Yesterday the House impeachment 2.0 team marched impeachment papers over to the Senate for trial. With even President Biden doubting a conviction of citizen Trump, is there a point where what increasingly appears to be a show trial backfires politically for the Democrats and for a president who is desperately trying to sell the slogan "unity" to a divided America? Is there any Constitutional provision for removing a president from office who has already been removed from office? Will this start a trend in retroactively impeaching past presidents? Or pro-actively impeaching presidential candidates?
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Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
Daniel McAdams is our co-host by phone, long distance right now, but welcome, Daniel.
Good morning, Dr. Paul.
How are you?
I'm doing well.
And sometimes we don't have our studio.
And someday we're going to get a big new studio, but we'll probably need one more person helping us.
But anyway, I think we reach a lot of people and we're all pleased to do it.
And, you know, we have to be a little bit nervous about this whole thing, Daniel, because I found out that we get as many people to listen to us and watch us.
So I don't know what that means.
That's scary.
People will listen.
So that's good.
And that's why we will improvise.
But today, the subject that we'd like to visit on, it's an important subject, but you'd never know it when you listen to the news.
My first reaction, are these guys serious?
You know, what's going on here?
We want to talk about impeachment.
I would consider that something very, very serious.
I think that it was used one time and then it went 100 years and almost before they did it again.
And now it's sort of a habit.
And the way I see what's happening now, if you can get impeached twice and not even be in office, it's just going to be a casual political tool.
And as long as you have a compliant media, they're going to make a big deal of it.
But as far as it being a useful tool and sorting out the truth, you know, trials and things are supposed to be to find the truth of things.
And if somebody's done something really, really bad, we don't need them in office.
And that helps the people understand what's going on.
But that really doesn't seem to be the case.
You know, one thing that has annoyed me these last several months has been people like Pelosi and a few others are saying and declaring they're stealing our thunder.
They say, we have a constitutional responsibility.
We have to do this.
We don't have a choice.
That is what it says.
And we have to take them.
We have to have a trial.
We have to save the people from the bad guys.
You know, for some reason, I get annoyed by that.
But I'm suspicious that there's a lot more people in this country that would agree with that statement.
They're sick and tired of it, too.
And one thing good that may come out of this fiasco, this mess, is that there will be a lot more people saying that this is all fake.
This is all a mess.
This is, you know, doing more damage than good.
And thinking that, you know, we aren't achieving a whole lot.
A lot of people, unfortunately, will say, why don't you guys stay up there and print more money?
Send me my jacket.
Don't be distracted with the impeachment.
You get busy in doing something.
But no, it seems like it wasn't too long ago, a year ago or so.
We impeached him.
I thought that was going to take care of him.
He was impeached, but he was found not guilty, which drove everybody nuts.
But the whole thing, Daniel, the way I see this is I don't think there's one chance in a thousand that he's going to be convicted.
And the conviction right now is mysterious.
Is it really legal?
Can they do it?
Can they think up a penalty?
Can they kick him out of an office that he doesn't hold?
I mean, the whole thing is totally bizarre, but it fits the status quo of what's going on in Washington.
You know, the country is bankrupt and morally is very confused.
But this is not serving the interest of the cause of liberty.
This seems to be a distraction.
But somewhere in this episode of Impeachments Time 2, there must be a message that we can give on the importance of having a free society and a moral society.
Yes, indeed.
You know, what's interesting, it's not only you who doesn't believe there's any chance he'll be convicted, also President Biden himself.
He was on CNN, I think, yesterday, and he said he doesn't believe that 17 Republican senators will cross over to convict Trump, which does make you wonder, hence our title, when will a backfire occur?
When will this backfire on Democrats?
When will the American people realize this really isn't a trial over a high crime or misdemeanor, but rather it's a show trial of a president that's not out of office?
I mean, that is out of office.
And the Constitution is very clear.
It talks about impeaching and removing from office a president.
Well, the president right now is Joe Biden.
And that's the reason, Dr. Paul, that the Chief Justice, as required by the Constitution, the Chief Justice has said, I'm not going to preside over this because it's not an impeachment.
There is no president to impeach.
