House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s vote for impeachment on Halloween was a massive strategic defeat, Newt Gingrich told Fox News.
And Pelosi herself admitted it months ago.
Earlier this year, Pelosi warned that a partisan impeachment vote in the House of Representatives would be a disaster for Democrats.
On Thursday, Democrats forced a rules package for their impeachment probe of President Donald Trump through a divided House — the exact thing Pelosi had warned against earlier this year.
The partisan breach on the issue has only deepened — and Gingrich predicted it would backfire on Democrats.
“I’m not for impeachment,” Pelosi said in a May interview. “This is news. I haven’t said this to any press person before.”
“But since you asked, and I’ve been thinking about this, impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path because it divides the country,” she said. “And he’s just not worth it.”
By Pelosi’s own words, the Halloween vote was a disaster, Gingrich said.
“Measured by that standard, the Thursday vote was a terrible failure. The House voted in an entirely partisan manner except for two Democrats who split to vote no with the Republicans,” Gingrich said.
“Months of leaks, secret investigations, news media hysteria, and a parade of witnesses failed to move a single Republican to vote yes,” he told Fox News.
Gingrich said the difference between this impeachment hearing, and the unsuccessful impeachment of former President Bill Clinton is huge.
“The contrast with the last impeachment vote is striking. In 1998, 31 Democrats voted with the Republicans to create a bipartisan 257-176 majority for moving forward with impeachment,” Gingrich said.
“By contrast not only did no Republicans vote for the Pelosi impeachment, but she also lost two Democrats despite enormous pressure within the caucus,” he said.
Gingrich said the American people distrusted the motivation of Democrats.
“The vote on Halloween was a terrible defeat which is likely to haunt the House Democrats through the 2020 election,” Gingrich said.
“That vote will cost a lot of Democrats their seats next year. When combined with the radicalism of the national Democratic candidates for president, and the continued economic growth under President Trump’s policies, it is likely that Thursday’s vote guaranteed this would be a one-term Democratic majority, and we will be hearing from Speaker Kevin McCarthy in 2021,” Gingrich concluded.
Polling has shown that GOP voters stand unflinchingly behind Trump.
“The impeachment-obsessed Democrats just flushed their majority down the toilet,” said Michael McAdams, a spokesman for House Republicans’ campaign arm.