Rep. Gaetz: Who is the Jury in the Impeachment Trial?

On Episode 76 of War Room: Impeachment, Rep. Matt Gaetz joined Stephen K. Bannon and Jason Miller to discuss who the real jury is in the impeachment trial: the Senators or the world.

“Democrats have failed to meet their own standard,” Gaetz explained. “They told us that after these public interviews of witnesses that there would be this groundswell for impeachment, there would be Republicans changing, there would be a new bipartisan majority for impeachment. All of that has turned out to be a lie. The evidence wasn’t good, it wasn’t direct evidence. “

Commending the House Republicans’ defense of the President, Gaetz continued: “I think we showed the extent to which this was not the organic outgrowth of some bad presidential conduct. It was a straight up set up. It was a setup orchestrated to distract the country from the lies that the Democrats told us about Russia.” 

Listen to the best impeachment podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, or Soundcloud.

“Now, as we move into this process, I am here this morning to get advice from the two of you [Steve Bannon and Jason Miller] about the next important stage, which is the trial. Let’s start with this question: who is the real jury?”

“I think inside the beltway of Washington, there’s a belief that the jury is the Senate. But you seem to believe there is a broader audience to this.”

Bannon responded: “Brexit and 2016 are inextricably linked…This is a tectonic plate shift throughout the world.”

“Number one: this [impeachment trial] is for history. A hundred years from now they’re going to look back at what happens over the next two or three weeks, like they’ve done over the last six weeks. We’re going to be judged by history. Number two is that President Trump is the titular head…of a global movement.”

He asserted that “the jury is the American people But also, I think, middle class and working class people throughout the world that oppose the party of Davos. That’s the jury. And that’s why I’m quite adamant that we have to have a full trial.”

Bannon said to Gaetz: “You went down to that SCIF, here’s what changed it. President Trump tweeted the next day or two days later: unity and substance, unity and substance. When you went down to that SCIF, 85 per cent of elected Republicans said: ‘well what he did wasn’t right, wasn’t correct. But it’s not impeachable.’ President Trump said: ‘No. It was a perfect call, this is what I was elected by the American people to do.’”

“You said at the beginning: ‘the more we get into granularity – I want these depositions, I want these up for the American people to see, and not be down in a Star Chamber.’ Because the more we have granularity; the more we have substance; the more we have exposure; the more we have transparency – all the numbers have come back from that day.”

“I think that the jury here is the American people plus a global audience,” Bannon reiterated. “A global audience of people who support these populist, nationalist movements throughout the world. And also our enemies in Tehran, Beijing, Turkey, Venezuela, South Korea, and even in Russia. That’s why we have to have a detailed trial.”

He again turned to Gaetz: “People like you, and Jim Jordan, and Lee Zeldin have to be the lawyers. We can’t have a bunch of stiff, white shoe lawyers walk in here. We have to have fire breathers that have to go after these witnesses… If you’re going to have Adam Schiff…taking seven thousand pages of documents…and curate that for four, five days and just boom, boom, boom. You’re putting the advantage to these guys, because I don’t think there’s a lot in these depositions that really expose the truth. And you with witnesses, Jim Jordan with witnesses, Lee Zeldin with witnesses – then we’ve got something.”

Gaetz contrasted: “That perspective is different from the perspective in establishment Washington. Washington tells us that the jury is the Senate. And that in the trial, in the defense of the president, we have to lean into the emotions of Senators.”

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE