Sen. Cruz: ‘When We Get to Final Judgment, the President Will Have Been Acquitted Forever of These Bogus Impeachment Charges’
HOUSTON, Texas - U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), chairman of the Subcommittee on The Constitution, today appeared on Fox News' ‘Sunday Morning Futures' with Maria Bartiromo to give a preview of the Senate's impeachment trial.
When asked about President Trump's defense team's letter filed with the Senate late last night in response to Speaker Nancy Pelosi's Articles of Impeachment, Sen. Cruz said:
"I do think what we've seen coming out of the House is an abuse of the Constitution. And the reason is that they're using this for political purposes. This is the first time in history any President [...] has been impeached without the Articles alleging any criminal conduct at all. Without alleging any federal crime was violated. They don't allege any federal law was violated. They don't even allege as much as the President has a speeding ticket. And that has never happened in our country's history. And to use impeachment like the House Democrats are doing to express their political disagreement with the President. To try to overturn an election they're unhappy with, that is an abuse of the Constitution."
Sen. Cruz continued, noting that if the Senate goes down the road of witnesses, they will do so fairly - giving both the prosecution and the defense the opportunity to call witnesses:
"I hope at the end of this process that we'll get at least 51 votes to say, let's move to final judgment. And when we move to final judgment, the outcome of this is going to be, the President will be acquitted. The Senate will vote ‘not guilty.' And the reason I can say that with confidence is because, on their face, the Articles of Impeachment, they don't allege high crimes and misdemeanors. They fail on their face. And so I hope we get 51 votes in a week-and-a-half to say, this is over. If not, if not, if there are at least four Republicans who joined the Democrats for witnesses, then we're looking at a trial that will probably last six, eight weeks or longer because you have to assume there's going to be litigation over the witnesses, there will be delay. If we go down the road of witnesses, all of the Democrats envisioning only prosecution witnesses and no defense witnesses, they're in fantasyland. The Senate is not going to do like the House and play political games. We're going to be fair and we're going to give the President a chance to defend himself."
Sen. Cruz also noted that rendering a final judgement of ‘not guilty' after the President has defended himself is better for the country:
"I think dismissing this case is a much less attractive option than rendering final judgment and acquitting the President. And the reason is twofold. Number one, if you do a dismissal, a dismissal doesn't reach the merits. An acquittal, a verdict of ‘not guilty,' that verdict stands for all time. You know, Nancy Pelosi is going out on TV crowing that the President has been impeached forever. Well, when we get to final judgment, the President will have been acquitted forever of these bogus impeachment charges. That is a much better outcome for the President and for the country. Secondly, if we dismiss at the outset, the President would never get a chance to defend himself. The President, the White House lawyers would never get the opportunity to put on the affirmative case.
He continued:
"Think about it, in the months and months of House hearings, what I said about Hunter Biden, you didn't hear any of the witnesses say that. Because the House Democrats didn't want those facts in evidence. They didn't want to explore the evidence of corruption. The President is entitled to have his case, laid out, laid out persuasively to be able to point out as the brief President filed this weekend points out, that these House Democrats have wanted to impeach the President since November of 2016. Since Election Day, they have been saying we're going to impeach the President. Which means this has nothing to do with Ukraine. It was long before anything had happened with Ukraine. This is before the President had been sworn-in; House Democrats were saying they wanted to impeach him. This is pure politics. And, it is abusing the Constitution."
On Friday, Sen. Cruz also appeared on Fox News' ‘The Story' with Martha MacCallum. When asked about House Democrats' latest claim of "new evidence" Sen. Cruz said:
"Listen, I think this is a game. It's been a partisan game from the Democrats from the beginning. They've had dozens and dozens of witnesses in the House. One after the other, after the, they wouldn't have any defense witnesses. They didn't want to call in Hunter Biden. They didn't want to hear the evidence of corruption on Joe Biden's part. But, they've put on a kangaroo court for months."
He continued:
"I think what we're going to see over the next couple of weeks is a replay of what happened with Brett Kavanaugh. Which is that Democrats are going to leak things, one day after the other, after the other, that's going to happen next week. Every day or two, there's going to be something new leaked. And you're going to see, whether it's this Lev fellow or someone else going on Rachel Maddow. And I promise, whatever they leak they're going to say, ‘This is the smoking gun. This finally does it.' And this is all a game of three-card monte. They don't care about the facts and they don't care about the evidence. How do we know that? Because, many of these House Democrats said they wanted to impeach Donald Trump on the day he was elected."
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