GOP Rep. Doug Collins Calls Out Pelosi's Impeachment Push: 'If It Was a True Inquiry, She’d Put It on the Floor'
When it comes to the impeachment fight on Capitol Hill, GOP Rep. Doug Collins is in the thick of the fight.
As the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, Collins generally has the thankless job of being the adult in the room for Democratic Chairman Jerrold Nadler’s juvenile antics.
But that doesn’t mean Collins is too busy to take on fights higher up the Democratic food chain, too.
In an interview Monday on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends,” the Georgia congressman slammed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi over the Democrats’ handling of the whole “impeachment inquiry” process.
Collins argued, as he has before, that what the Democrats are doing in committees now in the House is not an impeachment inquiry because it hasn’t been established by a vote of the full House.
“An impeachment inquiry would actually afford due process,” he said. “It would make sure both sides are heard. It would make sure the president and the minority have the rights that are not present in the hearings currently. …
“If it was a true inquiry, she’d put it on the floor. She’d make her members vote for it. So in the end, we would actually have a process that happened under [former President Bill] Clinton, that happened under [former President Richard] Nixon, where both sides are represented.”
Formal impeachment would actually afford due process and ensure both sides are heard. If this were a true inquiry, Speaker Pelosi would allow a vote on the House floor.https://t.co/BgIQGFatO2
— Rep. Doug Collins (@RepDougCollins) October 1, 2019
Obviously, politics is the driving force here.
In both of the cases Collins cited, Congress was controlled by the party that opposed the president’s. Republican Nixon faced a Democratic House and Senate, and Democrat Clinton faced a Republican House and Senate.
But the representatives followed rules of procedure that Democrats are not.
As Ohio Republican Rep. Steve Chabot, a Judiciary Committee veteran of the Clinton proceedings, wrote in a blog post last week:
“The Dems have decided to throw out 200 years of precedent on impeachment. The first step is supposed to be for the House of Representatives to authorize the Judiciary Committee to open a formal impeachment inquiry. But they don’t have the votes. So they didn’t do it. They just went straight to the committee and told them to look busy on impeachment, by passing stuff that sounds like impeachment, but really isn’t.”
Chabot was referring to a party-line vote by the Judiciary Committee on Sept. 12 that supposedly established “ground rules for a formal committee inquiry,” according to Fox News.
But what’s actually happening is a Democratic deception.
Even with the sympathetic national media whipped into a frenzy, and even with a dubious “whistleblower” complaint to use to attack the White House, Pelosi and her Democrats still don’t yet have the votes to open a real impeachment process.
Collins also offered a word of warning when it comes to Pelosi — especially her public handwringing over the prospect of impeachment and her call Saturday for solemnity and prayer.
“This is a very sad time for our country. There is no joy in this,” she said at a festival in Texas, according to Fox News. “We must be somber, we must be prayerful and we must pursue the facts further to make a decision as to, did this violate the Constitution of the United States? Which I believe it did.”
On Monday, Collins wasn’t buying that for a second.
“Don’t follow the words, follow the actions,” he said. “If this was so somber, if this was so serious, then she would do as it’s been done in the past and have a very straightforward process in which every side is represented, not just her partisan political side as has been evident for three years now.”
As the top-ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, Collins has a view of the proceedings few Americans will ever be able to match.
And it’s pretty clear he doesn’t like what he sees coming from the Democratic side.
It’s not just Jerrold Nadler that’s the problem.
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