Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said the Democrats’ impeachment drive against President Trump is motivated by “hate” without a factual basis.
Gingrich, a Republican, led the House impeachment drive against President Bill Clinton in 1998 for perjury and obstruction of justice. Gingrich appeared on Fox News on Monday morning to give analysis on impeachment proceedings currently going on in the House led by Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The former House speaker compared the impeachment investigation into Trump’s dealings with Ukraine to the allegations that Trump colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 election. The allegations concerning Russia were the subject of special counsel Robert Mueller’s two year investigation that failed to turn up evidence of collusion.
“What you are watching is a legislative coup d’etat,” Gringrich said. “They tried for two years to get rid of Donald Trump using the Russian deal, and when that collapsed on them, and they looked like they were stupid when Mueller reported, they had to find a new gimmick. This is the new gimmick.”
“Impeachment is about whether or not something happened of sufficient weight that the president should be taken out of office. This has nothing to do with that,” Gingrich said. “Their goal is to drive the president of the United States out of office because they hate him. Now, I don’t think partisan hatred comes under ‘high crimes and misdemeanors.'”
[Related: ‘Momentum of radicalism’: Newt Gingrich predicts Democrats will impeach Trump]