And the Democrats say, okay, well, we'll just get a Democratic senator to do it for us anyway.
And that was really the problem and makes it look like a show trial.
The real reason, and the Constitution is clear about this without getting too far into the woods, Dr. Paul, is that if there is a vote to remove from office a successful vote, then the Senate may decide also to bar that individual from further office or any other honor.
And I think the Democrats are really obsessed about that second part, despite the fact that the first and primary focus of impeachment is to remove someone from office.
Donald Trump is a private citizen.
He's not in office.
And hence, I think there is this danger of getting bogged down and a backlash coming.
Daniel, I think that point that brings up key in on that tells you a lot about this whole process because I see people, the aggressors that want to do this and promoting it, and they're fearful of him running for office or certainly running.
So the split in the Republican Party is very clear.
They can't stand the idea that the old hands aren't totally in charge.
So you have this anti-Trumpism and you have the anti-deep state position.
And they're terrified of actually talking about the issues.
Now, Trump, I think most people, you know, understand he uses a bit of a clumsiness in presenting his case.
I think he does it on purpose, but he gets the issues on.
He has a lot of people supporting him.
And it's a very populist message.
And populism, to me, isn't necessarily bad, except there's several types of populism.
Because I always think that if you had libertarianism, it would appeal to the common man and the middle class and the poor, and it would root out the crony capitalists and all.
But anyway, this is something that they've been doing.
And it's a crony capitalism that will have to end.
But this whole thing about how they're doing this, this is too much.
You call it a show trial.
I do too.
Sometimes I call it a kangaroo court, you know.
But the one thing is, I think they're very insecure, and they don't want to hear it.
They don't want to live up with the debates.
And now I find it fascinating and just of psychological interest because a year ago when they had the trial, they say the Democrats were riding high.
So, boy, we're going to have a lot of people who, you know, witnesses.
And we'll keep out the ones that we might not like.
And it was a big political thing.
But every Democrat voted for witnesses.
They thought they had it going.
Now it seems almost none of them want to have a witness.
So we're having a trial on a president that's not president to kick him out of office and then extend it to saying, well, we hate this guy so much, we're not even going to let him run for dog catcher ever.
So this just goes on and on.
It's to me, you know, when I first read some of this stuff, I wonder how many people might have read this story and didn't pay much attention.
And they say, you know, how'd this onion get involved in this discussion?
This is almost something you'd get out of an onion.
It seems to be so bizarre.
But like you point out, Biden doesn't even think he can possibly be convicted of this.
Why do this?
The best spot of news I read today, which would be helpful to our side, is they don't expect to vote until the end of February.
And maybe by the end of February, they will say, well, maybe it'll be the end of March.
And the reason I say this is good because this is not a productive exercise.
But it would be very productive if you break down the smooth operating procedures of government, all governments, but especially this government, because how many executive orders can a guy write, you know, in the next couple of months?
But it would also, you know, give people a chance to study what's going on.
And unfortunately, my little thesis there of just prolonging the agony, it wouldn't help us too much on foreign policy.
Because Daniel, I know you're very much aware of what was the first thing that this administration did.
Send troops into Syria, and maybe that's impeachable.
Just think of the first 10 years of this century, how many illegal wars and unfortunate deaths of Americans and foreigners.
If you want to talk about impeachment, that's where it should be.
But no, they're going to spend all this time on a new idea.
Impeach anybody anytime you want.
And, you know, I poked fun at it at this at one time.
I said, I wonder if they'll ever impeach candidates for president.
You know, I said some pretty strong, strong things about 10 years ago, you know, about big governments and they should cut back and they're doing all this harm.
They're going to destroy the money.
So do you think they'd ever want to impeach somebody who was never in office?
Who knows?
Impeach everyone.
I like what you said about Syria because, you know, the claim against Trump is that he has incited violence with his words.
Well, putting U.S. troops into Syria without a declaration of war is not inciting violence.
It's actual violence in occupying the country illegally.
But, you know, I do think that Biden might be concerned that this thing might go off the rails because he's trying to put forth this idea that, hey, it's time to have unity.
It's time to have unity.
Letting this drag on for several months just gives ammunition, figuratively speaking, to his opposition and say, what are you talking about?
