(Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
House Minority Whip Steve Scalise addressed what he called an unfair and politically motivated “Soviet-style” impeachment process Thursday in comments delivered ahead of a House vote to formalize impeachment inquiry procedures.
“There is precedent,” Scalise said. “This has only happened three times in the history of our country. Every time, it not only started with a full vote of the house, but it also started with actual fairness. We’re not getting that fairness today.”
The House primarily voted along party lines to formalize the impeachment inquiry against President Trump, a move not required by law but largely seen as an attempt to quiet Republican objections like the ones Scalise raised.
Scalise pointed to several points in the impeachment inquiry document where veto power was given to the chair as an “unprecedented” application of “Soviet-style rules.”
“Maybe in the Soviet Union you do things like this, where only you make the rules, where you reject the ability for the person you are accusing to even be in the room to question what is going on, for anyone else to call witnesses, when only one person has the ability to call witnesses,” Scalise said.
WIBC host Tony Katz offered insight on Rep. Scalise’s comments in Friday’s edition of the Popcorn Moment.
Katz:
“Do those rules sound right to you? If the inquiry, which is now official, is supposed to allow for witnesses to be called, is it right that certain people don’t get to call witnesses? Is it right that someone can’t have legal representation?
Ask yourself how you think the rest of the country hears those rules? Regardless of political affiliation, people in this country accept that you get a lawyer.
The President can’t have a lawyer. You don’t think the American people hear that recognize there’s something fundamentally wrong with that?”
Click the link below to hear Tony’s full commentary.
