CREDIT: Senator Bob Casey Facebook page

The Laurel and Hardy Show (Schiff and Nadler) has been a snooze-fest, with endless repetition by the House managers throughout their presentation. One can only watch so much Adam Schiff without turning the sound off. That said, the Democrats continue to make a brave show by trotting out various Democrat senators to bolster their weak case for removing the President from office.

A relatively new face in their dirge made an appearance on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom” on Thursday to plead the Democrats’ case on impeachment. Haven’t seen or heard much from Bob Casey, Jr. (ever?), as he is a follower not a leader in the Senate, so his comments are instructive in conveying the Democrat Party line. Let’s dissect what he said in a Q&A with Ed Henry (who did a decent job with follow-up questions).

Ed Henry: What do you think about this Republican argument that they’re hearing nothing new. Do you think Adam Schiff and some of the other impeachment managers are making progress in making their case?

Casey: I think they are. I think yesterday (Wednesday) was an indication of that where the American people for an extended period of time can hear a review of some of the evidence, but there is still I think some missing pieces here, and that’s why we’ve been asking for witnesses. It’s interesting that the only witnesses we’re asking for are four relevant witnesses … they all happen to work for the administration, and they would go under oath as any witness should. They would be subjected to cross-examination, and their statements and their recollections could be challenged. So, I think it makes sense to have four witnesses. It’s just one more than was in the Clinton trial 21 years ago, and that was a much less complicated case than this one.

Me: “Missing pieces.” In short, the House Democrats didn’t do their jobs, and the Democrats’ party line continues to be that the Senate needs to go beyond their function to sit as a jury and do the job of the prosecution (the Democrat impeachment managers). Mitch McConnell isn’t going to let the Democrats run roughshod over the Senate impeachment trial. By the way, the real missing piece is direct testimony from the “whistleblower”

Henry: If you’re acknowledging that there’s some missing information here, doesn’t that play into the Republican argument that this is a rush to job by Adam Schiff where he was moving full speed ahead and didn’t allow Republicans, for example, to have most of their witnesses when he started this process?

Casey: Well, two things. Number one, I think the House has just begun to lay out the case, but if you go through the House reports, the Intel (committee) report and the Judiciary Committee report, it’s a very substantial compelling record. I do think for the purposes of the trial, we should hear from these relevant witnesses, Mr. Bolton, the National Security Adviser, Mick Mulvaney, both Chief of Staff and Director … running OMB. Both are relevant, and then Mr. Blair and Mr. Duffy. But, in addition to that, I think it’s pretty clear from the evidence so far is that not only do they have relevant evidence, but we’re in a different process now. And if we pursued … if the House Democrats at the time pursued every witness that they would hope to call through the courts, we would be getting determination by federal courts in 2021, not in early 2020.

Me: “It’s a very substantial compelling record.” You can’t have it both ways, Bob: a compelling record but somehow needing new witnesses. That’s intellectual incoherence. He goes on to complain that going through the courts would “take too long.” He is apparently keen on throwing away the President’s due process and executive privilege rights by compelling close presidential advisers to testify. This would destroy the ability of any future president to obtain sound and potentially controversial advice from his advisers because they would fear being forced to testify under oath, as well as be concerned – for example – about disclosing personal opinions that could embarrass foreign leaders. Too bad Henry didn’t ask Casey’s cavalier attitude about gutting executive privilege and the Presidents’ right to due process through the courts!

Henry: You’re making your case for witnesses. The Republicans like Jim Jordan on the President’s defense team are making the case for witnesses like Hunter Biden … maybe even Adam Schiff who they believe is a fact witness because of his office’s contact with the whistleblower. (Then injects a video clip of a Wednesday night interview with Jim Jordan reciting the lies told by Adam Schiff, e.g., the FISA process is fine, we will hear from the whistleblower, then we have not talked to the whistleblower, and then asking the rhetorical question about whether we’re now supposed to believe Schiff is suddenly telling the truth). Senator, please answer that in terms of the credibility questions for Adam Schiff who’s taking the lead. Republicans clearly believe he doesn’t have credibility. Do you believe he does, and do you believe that he should be called as a witness?

Casey: No, number one, I think he’s made a compelling case, and I think he’s made it with integrity. Number two is, we want to hear from relevant witnesses about the main charge. Here’s the main charge. The main charge is that the President solicited the interference of a foreign government in the next election and wants one of his political opponents investigated by that foreign government and also wants a loopy debunked theory about the last election to be investigated. So, they are the charges. What witnesses are relevant to that? We’re asking for four: the National Security Adviser, the Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, Mr. Duffy, and Mr. Blair … they’re all relevant. The interesting thing …  the last thing I’ll say here on this is … the question of relevancy is what every American knows is part of our basic trial practice … if you want a fair trial. We want to hear from relevant witnesses. It’s a very short inquiry. This could be done very quickly, and the Chief Justice should make that determination … who is a relevant witness. He’s an umpire in a sense, and I was surprised Republicans voted against Chief Justice Roberts making that determination of relevancy.

