President Donald Trump live-tweeted Fox & Friends in the hours before the congressional House vote on his impeachment, during which, he invoked an…interesting defense the show raised to the charges leveled against him.
“They just wanted to get at the President. They had no intention of having a proper investigation,” Trump said, attributing that quote to House Judiciary Ranking Republican Doug Collins (GA). “They couldn’t find any crimes so they did a vague abuse of power and abuse of Congress, which every administration from the beginning has done.”
If we put aside Trump’s insinuation that abuse of power and (what he presumably meant as) obstruction of Congress aren’t so bad because every administration does it, it’s worth noting that that’s not a direct quote from Collins. It actually seems to be a combination of sentences Collins exchanged with Steve Doocy when he railed against impeachment during his Fox & Friends interview.
“They’re gonna impeach the president on two articles, one of them would be on obstruction of Congress because he did not offer up witnesses and documents,” Doocy said. “That has happened pretty much in every administration of our lifetime. So if they impeach this president over that, isn’t that a preview of coming attractions every other time?”
Collins’ answer:
“Oh, it is. I mean, last night, a question was asked where do we move forward from
here? They so lowered the bar you don’t have to jump to get over for impeachment. This obstruction of Congress charge is Democrats like Adam Schiff and Speaker Pelosi and Jerry Nadler acting like petulant children. That’s all they’re doing here. They’re standing and sitting in the middle of the floor, screaming and kicking their feet because they didn’t get what they want. They wanted documents and all the things they didn’t ask for because they just wanted to get at the president. They had no intention of doing a true investigation. They simply wanted to get at the president. So they said at the end of the day, we can’t form any crimes, we’re going to do a vague abuse of power, and while we are it, let’s just throw in obstruction of Congress because we didn’t get our way.”
Watch above, via Fox News.