally faithful would be able to swallow the hypocrisy. I remain hopeful that most Americans are not the sort who would put up with a dictator, would-be monarch in the WH.
My thinking is that the Right Wing is likely to get exactly their wish. They want an impeachment and are looking forward to it? Great! We’ll go ahead with the impeachment since they’re all for it, and then they can explain themselves while we are in trial. They want Joe Biden to be the nominee? May well happen, and they may not enjoy the eventual result of that notion.
This really reminds me of a situation with the LA Lakers back in 2002, where the Portland Trail Blazers spent that entire season bragging that they could easily beat the Lakers in the postseason because they had Ruben Patterson aka the “Kobe Stopper”. They repeated to anyone who would listen that they really hoped that they’d get the Lakers first in the post season. And then they were slotted against the Lakers first in the post season. And the Lakers easily swept them out in 3 games. As the saying goes, be careful what you wish for…
The script? Dismiss the Democratic witnesses as liberals to get them out of the way. Don’t get tied up with any facts here. Simplify what his boy Turley said into a gross Trump smooch on the lips exaggeration. Have John let us all know he’s an “American” for a little wave of the flag. Though John you forgot to add “red blooded”. Don’t slip up next time or we’ll replace you with fellow committee member Louie Gohmert!
But my favorite part of this disingenuous pile of poo’s spew in dismissing inconvenient facts is his sophistry on Trump’s (and thus Fox’s) favorite conspiracy theory: Papadopolous was set up by US intelligence. Ratcliffe is basically saying he’s only going to believe what he wants to hear but he mistakenly throws this in the mix: “No one ever said Misfud was a US asset.” No, it was just “liberal media… spin”.
While I’d like to agree with John that Devin Nunes is a nobody he did brazenly say: “[Mifsud] is a former diplomat with the Malta government. He lived in Italy. He worked and taught FBI, trained FBI officials and worked with FBI officials.” Whoopsie! Fox News a quick fact check please… oh fudge, Kilmeade’s on the set.
Short take we have Ratcliffe ignoring 90% of the facts presented at the Judicial Committee and grossly exaggerating the 10% he agrees with. Then we have him dismissing any inconvenient facts messing up his favorite Trumpian conspiracy theory and blaming the liberal media for bringing them up. Naturally him and Kilmeade will take a victory lap now.