On Sunday, Republican Georgia Sen. David Perdue joined Meet the Press’s Chuck Todd to talk about the upcoming Senate trial of one Donald J. Trump.
And Chuck had a very meaty question about Obama.
But before we get to the entree, how about a couple of appetizers?
It’s no lobster-spinach queso, but here ya go:
Near the start, Chuck inquired as to what the big to do’s gonna look like.
David laid it out; buckle up for a long presentation:
“Well, we’ll see how the vote comes out on Tuesday, but what we’re proposing — and we’ve tried to enter these negotiations with the other side, but they won’t have any conversation until we deal with witnesses up front. And that’s not what we did with the Clinton trial. And so what will happen Tuesday is Mitch McConnell will put forward his proposal, we’ll have a vote on that. That proposal right now will look very similar to 24 hours of presentation by the House managers over two days, then 24 hours of presentation by the President’s team over two days, and then 16 hours of questions submitted by members, in writing, to the Chief Justice.”
Sounds like 64 riveting hours.
Then a crossroads:
“The Chief Justice decides whether or not they get asked, and how they get asked, and what sequence. And then we have, at that point, the opportunity to do exactly what we did after Phase 1 in the Clinton trial, and that is to decide where we go from here — do we have more witnesses, do we need clarification, whatever. Those motions will be done then. That’s our proposal.”
And what about that Parnas character?
Wanna hear a strong opinion about him? Check out Trey Gowdy’s thoughts here.
As for David’s:
“[S]econd hand information. This is a distraction. This is a person that’s been indicted right now. He’s out on bail. He’s been meeting with the House Intel Committee. If the House felt like this information was pertinent, I would think they would’ve included him… … The President says he doesn’t know who he was.”
Now for the main course: With all the hubbub over whether this whole Ukraine/impeachment thing’s a big scam, Chuck asked David is he’d be comfortable defending Barack Obama if the circumstances were the same.
Ready, set…go David:
“In Fast and Furious, he [Obama] did exactly this. He withheld evidence from the House of Representatives, and the Republicans decided that it was not obstruction of Congress. The Democrats agreed, and we did not pursue it. Nancy Pelosi, Nadler, all said that that was not obstruction. And yet, in this case, when the President decides to use executive privilege, they now — all of a sudden — say, ‘Oh, no. That is obstruction of Congress.'”
BOOM!
He added:
So, it’s a little bit hypocritical…”
But there’s a greater bottom line.
To David, here’s the deal, first and foremost:
“My personal preference, Chuck, would be to see this things dismissed out of hand because I think it’s an illegitimate process in the House. They did not give this President due process.”
Stay tuned for Tuesday. And a whoooole lot more goofiness.