Dan Schinhofen: Why a delay if there’s a ‘clear and present danger’

Remember when the Democrats in the House kept saying that? They told us they couldn’t wait for the courts to decide on Trump’s “obstruction” by going to the courts before rushing this impeachment through. (Every president has been allowed this courtesy or actually this right. Apparently, they think Donald Trump should be BELOW the law.

Now Pelosi is saying that she won’t send the articles of impeachment to the Senate because she wants to be assured that “it will be fair.”

Oh, like you were in the House, Nancy? She had to know the Senate is a small majority of Republicans while in the House they could have lost 17 Democrats and still got a yes vote to impeach. Pelosi also is questioning the Senate Republicans’ devotion to the Constitution.

The Democrats have fallen back on their default setting of being the victim. She questions whether or not the Republicans in the Senate can vote with a clear conscience. But what about the six Democratic senators that have called for impeachment for a few years now while campaigning to beat Trump in the next election. Will they be fair and vote their conscience?

Even funnier than this is U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer saying that they need to call MORE witnesses for the trial. Hmm, didn’t the House Democrats continually tell us that the “evidence is overwhelming and uncontested”?

I really hope that Mitch McConnell will just have the trial based on the record the House Democrats sent over … or didn’t send over.

Just when I thought this three-ring pig circus couldn’t get any more ridiculous, here we have the Democrats screaming about their worries that the Senate won’t be fair. The Senate leadership has already said they would use the same rules as Clinton had during his impeachment.

If you’re still not sure that this was just the Democrats throwing a fit because they lost the last election, just play back all the Democrats that said, during the hearing, “this is a sad, sad day” but then when the vote was announced Pelosi actually cracked a quick smile and then waved down her party as they started to applaud and cheer. It really was a sad, sad day.

Unfortunately, this is the state of politics now that the Democrats have lowered the bar for impeachment. Three Democrats voted not to impeach while no Republicans voted to impeach. There was a bi-partisan vote to NOT impeach.

Last thing is very telling. U.S. Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., said this about sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate, “If you think the process is rigged why would you put yourself in that position?” And yet he voted to impeach Trump for “obstructing Congress” for not putting himself into a rigged process.

I must have watched 90 percent of all this most recent push to impeach Trump (seven times it has been brought up in the House before this) and all I could hear the Democrats saying is that they hate Trump. They said over and over that they proved the facts and now they do not want just those “facts” heard in the trial.

These guys have taken the phrase “sore loser” to a new level. Send the articles over. It’s not like Pelosi and her gang didn’t know that it would fail in the Senate before they wasted all this time and money on impeachment.

If Trump is truly a “clear and present danger” as they stated over and over, then why did they go on Christmas break without picking their team and sending this to the Senate? They wouldn’t be playing politics with their “win” in the House … would they? Or are they afraid that their “undisputed and overwhelming facts” just won’t fly in a real trial.

Here’s hoping we will see the two parties set aside the partisan game playing in the new year. And maybe I’ll win the lottery too.

Dan Schinhofen is a former Nye County commissioner.