Sen. Cruz on ‘This Week’: This Is the Beginning of the End for House Democrats’ Show Trial

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on The Constitution, today appeared on ABC’s ‘This Week’ with George Stephanopoulos to discuss the House Democrats’ Articles of Impeachment and the chilling Inspector General report, which highlighted grotesque abuses of power at the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant against then-candidate Donald Trump.

As Sen. Cruz said:

“Listen, two things happened this week of great consequence. Number one, the inspector general report, which is unbelievably damning of the Department of Justice and FBI. The abuse of power that occurred there is stunning.

“But number two, we actually saw the House of Representatives’ articles of impeachment, and their entire partisan case collapse. For weeks and months they have been promising evidence of criminal conduct. They abandoned all of that and admitted that the evidence doesn't support all of their attacks that have happened before. I think this is the beginning of the end for this show trial that we’ve seen in the House. I think it's going to come to the Senate. We're going to have fair proceedings, and then it's not going anywhere because the facts aren't there.”

He also discussed how the House Democrats’ biased and baseless impeachment narrative has completely fallen apart:

“You remember there was a moment three, four weeks ago where every House Democrats began saying the word bribery over and over and over again. I’m sure they said it on your show. The reason is, the Democratic Campaign Committee did some polling, and the focus groups told them bribery polled really well. […]

“Well, fast forward to this week. This week, they have abandoned bribery. They don't allege bribery. There’s no article of impeachment on bribery. Instead, what they’re arguing is, they can impeach with zero evidence of a crime. They don’t have to prove any criminal law was violated. They don’t have to prove any federal law was violated.

“They don’t have to prove the president has a speeding ticket. What we’re seeing now, they have abandoned that whole allegation of bribery. And this is fundamentally political opposition.”

Sen. Cruz added:

“The base, the far left of the House Democrats hate the president, and they’re mad at the American people for electing him. This is trying to undermine an election, and that’s why it won’t go anywhere in the Senate. It won't go anywhere in the Senate because the facts don’t back them up.”

When asked about the Senate trial on impeachment, Sen. Cruz said:

“I think there are 51 votes in the Senate for a fair trial. What we’ve seen in the House was a partisan show trial. It was one-sided. They deliberately -- they didn’t allow the White House to cross-examine the witnesses. They didn’t allow the Republicans, the minority, to call any witnesses. The Senate I’m confident is going to do much, much better. We’re going to have a fair trial. We’re going to respect due process. I think that means we allow both sides to present their case. We should allow the House managers to do their best and present their case. But you can be sure we’re going to allow the president to defend himself as well.”

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

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