California Rep. Devin Nunes on Wednesday described the impeachment of President Donald Trump as a “coup attempt” that the Democrats managed “to make boring.”
Nunes, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee that heard the bulk of the testimony from witnesses hand-picked by the Democrats, was speaking at Wednesday House debate on the articles of impeachment.
“The Democrats showcased the most useful witnesses and public hearings,” Nunes told the House. “That somehow reduced support for impeachment. It is not easy to make a coup attempt boring. But the Democrats found a way. As it turns out, the American people don’t think a routine phone call with a foreign leader is a good basis for ousting the U.S. President.”
Nunes said the impeachment effort against the president began as soon as he took office. “Their attempt to remove the president began on Trump’s inauguration day. When the democrats’ semi-official mouthpiece The Washington Post declared, ‘the campaign to impeach President Trump has begun.’ For years the Democrats tried to expel the president with a preposterous accusation that he was a Russian agent,” he said, noting that it was the Democrats who colluded with Russia by obtaining the notorious Steele dossier.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) and ranking member Devin Nunes (R-CA) look on following testimony by Laura Cooper, deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia; and David Hale, under secretary of state for political affairs, before the House Intelligence Committee in the Longworth House Office Building on Capitol Hill November 20, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Jonathan Ernst-Pool/Getty Images)
The congressman, who often sparred with committee Chairman Adam Schiff, sent a scathing letter to the Democratic California congressman that accused him of being “complicit in the violation” of Carter Page’s civil liberties. (RELATED: House Democrats Want To Keep On Trying To Impeach Trump)
Page was an official in the 2016 Trump presidential campaign and a primary victim of the FBI’s improper use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants that were the focus of Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report released last week.