Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich dismissed a resolution introduced Tuesday by House Democrats to formalize their impeachment inquiry and adopt rules to govern the proceedings, calling it a “joke.”
“I thought it was very appropriate that [House Speaker Nancy Pelosi] was bringing it up on Halloween because I think, frankly, it’s a joke. And I think that Schiff probably ought to come on the floor as a scarecrow,” Gingrich said on “The Story with Martha MacCallum” Tuesday.
“You remember in ‘The Wizard of Oz’, the scarecrow has no brain and it is Halloween,” Gingrich added. “The fact is that they’re not doing anything that’s serious.”
The resolution directs the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs, Financial Services, Judiciary, and Ways and Means Committees to “continue their ongoing investigations as part of the existing House of Representatives inquiry into whether sufficient grounds exist for the House of Representatives to exercise its constitutional power to impeach Donald John Trump.”
READ DEMS’ FULL RESOLUTION FORMALIZING IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY
“You know, the Bill of Rights and the Constitution guarantees us due process,” Gingrich said. “This president has been denied due process,” Gingrich said. “… Neither the Democrats in 1973 nor the Republicans in 1998 did anything as one-sided, as secretive and destructive as what Pelosi and Schiff have done.”
MacCallum asked Gingrich why he believed Pelosi was now supporting a vote formalizing the impeachment inquiry, prompting the former Republican leader to say that Democrats are now “trapped at a dead end.”
“I think that the Lindsey Graham-Mitch McConnell [Senate] resolution served notice that they had to do something or it was literally dead on arrival in the Senate,” Gingrich said. “I think the White House blocking them and refusing to do things until there was a vote moved them. But she has a real problem.”
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Gingrich bluntly predicted that House Democrats would “kill” their majority if the resolution passes.
“Having been speaker of the House, she can probably pass this resolution if she’s suicidal, but she’s going to kill their majority,” Gingrich predicted. “I mean, if you’re Congressman [Collin] Peterson and you’re in northern Minnesota and you’re in a 30-point Trump district, voting yes on Thursday basically is the end of your career. And you go through district after district.”
Fox News’ Gregg Re contributed to this report.
