Ruddy: Trump Impeached for His Success

He is on track to become the first U.S. President to be impeached for being too successful.

Yesterday’s House vote, along party lines, is setting in motion a plan to impeach the President because his record is so strong the Democrats can’t beat him at the ballot box.

Unable to deal with the President’s A-plus performance managing the country, the Democrats have launched yet another “allegation in search of a crime” probe. (A phrase I coined to describe the Mueller investigation.)

Earlier this week I was listening to Tom Brokaw, a fair-minded but liberal-leaning journalist, who is out with a new book on Watergate, “The Fall of Richard Nixon.”

Unlike in the case of Watergate, Brokaw points out that the House has yet to surface any “impeachable crime” committed by Trump.

Still, Nancy Pelosi’s House appears to have committed to an impeachment, before they even discover the evidence.

The House Intelligence Committee hearings have been shrouded in secrecy, citing “classified” material. Yet day after day the Democrats have been selectively feeding the press portions of transcripts — almost always pejorative to the President.

Any reasonable person has to conclude this is a political inquisition against Trump, meant to either stop or damage him before the 2020 election.

The truth in the Ukrainian matter is not clearly known, and I full support the idea that the House and Senate should review the matter.

But they should draw conclusions at the end of their investigations, not at the beginning.

So far, witnesses have testified that the Trump administration pressured the Ukrainian government to open investigations into hacking efforts during the 2016 election and the Bidens.

No one I have seen has testified such efforts were illegal.

No one has claimed the President committed a crime.

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a top NSC aide, reportedly told the Committee he thought the President’s actions were “not proper.”

Fair enough. But many actions Presidents take are not proper. Not all are impeached.

In fact, Trump’s involvement here pales in comparison to what other Presidents have done.

For example, during President Reagan’s second term, he secretly ordered the U.S. military to sell arms to the Iranian government, violating an embargo.

His senior aides then took at least $10 million in profits from those sales and funneled those monies to the Nicaraguan Contras who were fighting the communist Sandinista government.

This directly violated Congressional law, the Boland Amendment, prohibiting such funding.

The scandal, known as Iran-Contra, led to Reagan taking to the air waves to admit he had not been truthful with the public and accepting responsibility for his aides who, in some cases, acted without his knowledge.

Donald Trump’s involvement in the Ukrainian matter looks like small potatoes compared to Iran Contra, where laws were clearly broken.

More and more the public is getting the sense the Democrats are abusing their Congressional powers against the President.

The AP Poll out today shows that just one-third of Americans believe the impeachment should be a high top priority for the House.

Congressional oversight is good.

But it should not be used to interfere with elections. That’s “not proper” either.

Christopher Ruddy is CEO of Newsmax, one of the country's leading conservative news outlets. Read more Christopher Ruddy Insider articles — Click Here Now.