The New Star Chamber

Nov 13th, 2019. Seven hundred twelve years and one month to the day that secular governments in central Europe started the Kangaroo court to convict the Knights Templar. The Knights were largely responsible for the fiscal success of European countries during the middle ages. Now, Congressional Democrats have instituted a new star chamber to investigate President Trump, whom people largely credit with the financial success of the United States in this current economy. While the symbolism of the day may be coincidence (with the 713 reference being almost too much to look past [712+1 month]), the idea that the United States is following down these dark steps is frightening.

The morning started off with Rep. Adam Schiff entering an opening statement, looking like the grand high inquisitor. He presented the Democrat narrative directly from his prepared remarks, conflating benevolent presidential actions with insidious schemes. His assessment of events was bias, as one would expect in a political procedure like this, but he feigned innocence during the speech.

Even when challenged by republican counterparts, he maintained a lack of knowledge of the whistle-blower, that he did not fabricate the now discredited “early transcript” and that the process was wholly fair to the American people. Acting as not only the prosecutor, but also as the judge and jury, Schiff restated that choices were his and his alone in the hearing.

Rep. Devin Nunez followed Schiff with a discussion of how this activity was simply another act in the sham play created by the democrats.

He noted the process of failed election interference by the corrupt government in Ukraine before their new president took over, and how they had attempted to gain votes for Hillary Clinton. He discussed the Muller report and how the democrats could not accept that it did not indict the president. Finally, he settled on the current matter, looking at how this new impeachment inquiry was a sham and they were investigating the president for faithfully executing his job. Nunez was followed by two republican house members asking why their rights had been denied and whether their witnesses would ever see the light of day.

Lip Service

The first witness to give his testimony was Mr. Kent, a career member of the diplomatic corps. Starting his speech by announcing his families involvement in government, he attempted to conflate the service of his forebears with his diplomatic work. Overall, his testimony was Pro Trump. While he did provide limited lip service to the quid pro quo narrative, he did allude to the fact that the investigation President Trump was asking for was looking into corruption. Mr. Kent stated he had participated in the investigation into said corruption.

While he did note that he did not approve of the methodology, he did indicate to Congress that this was furthering investigations that were already started. He ended his testimony by expressing disappointment that the American people did not fully support some of the discredited members of the diplomatic corps. Ambassador Taylor was a completely different story.

He started off his speech saying that he did not have an interest in the outcome of the impeachment inquiry, only that the facts come out. He then spent the next 40 minutes discussing how the way President Trump was doing things was not “business as usual.” He noted that there were two tracks of investigation in Ukraine. The first was the diplomatic relationship, which was the traditional relationship. The second was a relationship built around ending corruption.

To Taylor it seemed almost absurd that the United States would take its commitment to ending corruption in the Ukraine seriously. He implied that the President should allow career officials to deal with it in the “traditional way.” This traditional way was what opened the door for massive corruption in the Obama years.

Overall, the morning was relatively calm. Schiff started with the two most boring witnesses, which can be assumed is a tactic to get people to stop watching. Sometimes when you have a weak case, you want people to tune out. This may be a good play for a prosecutor doing small time crimes to pad his record, but this will not work with impeachment. This is one of the most important things going on in the world today, the world is watching Mr. Schiff, please show the nation that you are not a liar.