If you’re a Democrat and you weren’t planning Donald Trump’s impeachment right after his election or days after he took office, please so designate by a show of hands. Hmm, no one, huh?
As we learned back in early November, Mark Zaid, attorney for alleged “whistleblower” Eric Ciaramella, “called for a coup d’etat and a rebellion against Donald Trump in a tweet issued shortly after the real estate mogul was inaugurated in January 2017.” On the evening of Jan. 20, Zaid tweeted:
#coup has started. First of many steps. #rebellion. #impeachment will follow ultimately. #lawyers https://t.co/FiNBQo6v0S
— Mark S. Zaid (@MarkSZaidEsq) January 31, 2017
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
Zaid wasn’t alone. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, who has announced his heavily anti-Trump list of expert witnesses for the next round of impeachment hearings, which are scheduled to begin tomorrow, also had early designs on changing the outcome of the 2016 election. As The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway reminds us in a tweet of her own, she overheard Nadler discussing his impeachment plans on an Amtrak train from New York to D.C. the morning after the 2018 general election, which gave Democrats control of the House. The now-chairman of the House Judiciary Committee also mentioned his desire to impeach Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Fun reminder that Jerry Nadler revealed his impeachment plans (for both Kavanaugh and Trump!) in my presence on the Amtrak from NY to DC the morning after Election Day in 2018. For those who think this is about a 2019 phone call w/ Ukraine or something…. https://t.co/IS4kRnXH71
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) December 3, 2019
Hemingway recorded her experience for posterity in a column dated Nov. 7, 2018, in which she wrote:
In post-election chats with various callers … Nadler gave advice to a newly elected representative and discussed potential 2020 Democratic presidential nominees with another. He also lamented identity politics and the thriving economy and worried about Democrats losing working-class voters while gaining elite former Republicans and suburban women.
He lamented the thriving economy? What a guy!
As for plans to impeach the president:
Nadler said Russia investigations would be under a broad umbrella of holding Trump “accountable,” since it’s a more palatable argument than impeachment, that they would be going “all-in,” and much of what they get to would be “depending on what [special counsel Robert] Mueller finds.” Still, he said the Judiciary Committee would only be in a supportive role to Rep. Adam Schiff and the Intelligence Committee, which has “a way ahead start on that.” Still, he said Judiciary “will have a role” in the Russia investigations.
As Hemingway notes in her tweet, the Democrats now expect us to believe that the move to impeach the president (which they consider a “grave” responsibility) is based on a July 2019 phone call. What will their next ploy be after this one bombs?