Democrats wonder why they can’t persuade independents and Republicans to take their impeachment seriously?
Former VP Joe Biden told the Des Moines Register last week that he would not honor a subpoena to testify at a Senate impeachment trial.
“Former Vice President Joe Biden confirmed Friday he would not comply with a subpoena to testify in a Senate trial of President Donald Trump, ” reported the Iowa newspaper.
“What are you going to cover?” barked Biden.
“You guys are going to cover for three weeks anything that I said. And (Trump’s) going to get away. You guys buy into it all the time. Not a joke . . . Think what it’s about. It’s all about what he does all the time, his entire career. Take the focus off. This guy violated the Constitution. He said it in the driveway of the White House. He acknowledged he asked for help.”
Mull that one over, urges the WSJ.
The House has impeached Mr. Trump in one of its articles for going to court to fight its subpoenas. But at least the President is defending his constitutional authority under the separation of powers.
Mr. Biden claims he can ignore a Senate subpoena on his own judgment because he says the press corps will report on his appearance and change the focus from Mr. Trump. But Mr. Trump’s defense against impeachment includes that he had the right to ask Ukraine, as a recipient of U.S. aid, to investigate alleged corruption by Mr. Biden and his son Hunter.
In an attempt to modify his statement a day later, Biden only made it worse.
“I want to clarify something I said yesterday. In my 40 years in public life, I have always complied with a lawful order and in my eight years as VP, my office—unlike Donald Trump and Mike Pence —cooperated with legitimate congressional oversight requests,”
Mr. Biden wrote on Twitter. “But I am just not going to pretend that there is any legal basis for Republican subpoenas for my testimony in the impeachment trial.”
Mr. Biden’s answer exposes this impeachment as a nakedly political exercise even more than the House Democrats already have, continues the WSJ.
House Democrats raced to impeach Mr. Trump by an artificial end-of-year deadline, but now Speaker Nancy Pelosi withholds the articles of impeachment from the Senate in order to dictate the terms of a trial.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer backs up Mrs. Pelosi’s usurpation of the Senate’s power and demands witnesses whom the House, in its haste and partisanship, refused to call. But if the Senate subpoenas Mr. Biden, he doesn’t have to appear.
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