Nancy Pelosi’s latest impeachment threat is proof she would rather use her post as speaker of the House to weaponize the chamber than as a means of accomplishing anything of substance for the country. She has no respect for the United States, our Constitution, or our way of life, and she must be removed from the speakership immediately.
Last week, the Freedom Caucus made the case for why Pelosi must go and why Congress must move forward on a resolution to “vacate the chair” and remove Pelosi as speaker. On Sunday, Pelosi provided us another, and perhaps the most sinister, example as to why she is unfit to serve as speaker.
In response to the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Pelosi threatened to impeach (for the second time in a year) President Trump for carrying out his duty under the Constitution to nominate a justice to fill the vacancy. When pressed on what grounds she has to move forward, the speaker was shockingly coy, offering only that “we have arrows in our quiver that I’m not about to discuss right now.”
Why wouldn’t she provide a reason for continuing with what is supposed to be a solemn duty, impeaching a duly elected president, outlined in the Constitution?
She isn’t ready to discuss articles of impeachment because she has no case. She knows the president is only doing his job. Even worse, she knows that if she was successful in passing articles of impeachment in the House, they likely won’t go anywhere in the upper chamber. It takes only a cursory reading of the Constitution to see the Senate has the sole discretion to conduct an impeachment trial, meaning they could eschew a trial altogether and confirm the president’s nominee.
So why even threaten it, particularly knowing how the last impeachment trial tore the country apart? As always, Pelosi’s interests are diabolical.
Understanding that the House has no role in appointing or confirming Supreme Court nominees, Pelosi is looking to do what she does best: obstruct. In an effort to undermine the processes laid out in the Constitution and thwart any and all potential progress on Capitol Hill, the speaker wants to push through a partisan impeachment case (on heretofore unknown grounds) in the House in a far-fetched play to jam up the Senate so the upper chamber has no time to confirm whomever Trump nominates to the Supreme Court.
We know it won’t work, but we also know Pelosi won’t stop using every tool in her arsenal to chip away at the foundations of our democracy in her pursuit to maintain power.
Two weeks ago, she signaled in a letter to House Democrats that she will wage a full-blown war on election results if Trump wins in November, arguing Republicans are trying to steal the election. Given that she still hasn’t accepted the results of the 2016 election, that isn’t surprising. And if we allow her to stay in power, she’ll undoubtedly join her friend Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in his campaign to “pack the courts” and do away with the Senate filibuster entirely.
Pelosi is undermining our democracy, destroying the institution of Congress, sabotaging our economy, and fomenting violence and danger in our communities.
It is time for the House of Representatives to vote on removing Pelosi from her post. All members of the House, Republican and Democrat, should go on record of being in favor or against Pelosi. It is time for the House of Representatives to work for the people again, but it cannot do that without new leadership.
Reps. Andy Biggs, Jody Hice, and Chip Roy are Republican members of the House Freedom Caucus.