Unity, you're trying to kick a president out who's not even in office.
He may understand this, or at least some of his people around him may understand it.
But, you know, the absurdity of this trial goes all the way down to the charges.
And our good friend Senator Paul from Kentucky has a good article in The Hill, Boycott This Sham Impeachment.
And he makes a good point that any politician that tells a crowd to fight to take back your country, which is what they're saying Trump is using as incitement, anyone who says that being guilty of incitement is, as the senator says, is absurd.
And he goes on to make some very good points.
And he talks about the attack on Representative Scalise during the baseball game.
And it was a deranged Bernie Sanders supporter who did this, who hated Republicans and loved Sanders.
And Senator Paul says it would be absurd to attack Bernie Sanders and say it's his fault he incited it for the things that he said.
You know, he says that the idea that a politician is responsible for the actions of his most craziest supporters is so ridiculous.
So he makes a good point that this whole idea, the whole basis, the whole foundation of the trial is so patently absurd that I think really only the most heavily Kool-Aid drinking supporters of Pelosi and Schumer and the mainstream media think this is actually a good idea.
Well, can you imagine the chaos going on, the controversy, the moral controversy, the constitutional controversies, the political controversy that's going on with this mess?
And there's one individual that's in Congress that is very controversial.
There's been charges made, and there are serious charges like dealing with real spies in China.
Of course, I'm reluctant to make a judgment on all this Chinese stuff, but for the population of this country, you know, China's the bad people and everything they do is wrong.
But there's one congressman that sort of does well, and he's been accused of converting one, going out and, you know, playing games with a spy.
You'd think they might be in tech.
You know what they did with him?
They put him on the manager's committee.
He's part of this prosecution.
In your face.
That was in your face is the exact words I was thinking.
That was Pelosi.
Pelosi wasn't going to put up with it.
You guys don't like him.
Well, I'll fix you.
We're going to put him in charge.
So that more or less tells you how unserious this whole thing is.
But it is an insult.
I mean, for people who would like to have the rule of government and minimize government and get it back down to the size it's supposed to be and do these things and look at it seriously.
This is, you mean, they've been mocking the Constitution, both parties for so long.
The deep state runs things.
Elections don't really, even these very messy elections, it just confuses more people.
But that doesn't solve it.
And they just keep doing the same thing over and over again.
And this thing fits that category.
Hopefully it will wake people up and say, what are these clowns doing?
How do they think they're going to solve the problems if this is what they do?
Powerful Political Force Still?00:04:45
And yet all it does is you'd think it would maybe wake up some people, but what it does is just causes the hatred and the confrontation to grow.
And so conditions get worse.
And, you know, besides, Daniel, if they were, if they even moved in our direction, they'd have to have, to really improve things, they'd have to change their minds not only on the foreign policy that we talked about, they would have to change their mind on monetary policy.
And maybe that system is messed up.
Maybe deficits are bad.
Maybe deficits, you know, for unconstitutional spending.
You know, that can be a very violent activity.
And then when you spend money in an effort to, you know, lock down and make sure the police don't get into certain areas, you know, it could go on and on.
But they have picked this issue, the most important issue of the day.
We're going to teach this country that you can impeach forever and make the world safe for democracy.
Well, you know, you talked earlier kind of half jokingly about yourself being disqualified from office by preemptive impeachment, but great minds think alike.
You know, Jonathan Turley has a great piece out a few days ago, I think on the 22nd.
And he really made it, as he does, and we can't get in too far into the trees, but he does a great analysis on the constitutionality of trying to impeach someone who's not in office.
But he warns in his conclusion about Congress, you know, hey, if this is the president, Congress could come into power and set about disqualifying opponents from public office despite being private citizens.
He said a Republican Congress could retroactively impeach Barack Obama or even Bill Clinton.
You know, so this is the real problem with this, you know, and that's sort of a funny aside, the idea that you can impeach former presidents.
Our good friend Thomas Massey has a hilarious tweet today, and he said, if impeaching former presidents escalates any further, I call Dibbs on SDR.
All the way back.