Me: Henry asked some excellent and pointed questions about Schiff’s lies, but Casey didn’t answer those questions because he couldn’t do so truthfully. Schiff has repeatedly lied in public statements for years. Henry forgot to add a couple of more big whoppers to the list: (1) the “Schiff memo” in 2018 was proven to be a fabrication by the Horowitz report, and (2) Schiff’s reading of a completely fabricated transcript of the Trump-Zelensky phone call before his own committee. Casey sidestepped answering about Schiff’s lies and essentially claimed a serial liar made a “compelling case.” Does Casey think we’re all just fools? He then launched into the Democrats’ broken-record allegations of President Trump’s supposedly impeachable actions, including investigating the “loopy debunked theory” about Ukrainian meddling in the 2016 election that the Democrats fear greatly because a real investigation into the credibly information already on the public record will expose that meddling, as well as Democrat corruption in Ukraine. Then, he inserts a new idea that the Chief Justice should decide whether witnesses should be heard from. That’s an absurd suggestion that is completely unsupported by the Constitution’s impeachment clause. The Article I, Section III, Clause 6 of the Constitution simply states, … “the Chief Justice shall preside.” That’s it! The Senate sets the rules and procedures for an impeachment trial by majority vote. That dog won’t hunt either, Democrats.

Henry: You mentioned a moment ago the last election. We got obviously the 2020 election coming up. Pretty quickly here, Adam Schiff raised questions about the credibility of the upcoming election. I want you to react. (Plays a video clip of Schiff claiming that the President’s conduct cannot be decided at the ballot box because we can’t be assured that the vote will be fairly won) He’s raising a big question here. My colleague Brett Baier was saying on social media last that does this mean that voters simply cannot trust the vote in 2020. That’s a heavy charge.

Casey: I think the point he’s making is that the Founders knew that sometimes an event arises or conduct compels the Congress to act prior to an election because of the nature of the conduct. In this case, what we’re reviewing is the President’s conduct in interfering with the next election. So you can’t wait for Election Day to sort that out because I think it’s very important that the Congress as the Founders enshrined in the Constitution have to have a check on the Executive because if you don’t have that check, which is only permitted through impeachment … there is no other way to do this … no hearing, no court, nothing can do this … the only way to do that is to have a process where you’re at least attempting to check the Executive because otherwise you can have an Executive cheating his way to the next election.

Me: Another decent question by Ed Henry that Casey could not really answer. Schiff is essentially claiming that the American people can’t discern the facts for themselves and that only the Democrats can ensure a “fair election” in 2020 by removing the President from office. They are transparent in their disdain for average Americans and know full well that the President is going to be reelect by “overwhelming” and “uncontroverted” votes (that’s the proper use of those two words, Democrats, as opposed to your continued use of them to describe the hearsay evidence of impeachable evidence).

Henry: I hear you, Senator, but what he’s saying is that misconduct, Schiff says, cannot be decided at the ballot box. Isn’t that a fundamental part of our system that voters in your state of Pennsylvania and all around America go to the ballot box and decide whether or not they think the President did something wrong?

Casey: Not if you believe that there’s an abuse of power, okay? I mean that’s the difference. If you believe there’s an abuse of power, you need to check that abuse in real time. Now, on Election Day 2020 for the presidential race, the voters are going to make determinations about a lot of things, mostly on policy and issues. But the Constitution contemplates (sic) only one way to check an abuse of power, and this is the process we’re in the middle of right now.

Me: Casey would have us believe that, even if proven, “abuse of power” is an impeachable crime. Jonathan Turley exposed that fallacy in his testimony before the House Judiciary committee back in December. “I’ve gone through all of the crimes mentioned. They do not meet any reasonable interpretation of those crimes. I’m relying on express statements from the federal courts. I understand that the language in the statutes are often broad. That’s not the controlling language; it’s the language of the interpretation of the federal courts. And I think that all of those decisions stand mightily in the way of the (Democrat impeachment) theories.” In short, “abuse of power” doesn’t qualify as an impeachable offense under the language and subsequent legal determinations through the federal courts. Never mind that the Democrats can’t even prove that there was an abuse of power!

Do guys like Bob Casey actually believe what they say? Or are they simply wind-up toys who are trotted out to parrot canned phrases divined by the Democrat leadership, as tested in Democrat focus groups? They all repeat the same clichés. Many observers have commented that, due to the lack of real evidence of any impeachable conduct by the President and the ongoing “death-by-repetition” from the Democrat impeachment manager, this trial has degenerated into a Democrat public relations maneuver during which they endlessly repeat their Big Lies in frequent pressers in order to assuage their base and influence people who haven’t been paying attention to the details. I can’t wait for Pat Cipollone and Jay Sekulow to present their case after Laurel and Hardy are finished boring us to death.

The end.