OPINION:
A 2002 movie called “Minority Report” featured a 2054 society where members of a specialized police force called PreCrime searched out and arrested suspects who were identified by a trio of psychics, “precogs,” as poised to commit vicious crimes. Poised — meaning not yet committed. Did you get that? Suspects were apprehended pre-crime, based on figments of psychics’ imaginations.
This is how the Democrats’ and Nancy Pelosi’s “impeachment inquiry” into President Donald Trump rings.
The precog forces of the far left are demanding Trump’s impeachment for impeachable crimes he’s not even committed — for what “Minority Report” would have chalked up as pre-crimes.
Sound stupid? It is. But just look at the Democrats’ own words.
What is an “impeachment inquiry,” after all, except the left’s special way of announcing they’re going to go on a hunt for impeachment-worthy crimes this president has supposedly committed, so they can then punish him for those crimes by impeaching him?
They believe Trump — they want to believe Trump — has committed offenses worthy of impeachment. So they’re going to search and search and search until they can destroy.
In that regard, Democrats, and shamefully, even some Republicans, have been staging an impeachment inquiry into Trump since Day One. Since before Day One. In April of 2016, Politico ran a report that speculated on all the pundits, politicians and media types who were busily speculating on the chances of Trump to be impeached; Trump, it should be noted, wasn’t even nominated as the Republican Party candidate of presidential choice until July 19, 2016, at the Republican National Convention — fully three months after this Politico report was published.
It’s one thing for a president to raise red flags of criminal behaviors, or even questionable deeds, to heights that warrant deeper scrutiny.
It’s another thing entirely for a faction of the political forces in this country to use their hatred of a president to justify constant queries and inquiries and investigations in hopes of turning up the goods.
The latest look-see involves Ukraine and a whistleblower — a whistleblower who wrote a nine-page document outlining information that may or may not point to Trump’s crossing of legal lines, that may or may not indicate impeachable offenses committed by Trump, but that definitely was based on hearsay, and that was definitely based on the hearsay of unidentified sources. That The New York Times has identified this whistleblower as a CIA official doesn’t exactly bolster the allegations on the truthfulness scale.
John Brennan, who headed up the CIA until January of 2017, when Trump took office, has spent his down time filling his Twitter feed with as much anti-Trump messaging as can fit in the allotted character count. In one of his latest, he wrote, just weeks ago, “The stain Donald Trump leaves on our Nation’s soul should be a constant reminder that we cannot assume candidates for public office have the competence, integrity, & decency Americans deserve. In 2020, we need to elect someone to safeguard & strengthen democracy, not trample it.”
And let’s not forget: Jim Comey. Peter Strzok. Lisa Page. Not to mention the ones we still don’t know working steadily, secretly and silently to unseat this president.
At this point in time, is it even feasible to expect the American people to believe anything that comes out of U.S. intelligence agencies? Particularly when the things that come are cloaked in anonymity, carried by an openly anti-Trump press? It’d be nice to believe. But honestly, the hostility of the left and the contamination of our intel agencies make it tough.
As a smart guy just said to me: “Impeachment inquiry” is a phrase the anti-Trumpers can use to keep “impeachment” talk going, well into election season, even knowing full well they don’t have the goods to impeach. That’s a concise summary.
Just so the voters are clear, though: Impeachment inquiry is not really a real thing. It’s a hunt for an impeachable offense.
It’s tantamount to a fantasy Hollywood movie drama about pre-crime. If the left actually had the stuff to impeach, there would be no talk of inquiry. There’d be votes and action. There’s be nothing secretive or speculative about it.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley.
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