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‘Didn’t You Lay The Groundwork?’: CNN Host Holds Dem Rep. Accountable For Setting Impeachment Precedent With Trump

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Brianna Lyman News and Commentary Writer
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CNN’s Phil Mattingly called out New York Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman on Tuesday over Democrats’ efforts to impeach former President Donald Trump.

House Republicans are seeking to hold a vote Wednesday to formalize an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. (RELATED: Anti-Impeachment ‘Fox & Friends’ Host Takes Over Biden Segment. Check Out His Colleagues’ Faces)

“Congressman, can I ask, what’s interesting is you listen to what Congressman Buck is saying, what a lot of the moderate Republicans saying in terms of their willingness to get behind the formalized vote,” Mattingly said. “I went back and read Speaker Pelosi’s 2019 letter to the caucus on her decision to formalize the vote and the rationale was the same in terms of facing obstruction, they needed more legal tools to get documents. I understand what you’re saying about the difference between what the Trump counsel’s office was doing versus what the Biden counsel’s office in practice on the documents, but I think my question right now is didn’t you guys kind of lay the groundwork for everything the Republicans are doing right now?”

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“If it were the case that the Biden Administration was completely stonewalling and that President Biden said ‘I will defy all subpoenas’ and that the Biden Administration has turned over no documents and provided no witnesses, then, yes, the same logic would apply. But, of course, that is not the case, the White House and the administration has been unbelievably cooperative with a fishing expedition of an investigation,” Goldman argued.

“They have given essentially the Republicans every single thing they have asked for. You don’t have to take my word for it. James Comer said it several months ago when he said he had 100% cooperation from the administration. This is an investigation in search of facts. There are allegations that are completely unfounded, and every single time a Republican is asked to point to specific, direct evidence linking Joe Biden to any misconduct they are unable to because it does not exist. Their own witnesses said that at the original and only public impeachment hearing. So this is just, so they are just trying to desperately find some Rationale to go forward with it. But there is none.”

“But it’s not just Republicans. It’s Dean Phillips, the democratic presidential candidate, whose also a colleague of yours in the house technically still, he suggested in an interview that the impeachment inquiry into Biden could make him unelectable as a general election nominee,” Mattingly pushed back .”What is your response?”

Goldman argued that polling in 18 Biden districts where a Republican currently holds a congressional seat shows voters are dissatisfied with their current representation and would be more so if an impeachment vote went forward.

Republicans recently laid out how the Department of Justice strayed from normal procedures during its investigation into Hunter Biden in an effort to protect the president’s son. The House Ways and Means, Oversight and Judiciary Committees released a report detailing how Biden-appointed U.S. Attorneys Matthew Graves and E. Martin Estrada refused to cooperate with David Weiss on the case after the IRS whistleblowers brought the issue to light.