Tulsi Gabbard's Brilliant Response to Sham Impeachment Infuriates Dems
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii isn’t particularly popular with the Democratic base right now.
That’s a statement one could have made at any point during the calendar year 2019, but it’s especially true as it comes to a close. On Wednesday, Gabbard became the first representative to vote “present” on a presidential impeachment — something that didn’t make other Democrats happy.
“I really think it was not a smart choice for her politically,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal, a Washington Democrat who’s been one of the loudest voices for impeachment, said during an interview on Democracy Now.
“I thought that was very disappointing and, frankly, a cop-out.”
.@RepJayapal criticizes Hawaii Congressmember and presidential candidate @TulsiGabbard for voting “present” on impeachment. “I really think it was not a smart choice for her politically,” Jayapal says. “I thought that was very disappointing and, frankly, a cop out.” pic.twitter.com/sSxRHaoWSf
— Democracy Now! (@democracynow) December 19, 2019
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also castigated Gabbard for her vote.
According to The Daily Beast, Ocasio-Cortez told reporters that “to not take a stand one way or another in a day of such grave consequence to this country is quite difficult. We’re here to lead.”
Well, according to Gabbard, that’s exactly what she was doing.
In an appearance on The Hill’s “Rising,” Gabbard blasted the partisan nature of the report and said she was taking a stand for the center.
“My motivation is always coming from a deep love of country,” Gabbard told hosts Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti.
“And that’s where, after doing my due diligence and going through the exhaustive report that was put out, the conclusion of the inquiry. I came to that conclusion that I could not, in good conscience, vote either ‘yes’ or ‘no.’”
“A ‘no’ vote was unacceptable to me because Donald Trump is absolutely guilty of wrongdoing,” she added.
“A ‘yes’ vote was unacceptable to me because impeachment should never come about as a culmination of a highly partisan process. This is something that our founders warned us about.”
She added that she was “taking a stand for the center.”
Only two Democrats voted against both acts of impeachment. One, Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, is leaving the party over it. The other, Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota, is a Democrat in a heavily Republican district facing a difficult re-election campaign against a member of the nascent so-called “conservative squad.”
Rep. Jared Golden of Maine voted against one act of impeachment and voted for the other. He wrote what the New York Post described as “a lengthy Facebook post” in defense of his position, but it’s probably just as well to say that Maine politicians are rare, capricious birds and leave it at that.
As for Gabbard, none of the three other dissenters from the Democrat side are actually high-visibility individuals. If you knew Jeff Van Drew’s name before he split from the Democrats, you’re either in his district or a member of his family. Gabbard, meanwhile, is running for the party’s nomination for president. And, while she’s wrong about pretty much everything else, she’s got the right idea here.
So naturally, it wasn’t long before #TulsiCoward was trending on Twitter, because of course, it wasn’t:
#TulsiGabbard, #TulsiCoward voted “present” on both articles of impeachment. “Present” is the vote she’d get from me.
— Christina Keenan (@tinachris1) December 20, 2019
I got a chance to ask #TulsiCoward about her opposition to #impeachment.She said she wants the process to be handled by slow, bogged down courts. Can we really handle an emboldended president with the power to do anything while we wait for courts to rule on subpoenas? #Impeached pic.twitter.com/8x87QXCPiN
— Mason Rainford (@MasonRainford) December 20, 2019
And, I do not like @TulsiGabbard
At all
Have I mentioned I don’t like @TulsiGabbard
Good, glad I’m clear#TulsiCoward
And, Tulsi #TulsiPoliticalHack period.
— Alice DiCroce ? (@ad0237) December 20, 2019
Before the vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi insisted she wanted Democrats to vote their conscience.
“We are not whipping this legislation, nor do we ever whip something like this. People have to come to their own conclusions,” she said at her weekly media conference last week, according to NBC News. (“Whipping” involves the process of a party rounding up votes for a particular piece of legislation as well as pressuring stubborn holdouts to come over to the party’s position.)
So the Democrats weren’t whipping, they were just going to have some of their biggest pro-impeachment names go after Gabbard. (Of course, it’s worth mentioning this also goes both ways; Gabbard used the interview with The Hill to criticize Pelosi for the speaker’s suggestion she might delay handing over the articles of impeachment to the Senate if she doesn’t get the trial she wants.)
However, the decision to go after Gabbard proves that the impeachment process was never about conscience, despite all of the times that word was thrown around this week. It was always about partisanship. It was always about impeachment as a political tool.
It remains that way; the Democrats claimed their rush to impeach was due to the fact that President Donald Trump was such a threat to democracy that impeachment needed to be fast-tracked, yet Pelosi has threatened to withhold the articles of impeachment from the Senate unless she can pick up the circus tents from the House chambers and pitch them in the Senate’s.
That’s not impeachment as the founders intended. It is, for the lack of a better word, a sham. Even Tulsi Gabbard, who clearly isn’t on board with the Republicans here, knows that much — and is willing to act on that knowledge instead of going along with the crowd for the purposes of increasing her standing in the 2020 election. Instead of her vote giving Democrats agita, maybe it should have given them pause.
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