Steve Hilton: The Truth About Impeachment
Democrats conveniently forget about Obama's involvement with Ukraine, while pushing the narrative on Trump's.
Another massive week in Washington. Some truly blockbuster news. I mean, you can tell just how earth-shattering it was from the shocked reactions.
Unidentified Male: It was shocking. It really is shocking.
Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif, 2020 presidential candidate: I really believe that this is an issue about a fight for our democracy.
REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK: THE 'IMPEACHMENT RESOLUTION,' AND DEMS' FIGHT OVER ITS MEANING
Nicolle Wallace, MSNBC anchor: That sounds like a bombshell. Tell me more.
Rep. Andy Levin, D-Mich.: This is my most disturbing day in Congress.
Joe Scarborough, MSNBC host: The most disturbing thing I've heard -- well, it's hard to say most disturbing thing I've heard because so many things I've heard over the past several weeks are disturbing.
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I think we're agreed: It's "disturbing."
So what the hell happened last week? Was there a financial crash? No, actually, the stock market hit a record high.
Did the economy tip into recession? No, it has steady growth and the highest employment in history.
Was there some kind of terror attack? Not really. Oh, apart from the one where we took out the head of ISIS.
So what is it? What is this crisis? I think it's supposed to have something to do with national security. But what?
This has nothing to do with national security. It's all just an illusion.
We turned to the one person who is smart and sharp enough to explain this dangerous national security threat in a crisp and clear way:
Joe Biden, 2020 Democratic presidential candidate and former vice president: The idea that someone would invite a foreign power into our election, and in the process withhold, apparently, the allegation from some within the administration who heard the conversations -- withhold vital aid, military aid, voted for by the Congress, while Ukrainians are dying in the Donbass (that is Eastern Ukraine )in order to take on Russians who are there still killing them -- killing these people. Is just -- I -- it is one of the things that no president that I'm aware of has ever thought of doing.
Wake up! He is finished explaining this.
Man, that does sound really bad. No president ever thought of without withholding military aid to Ukraine that Congress had approved except -- wait. Wasn't there ...? I think there was one president who did that. Who was it again? I remember. It was this guy: President Obama.
That's OK. You can't expect Joe to remember; it was years ago. But it's not just Joe Biden who is conveniently forgetting. It's all the Democrats and all the bureaucrats, too -- all on their high horse about President Trump damaging our national security by not sending proper military aid to Ukraine, even though he did actually send it, and Obama didn't.
This has nothing to do with national security. It's all just an illusion. The bombshell revelations, so "shocking," so "disturbing" that the Democrats and ruling class state TV got so excited about last week. But they told us nothing we didn't already know.
The truth about this impeachment is that it's not about finding out things we didn't know. It's about telling a story, a highly partisan political story, and they've settled on their cast of characters.
The anti-Trump cult now recites the names of these career bureaucrats like holy incantations: "Taylor, Vindman, Fiona Hill."
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Oh, please. As we keep reminding you, this is just the system striking back against President Trump, whose agenda on trade, immigration and in this case, on America's role in the world, they arrogantly oppose.
I've worked at the heart of government. I've run policy processes of all kinds. These permanent bureaucrats hate political back channels because it takes away from their power to control policy.
They use every trick in the book to brand political involvement as illegitimate, but they're the ones who are acting illegitimately. They have no legitimate mandate except the one given to them by the people who are democratically elected and accountable.
In this whole story, there's only one person who fits that description and it's President Trump. And remember, these snooty civil servants that ruling class state TV is putting on a pedestal, they are part of a smug, arrogant elite that's been wrong on every major issue for the last 30 years. I'd rather take advice from the chickens in my backyard than Washington's foreign policy establishment. (They are very cute and very smart, by the way.)
But there was one name missing from the partisan impeachment fanatics cast of characters last week -- Kurt Volker. He was there just like the others, giving hours of testimony. The transcript of his evidence was released last week, just like the others, but not a peep came out of ruling class state TV about Volker. I wonder why?
Oh, could it be because, as I pointed out weeks ago when I read his witness statement, Volker exonerates the president on the main impeachment charges?
This past week, I read the transcript, the Volker transcript. On page 36, Volker states clearly, there was no linkage between policy and investigations. On page 41, he explains that it was the advisers to President Trump, not the president, who cooked up the idea of getting the Ukrainians to make a statement about investigating 2016 and the Bidens in order to get President Trump to view the new Ukrainian president more favorably.
On page 47, according to Volker, it was the Ukrainians who wanted to be connected to Rudy Giuliani. On page 79, Volker says that military aid was held up for a number of different reasons.
On and on it goes, page after page -- 360 pages exonerating the president. But somehow, despite being one of their precious career diplomats, ruling class state TV barely mentioned Kurt Volker's testimony last week. And the Democrats haven't invited him to their public hearings this week.
You saw those people at President Trump's rally wearing "Read the transcript" T-shirts, as in read the transcript of the president's call. You can add to that "Read the Volker transcript." It shows that this whole partisan impeachment is a farce.
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Of course, no normal person cares about any of this. We're really in the weeds when we are banding about the names of obscure bureaucrats and diplomats no one has ever heard of.
But you know we promised to bring you the truth about impeachment every Sunday night for as long as this lunacy goes on. So there you have it.
Adapted from Steve Hilton's monologue from "The Next Revolution" on Nov. 10, 2019.
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