Democrats did not come to play Thursday during the House Judiciary Committee’s review of impeachment articles regarding President Donald Trump. After their Republican counterparts tried to strike down articles of impeachment against Trump, Democratic Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas and Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California cleared things up with a comparison to impeachment hearings of former President Bill Clinton in 1998. And they’re equally qualified to make the comparison, both having served as legislators during the 1998 hearings, Jackson Lee said.
The point of contention and the very basis for this probe into Trump is a July phone call in which he pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate political rival and former Vice President Joe Biden allegedly in return for security aid. “And let me be very clear. I hold in my hands that unclassified transcript,” Jackson Lee said at one point in the hearing. “I beg to differ with my friends.” The congresswoman then quoted from the transcript. “President Zelensky said these sentences: ‘I would also like to thank you for your great support in the area of defense. We're trying to continue to cooperate for the next steps. Specifically, we also want to be ready to buy javelins. That's equipment, military equipment from the United States for defense purposes.’”
Jackson Lee interjected with some context explaining that at the time of Zelensky’s request Ukraine was in the midst of a war against a nation that shot down “at least some of those alleged to be separatist” using Russian weapons, a commercial airliner. “This is a serious war where our men and women in the military are on the ground trying to assist,” Jackson Lee said. She said Trump responded in the very next sentence, “not yes let's get with the department of defense.”
“The very next sentence, ‘I would like you to do a favor, though,’” Jackson Lee said. “So, I would just offer to say that it is not frivolous or without facts that we proceed,” she later added. “We proceed with facts, and we take this in a very somber manner.”
Rep. Zoe Lofgren added to that discussion further comparison between the Trump hearings and the Clinton impeachment hearings. The former president was accused of lying under oath regarding an alleged sexual relationship with then-White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
Lofgren pointed said of her Republican counterparts’ argument, “somehow lying about a sexual affair is an abuse of presidential power, but the misuse of presidential power to get a benefit somehow doesn't matter. If it's lying about sex, we could put Stormy Daniels’ case ahead of us,” she said of the porn star who launched a defamation suit against the president over an alleged affair.
“We don't believe that's a high crime of misdemeanor,” the congresswoman said. An interruption, a bang of the gavel, and a request to yield followed, to which Lofgren gave a quick “no” in response and continued her argument. “And it is not before, and it should not be before us because it’s not an abuse of presidential power,” she said.