And before you know it, with the circumstances, they have to at least have some symbolic impeachment of Jefferson, you know, to do it.
You know, there's a bit of politicking going on right now because, you know, Trump's public position, as I understand it, is that he's not interested in a third party.
He says he doesn't support that.
There's others that think, you know, that would like to see him do it.
And Trump, I don't know whether he's closed off on that or not because it's probably too early to tell.
But some believe he does this as a threat, you know, because there's a vote coming up and there's six or eight senators that are going to rebel against Trump and show that they're powerful and vote and try to destroy everything that he expects to do in the rest of his life.
So this whole thing hangs out there.
And if he's still around, of course, he can help.
And he will, regardless of what he's doing, I think there's certain segments of this country and certain states where Trump can be a powerful political force still, even though they said he went from having 60% support for all the people, and now he's down to three.
Well, I don't quite believe that.
I think there's more than 3%.
And the third party, you know, there's talk about that, but that's not likely to happen.
But they suggested that they call it, and this was not Trump that said this.
They call it the Patriot Party.
And I got to thinking that patriotism was once said to be the last refuge of a scoundrel.
That's true.
And maybe he is holding that out as sort of a veiled threat to the Republicans, the McConnell wing of the party.
And if so, you know, It might be worth wielding.
But I don't know if you're ready to move toward closing, Dr. Paul.
Yes.
But I would just, my closing, this sort of the whole thing reminds me, Dr. Paul, of the British Empire after World War II.
It still had the idea that it could throw its weight around the world.
It still had the idea that it was a world leader.
It did not understand the massive shift in global power.
And that does remind me of Washington now.
Biden says America's back.
We're going to exercise global U.S. leadership.
Fake Social Activity Masks00:03:21
We're putting troops in Syria.
We're fomenting another color revolt in Russia.
We're going around the world.
But meantime, the headquarters of the empire, Washington, D.C., is really devolving into a kind of theater of the absurd of chaos.
And the rest of the world really must look at this second trial, at the storming of the Capitol, at the massive military presence as a peaceful transition of power at the barrel of a gun.
They must look at this and just laugh and say, You think you're leading the world?
You can't even lead your country.
You're devolving.
You're turning into a laughing stock.
And so I just wonder the parallels are there and what does it portend for the future, Dr. Paul?
Right.
You know, one of the things that bothers me the most about what's happening, because there's a mixture of the financial crisis brought on by the Fed, but also the crisis brought on by the lockdown and what they do with coronavirus.
And that's all mixed up.
You can't get separate.
Sometimes they do silly things like they're here to divert your attention from sending troops into Syria or something like that.
But the symbol that has bothered me the most in this past year have been little kids and anywhere from the age of two or two, like the girl on the airplane, are on up.
They're totally innocent and they have these masks on.
Now, at the beginning, there was more consensus saying, well, we're doing the Lord's work and we're going to save people from getting sick and do all these wonderful things.
But I know you have noticed, Daniel, that recently the evidence becomes overwhelming that masks have not been a benefit for health in this country.
So to me, when I see it, when I see the politicians doing it, and especially when the kids still are doing this, or somebody up on the mountaintop hiking, having a mask, and they're up there all by themselves, it becomes so silly.
You talk about a fake trial.
What about all this fake social activity like these masks are saving the world?
I think it's very, very annoying.
And the symbol that I'm left with now is as that very important team of individuals coming to impeach a person who's not the president, as they marched into the Capitol and marched across, boldly going after the Senate to try the ex-president.
So they do that.
And I thought, isn't this ridiculous?
I mean, just think of that picture of them marching across there like it was a badge of honor.
And all it does is continue the misunderstanding.
And I just saw another article today, another study.
And they say, well, you can't look at that, Ron.
That's not good.
You have to go by the science.
Fake Trials and Lockdowns Symbolism00:00:32
Boy, should some few people in this world Follow their own words or, you know, pay attention to what they say.
But it has a symbolism I don't like, but it does show you exactly where we are: the fake trial and the fake lockdowns.
So, other than that, the world is a wonderful place because we still have our program.
We can talk to like-minded people who are also interested in peace and prosperity.
I want to thank everybody for tuning in today to the Liberty Report.