As the Senate began impeachment proceedings today, RNLA Co-Chair Harmeet Dhillon described how House impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff's actions as de facto prosecutor in the House would result in sanctions and likely disbarment if engaged in by a prosecutor in court:
From the very beginning of the impeachment charade, Schiff has injected himself and his own personal hatred into what is meant to be a rare, solemn, and bipartisan process, all while pantomiming the restrained, professional behavior of an officer of the court. . . . Making things up, trying to railroad the defendant, manipulate the jury, bias the outcome, suppressing evidence, procuring false evidence, tampering with evidence – any one of these things can and do get prosecutors disbarred. . . .
From the start, this entire impeachment process has been political and illegitimate. Impeachment is always inherently political, but the denial of due process to the president is historic. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., miffed by Democratic New York Rep. Jerry Nadler’s lackluster showmanship in the House Russiagate hearings, delegated the hastily conjured impeachment process to Schiff, who has made a mockery of the role of a prosecutor.
Schiff is the one who solicited evidence, colluded with “witnesses” who were anything but, suppressed evidence that would be Brady material in a court of law, lied to his own “grand jury” by falsely mimicking the president, and went on television to poison the “jury pool” of senators with his running commentary, lies and pressure tactics. He’s never been held accountable for his daily shredding of the Constitution he swore to uphold, and he probably never will be, given the far-left district he represents in Los Angeles County.
Courts and bar associations come down hard on lying, cheating, feckless prosecutors not only because they fail to uphold their duties to the defendant and to the courts, but also because they undermine public confidence in the system of justice itself. What Schiff is doing is a million times worse, because every American is watching this charade and seeing a lawyer with power misbehave and make a mockery of our ultimate law, the Constitution. His disgraceful performance will permanently mar our civic fabric and people’s confidence in fair trials, due process, equal protection of the laws.
Meanwhile, the Democrats condemned Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for proposing that the Senate impeachment trial procedures be similar to those used during the Clinton impeachment trial.
Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called them "unfair" despite having voted for them, along with every other Democrat then in the Senate, in 1999. After the partisan, rushed process in the House, Leader McConnell is taking fairness and due process concerns and the Senate's role in the constitutional structure of impeachment seriously and trying to reach bipartisan agreement:
In 1999, the Senate unanimously agreed on a basic trial structure that was fair to all parties. Today, we must rise to the occasion and preserve that bipartisan precedent. Our resolution sets up the same basic steps. Fair is fair. pic.twitter.com/tQjlpDBj8F
— Leader McConnell (@senatemajldr) January 21, 2020
The RNLA is hosting an insider's briefing conference call for RNLA members only on Thursday at 12:00 PM EST with House Republicans' counsel in the impeachment inquiry, Stephen Castor. Find more information and RSVP here.