Exclusive – McCarthy on Democrats Voting for Impeachment Again: Constituents Should Pressure Them over Recess

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, republican of California, speaks during his weekly n
ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty Images
Matthew Boyle
Washington, D.C.

House Democrats again on Friday voted unanimously to back an impeachment inquiry announced earlier in the week by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) against President Donald Trump, with all Democrat members who were present in the House and voting on a resolution on the matter confirming they are a part of Pelosi’s attempt to take down the president.

A resolution offered by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who expressed disapproval with the manner in which Pelosi began the impeachment proceedings via press conference, was shot down by Democrats on a floor vote Friday—the second time this week the entire Democrat conference of the House of Representatives has gone on record with votes in favor of impeaching Trump.

The vote fell down on party lines, with all 221 House Democrats who voted voting in favor of tabling the McCarthy resolution—in essence a vote against McCarthy’s resolution, or in favor of impeachment—and all 184 Republicans who voted voting with McCarthy. Former Republican, now “independent,” Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan voted with the Democrats.

The previous vote on Wednesday was also on party lines, with all 231 Democrats voting then siding with Pelosi, and all 193 Republicans voting for it then voting against impeachment.

“Without a full House vote on a resolution to begin a formal impeachment inquiry, we are left with little foundation for why this House would choose to take the first steps to impeach the sitting President of the United States duly elected and voted for in 2016,” McCarthy told Breitbart News exclusively.

“Speaker Nancy Pelosi decided – in an unprecedented and unilateral way – that the House would move forward with a formal impeachment inquiry before any transcript was made available and before any whistleblower report was made available. In her view, an impeachment inquiry is justified without evidence,” McCarthy added. “My Republican colleagues and I in the House disagree. We believe, given the gravity of the constitutional power of impeachment, that this should be handled as it historically has and is common practice in the House. That’s why I offered two resolutions this week disapproving of the Speaker’s decision to speak for the entire nation. Two opportunities for House members to make clear that the evidence demonstrates that there is nothing that rises to the threshold of impeachment. Two opportunities for House members – should they disagree – to take responsibility, vote on whether the House should move forward with a formal impeachment inquiry, and if in the affirmative, voice to their respective constituents why they believe the House should take these extraordinary steps. Both times, every House Democrat chose to stand with the Speaker and skirt their duties as an elected Representative. I hope their constituents back home make them answer for that over this two week recess.”

The vote forces Democrats, especially vulnerable ones, on the record in support of Pelosi’s extraordinary step of pushing to impeach the president. It also shows GOP unity behind Trump, as despite the best efforts of the left and establishment media at this stage to create dissent in the ranks the Republican Party remains firmly behind Trump.

This vote also frames for the public where things stand going into a congressional recess beginning Friday and lasting two weeks. Some hard leftist actors inside and outside Congress have pushed for Congress to cancel the recess, but Pelosi–sources familiar with her thinking say—is proceeding with the recess to attempt to cool things down and regain control of the simmering narrative. Democrats have felt like they do not have a clear message and may have jumped the gun by going for impeachment before even having the whistleblower complaint and the call transcript on which they are pursuing it over–and now that both have not lived up to publicly-built expectations they fear political backlash from the public.

“The Democrats may be fleeing town for a two-week recess, but they won’t be able to hide from this vote,” a senior GOP congressional aide told Breitbart News.

Those who fight Pelosi on whether to take the two-week congressional recess can expect to be branded antisemitic, sources say, because the upcoming Jewish holidays of Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah fall during the timeframe of the congressional recess–and two of the leading committee chairs involved in impeachment House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) are both Jewish.

The attack line has already appeared in some leftists’ Twitter feeds, too:

Nonetheless, the failure by Democrats to accomplish anything this year—the House Democrats, since taking the majority, have achieved exactly zero significant legislative or policy victories–is a powerful tool for Republicans heading into 2020. The Democrats have spent the entire year wasting time and money on investigations of Trump, and now each of the Democrats have admitted via these votes McCarthy has forced it is their true intention to try to take Trump out.

Trump himself has zoned in on this in recent days, too, tweeting earlier on Friday about it:

The message it sends to the public—that Democrats promised all sorts of solutions on health care, infrastructure, and other policy matters if they got the majority back last year, but really their true intention was to seek a power-grabbing effort to remove the duly elected president by force—is a powerful one, and is resonating with voters:

It remains to be seen what happens next. Sources familiar with the process say Democrats are unsure if they will even ever introduce actual articles of impeachment, if they will vote on them ever, if they do vote if they will pass, or if they will just keep investigating and delaying while calling hearings upon hearings while never actually doing anything. One person with inside knowledge of the Democrat strategy told Breitbart News it all depends who wins “the messaging war,” which Democrats currently feel they are losing badly even with the entire establishment media on their side.

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.