Thursday, during an appearance on Fox News Channel’s “The Ingraham Angle,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), an outspoken critic of the House Democrat impeachment effort, said Democrats were now attempting to distance themselves from impeachment given it has not had the traction they had hoped it would.

“[F]irst, they had to hide the evidence in the bunker of the basement, then they had to release selected excerpts out of context of the transcripts, then when they actually have live witnesses before the American people, the polling immediately inverted on impeachment,” he said. “Independents started turning against it. They lost intensity even among Democrats, and Republicans certainly saw the sham that it was. So now, facing a real trial where a full complement of witnesses would be called, Democrats are trying to cut and run on their own impeachment because they see that it is a failure.”

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