Sen. Cruz: Democrats Are Going to Impeach, Not Because They Have the Evidence, but Because They Hate the President and Want to Undo the Election

HOUSTON, Texas - U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), chairman of the Senate subcommittee on the Constitution, today appeared on NBC's ‘Meet the Press' with Chuck Todd to discuss House Democrats' attempt to impeach President Trump regardless of facts or evidence.

As Sen. Cruz explained:

"This is a kangaroo court in the House. They're going to impeach, not because they have the evidence but because they hate the president and want to undo the election. But it's going to go to the Senate. It's going to go nowhere. I think the American people know this is a waste of time and this is Democrats putting on a circus."

Pointing to the 55-page, partisan, "scholarly" report House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler released last night, Sen. Cruz highlighted Democrats' desperate attempt to expand the definition of what is impeachable to achieve their political objectives, noting:

"Yesterday House Democrats put out a 55-page report. They called it a scholarly report that purports to say, you don't have to prove a crime, you don't have to prove a law was violated to impeach a president. What garbage. What nonsense. [...]

"What we saw last night was a tell from the House Democrats. You know just a few weeks ago, their talking point was bribery, bribery, bribery. They're now admitting they can't prove a crime, they can't prove a law was violated and here's why: any president, any administration is justified in investigating corruption. And there was serious evidence of real corruption concerning Hunter Biden on the board of Burisma, the largest natural gas company in Ukraine."

When asked whether Ukraine interfered in the United States 2016 election, Sen. Cruz said:

"On the evidence, Russia clearly interfered in our election. But here's the game the media is playing - because Russia interfered, the media pretends nobody else did. Ukraine blatantly interfered in our election. [...] I understand that you want to dismiss Ukrainian interference because, a) they were trying to get Hillary Clinton elected, which is what the vast majority of the media wanted anyway. And b) it's inconvenient for the narrative. You know it's hysterical, two years ago there was article after article after article in the mainstream media about Ukrainian interference in the elections. But now, the Democrats have no evidence of a crime. No evidence of violating the law. And so suddenly Ukraine interference is treated as the media clutches their pearls, oh my goodness, you can't say that."

He added:

"I have been in multiple briefings, year after year after year about foreign interference in our election. Russia has tried to interfere in our elections. China has tried to interfere in our elections. North Korea has tried to interfere in our elections. Ukraine has tried to interfere in our elections. This is not new - 2016 is not the first year they did it and they going to keep trying. So we need to be strong in dealing with it. But the media needs to actually report facts."

When asked about efforts by the administration and the Republican-led Senate to take a stand against Russia, specifically noting Sen. Cruz's bipartisan resolution to recognize the Armenian genocide and bipartisan legislation to stop Russia's Nord Stream 2 pipeline, Sen. Cruz said:

"Two of the things you mentioned right there, the Armenian genocide resolution and Nord Stream 2, I think we are likely to get both of those done in the coming weeks. We're likely to finally acknowledge the horrific Armenian genocide, which I've been fighting for years to do. I think we're also likely in the National Defense Authorization Act to pass my bipartisan legislation stopping the Nord Stream 2. What that's going to do is stop a multi-billion dollar natural gas pipeline that goes from Russia to Germany and it'll cost Putin billions of dollars. And so, actually those questions illustrate part of the joke of what we're facing right now. If you look at substance, the substantive policy we are implementing has been tougher on Russia by orders of magnitude than Barack Obama ever was and yet the media is playing along with this show trial the Democrats are putting on in the House and people are getting really disgusted with it."

He added:

"You know, Chuck, substance matters. By any measure the president's policy, and this administration's policy has been tougher on Russia and actually better for Ukraine than Obama's was. Let me give you an example. You just mentioned Ukrainian aid. The Donald Trump administration gave lethal defensive aid to Ukraine, javelin missiles to take out Russian tanks. And at the end of the day, Chairman Nadler doesn't want to talk about any of that. He doesn't want to talk about the substance. You know it was really striking listening to his comments. At one point he said, well there's no crime. And you know, he's right. There is no crime."

Sen. Cruz's full interview may be viewed here.

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