In a weekly scheduled interview on The Tennessee Star Report Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast live Tuesday morning on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – Leahy welcomed One America News Networks Investigative Reporter Neil McCabe to the show to talk about the never-ending impeachment.
During the third hour, McCabe explained how Former White House Counsel Don McGhan’s testimony could result in a third article of impeachment by way of either some type of admission or obstruction of Congress should he choose not to testify.
Leahy: We are joined now by our good friend the One America News Network Correspondent in Washington, D.C. Neil McCabe. Good morning Neil.
McCabe: Good morning Michael. Merry Christmas.
Leahy: Merry Christmas to you my friend. This is the special Christmas Eve Day edition of the Tennessee Star Report. You’re there in the belly of the beast and every time we turn around there’s another twist and turn on this never-ending impeachment. One of our lead stories today is that the House Judiciary Committee floats the possibility of impeaching the president again over McGhan’s testimony. Did you see that story and what do you make of it?
McCabe: Michael, we are in the impeachment zombie apocalypse.
Leahy: (Laughs) That’s a very good line, Neil.
McCabe: Yes. Have you ever tried to kill the undead?
Leahy: (Laughs) Oh yeah. I had the same feeling. I looked at this and said really?
McCabe: What’s really happening is, remember we talked about the Trump 31. These are House Democrats that are in districts won by Trump in 2016. But in the more recent past, there are 24 House Democrats in districts who won by five or fewer percentage points. So they were in very close races in a Democratic wave year.
And frankly, if those 24 seats for the Republicans that control the House switches. And so you have moderate Democrats in sort of conservative and Republican districts who are going Nancy Pelosi and this. People aren’t buying it. And the response to Pelosi could be, hey let’s get this thing behind us as quickly as possible and focus on drug prices or immigration reform or something like that.
Instead, we’re going to double down literally on impeachment. We’re going to go back and we’re going to do an article of impeachment. And so this is where it comes out. They’re going to press Don McGhan to testify. If Don McGhan testifies no matter what he says their going to say that’s articles of impeachment.
Leahy: Anything he says.
McCabe: Right. And then if he doesn’t testify then oh well, obviously obstruction of congress. Another count. And then they just go back at it.
Leahy: Do you think it’s likely there will be a third count at some point?
McCabe: I just don’t know what the blowback is like and how Pelosi’s able to handle it. So far she’s shown tremendous discipline holding her caucus in check. And so, we didn’t see the deflections we thought we might have seen. Certainly, we saw more deflections among Democrats during the Clinton impeachment crisis.
And if you go back and look at the Obamacare votes there were a significant amount of Democrats who were flaking off over Obamacare. And so you have to really hand it to Pelosi. She’s able to hold this thing together. There’s a lot of people that came out in front in favor of impeachment and removing the President before we knew the narrative was a lot more nuance than had been reported by Colonel Vindman.
Colonel Vindman was making his right after the call with the Ukraine president and Trump. Vindman was on the phone calling everybody he knew to alert them to this. And then, of course, you have CIA analyst Eric Carmella who many identified as the CIA whistleblower working with Vindman. And they sort of put out this narrative.
But it turns out that that narrative isn’t really what happened. And you’ve got guys like Ron Johnson, the Republican Senator from Wisconsin who is intimately involved in supporting Ukraine. Has traveled to Ukraine. All through the summer, he was talking to the president and the White House staff about getting aid to Ukraine.
He was very influential in the cloakrooms. He’s telling his Senators “hey, this didn’t happen the way they’re telling you.” So what you have are two different narratives. That Senate narrative, that Ron Johnson narrative is going to be a brick wall no matter what Pelosi comes up with. This President isn’t going anywhere.
Leahy: So yeah. There have been three Presidents who actually been impeached in United States history. Trump is the third. Don’t you think it’s going to be sort of a jump the shark moment if they go on and put another article of impeachment in?
McCabe: Yeah. It’s ridiculous. It’s absurd. But you know, why stop?
Leahy: Yeah, why stop. Now that’s a really good point.
McCabe: It’s like you tell Pelosi, you know, “we love you, Nancy. We care about you. We think it’s important that we intervene to get you to stop this behavior that’s very destructive to you and the people around you.” And Pelosi says, “I can stop whenever I want to, but why should I stop something that makes me feel good.”
Leahy: (Laughs) Speaking of making her feel good, apparently, it makes her feel good to rush to the impeachment vote that happened last week. And almost a week later now she’s holding onto the articles of impeachment and hasn’t transmitted them technically to the Senate.
I don’t know if you’ve looked at this. Are you in the camp that says the president has been impeached? Or are you of the camp that says the president has not been formally impeached because the articles have not been transmitted from the House to the Senate?
McCabe: If impeachment falls in the woods and nobody hears it, (Leahy bellows) is what your asking?
Leahy: That’s exactly right Neil. (Laughs)
McCabe: Basically, this guy Feldman, he’s quite a character.
Leahy: Noah Feldman. The Harvard Law professor.
McCabe: Right. But this idea that hey, if it doesn’t leave the House of Representatives then it’s just an internal matter and it never happened because you never told anybody about it. And so as McConnell gets this thing they’re just going to dismiss it. One thing that happened institutionally. That had nothing to do with the calendar politics of policy.
The senators hate being told what to do by Congressmen. They don’t even like Congressmen being around them. So the more Pelosi and these House Democrats sort of stir up stuff and basically put sticks in the spokes of the senators’ wheels. All these senators have bills that they want to do.
And every time they want to talk about their priorities they have to deal with this impeachment stuff and it makes people angry. I would say that there was a chance that Chuck Schumer would have gotten three or four Republican Senators to go along with some of his format changes and the way he wants to call evidence and witnesses.
If he had done it maybe a month ago, there might have been a chance that guys like Mitt Romney and [Lisa] Murkowski or Susan Collins or Cory Gardner would have sort of played ball with Schumer because they believe in having a fair process.
And this is against protocol because on procedures parties go along the party line. You don’t deviate from procedures. You are allowed to sort of vote you’re conscious on issues. But when it comes to procedures you’re supposed to vote with the party. There are people that are willing to break.
Leahy: But now Neil McCabe you’re saying that is not happening now. And have a very Merry Christmas.
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Listen to the full third hour:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 am to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Neil McCabe” by One America News Network.
