After last week's first public hearings in the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump, Republicans just can't see to shake the Ukraine scandal.
The Trump administration withheld crucial congressionally-approved military aid from Ukraine in exchange for a public investigation of Trump's political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden.
Because that's almost completely indefensible, Republicans have pivoted to focus on discrediting the Democrats.
Trump's supporters in Congress claim that Democrats were hell-bent on impeaching Trump from his first day in office.
In reality, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) resisted calls to impeach from within her own party for nearly a year before finally announcing the impeachment inquiry into the President—when Trump was almost three years into his first term.
Ignoring this, Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) appeared on Meet the Press to push the argument that Democrats were eager to impeach from the get-go, and that Trump had constantly been "tormented" by them, but host Chuck Todd called him out on his own hypocrisy.
Watch below.
When Democratic nominee and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was presumed to beat Trump in the 2016 election, Johnson was already calling for her impeachment, saying on November 1 of that year:
"She purposefully circumvented [the law], this was willful concealment and destruction...I would say yes, high crime or misdemeanor..."
"High crimes and misdemeanors" is the broad phrase in the Constitution instructing congress when impeachment and removal becomes their duty.
Todd pointed out that Johnson was guilty of exactly what he'd accused Democrats of doing to Trump:
"You were talking about impeachment before that election with Hillary Clinton. How should viewers not look at what you're doing here, and that you're just reacting as a partisan? That if Trump were a Democrat, you'd be ready to convict him?"
Johnson stammered before talking about (you guessed it) Clinton's emails.
“Understand, that is before an election. I am trying to hammer out the political difference before an election. By the way, I completely agree with that. We had been investigating the whole Hillary Clinton email scandal, the exoneration of her, you know, that was not an investigation to really dig out the truth."
Chuck Todd wasn't buying it and neither was Twitter.
Johnson also pointed out that he didn't say the words "impeachment" in the quote, but people saw through that as well.
Keep spinning, Senator, you're bound to roll somewhere soon.
@PreetBharara/X
@RepBrendanBoyle/X
@twesq/Bluesky
@christopherharris/Bluesky
@evangelinewarren/X
@FrankC164/X
AMC