California congresswoman Zoe Lofgren called out Republican impeachment hypocrisy at a House Judiciary Committee hearing Thursday. If the party that was so eager to impeach Bill Clinton is only concerned with a president lying about sex, then maybe Congress should be hearing from Stormy Daniels, she said.
Lofgren took issue with the idea that “lying about a sexual affair is an abuse of presidential power,” while “the misuse of presidential power to get a benefit somehow doesn’t matter.”
“If it’s lying about sex” that truly matters, she said, “we could put Stormy Daniels’ case ahead of us. We don’t believe that’s a high crime and misdemeanor, and it’s not before us, and it should not be before us because it’s not an abuse of presidential power.”
Trump, of course, has lied about the affair he had with adult entertainer Stormy Daniels, which he attempted to cover up in the closing days of the 2016 presidential election. But as Republican representative Jim Sensenbrenner said after Lofgren made her point, Clinton wasn’t impeached for lying to just anyone. “Bill Clinton lied to a grand jury,” Sensenbrenner said. “That is a crime.” He didn’t mention that Trump (probably) lied to Robert Mueller, which is also a crime.
The two lawmakers are in a good position to know what happened during the Clinton impeachment. They were both in Congress when it happened. And that’s not even Lofgren’s only other impeachment experience. As a young law student in the ’70s, she was a staffer on the House Judiciary Committee during the Nixon impeachment, making her the only member of Congress to participate in three impeachments.
