(CNSNews.com) – House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Thursday the impeachment is not just an attempt to undo the last election, it is an attempt to influence the next one as well.
Speaking on the House floor, McCarthy said “elections have consequences” and Americans “used their vote to choose who will work for them.”
“So I ask you all a simple question especially to my colleagues, is that what is happening here today? Are we gathered these final moments before we depart for a week to fund our government, to pay our troops? Are we gathered today to prove a new trade deal? Or are we gathered to debate the critical national security issues regarding China, or Iran? Well, that answer would be unanimously no, we are not working for the American people,” he said.
McCarthy said Congress’s legacy is “more subpoenas than laws.”
“Those items would resemble the achievements of a productive Congress, a Congress that truly works for the people, but you know what this Congress counts? This Congress records is more subpoenas than laws. That's the legacy. It is not just devoid of solutions for the American people, it is now abusing its power to discredit democracy by using secret interviews and selective leaks to portray the president's legitimate actions as an impeachable offense,” he said.
“Democrats are continuing their permanent campaign to undermine his legitimacy. For the last three years, they have pre-determined he president's guilt. They have never accepted the voters' choice to make them president. So for 37 days and counting they have run an unprecedented, undemocratic and unfair investigation. This resolution today only makes it worse,” McCarthy said.
“I've heard members on the other side say they promise rights to the president but only if he does what they want. That's the equivalent of saying in the First Amendment you have the right to the freedom of speech but you can only say the words I agree with. That's what you call due process,” he said.
Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) offered an amendment that would correct some of Republicans’ transparency concerns that they’ve witnessed over the past few weeks, McCarthy said, but the impeachment resolution is “more than the fairness of an impeachment process.”
“It is about the integrity of our electoral process. Democrats are trying to impeach the president, because they are scared they cannot defeat him at the ballot box. That's not my words. That's the words of my colleagues from the other side of the aisle that has offered impeachment three different times,” McCarthy said.
“This impeachment is not only an attempt to undo the last election, it is an attempt to influence the next one as well. This is not what Democrats promised when they entered the majority 11 months ago,” he said.