Yesterday, Representative Mac Thornberry appeared on ABC’s This Week to elucidate the Republican case against impeaching President Trump. To say that his appearance did not go well would understate the case considerably.
“It is inappropriate for a president to ask a foreign leader to investigate a political rival,” Thornberry conceded. Nonetheless, he argued for acquittal. Leaning hard into Republican objections to the impeachment process, Thornberry argued that the entire impeachment proceeding is null and void, however damning the evidence may be. Batting away a question about his focus on “process,” Thornberry replied: “And process — you know, you all always want to say substance, not process. There’s a reason we let murderers and robbers and rapists go free when their due process rights have been violated.”
Trump is not a murderer or a robber (the latter involves the use of force, whereas Trump traditionally steals money in non-forcible ways). He has been credibly accused as a rapist. Thornberry is invoking these other crimes as a metaphor Republicans have erroneously used to claim that the evidence against Trump was obtained improperly, and therefore he must be set free. In fact, all the evidence was obtained properly, and an impeachment proceeding is not a criminal trial anyway.
Other than that, sure, “We let murderers and robbers and rapists go free, why not Trump?” could be a fun slogan for Republicans to use.
Even more amazingly, Thornberry proceeded to argue that Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is not impeachable because there is also so much other public evidence: