With an opinion that contradicts everything the Founding Fathers stood for, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi boasted on Wednesday that Congress is the “superior branch” of government. While doing an interview on “Washington Post Live,” reporter Robert Costa asked Pelosi for her opinion on whether or not Congress is acting as a coequal branch of government.
Pelosi responded by saying: “I think we’re a superior branch, quite frankly. We have the power to make the law and the president enforces the law. So we have a big role. We’re closest to the people and we have a big role to play.”
But as Fox News pointed out, Pelosi seemed to completely ignore the first three articles of the United States Constitution that dictates the three branches of government: executive, legislative, and judicial. The separation of powers is set up this way in order to make sure that all branches are coequal. It also ensures that the system of checks and balances demands that none of the branches are “superior” over the other.
Pelosi’s statement comes at a time when the White House and Congress are going toe-to-toe over highly sensitive materials. During another part of the interview, Pelosi spoke about the possibility of the House finding Attorney General Barr in contempt of Congress because of his refusal to release the full, unredacted version of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report. She also explained that Trump’s impeachment is not “off the table.” Obviously, conservative commentators weren’t happy with Pelosi’s comments.
There were other Democrats, like former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, who suggested that Barr should be arrested until he agrees to testify. Because of that Costa asked Pelosi if she believes that the Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin should be arrested, too. At the current time, Mnuchin is battling the House Ways and Means Committee over the committee’s demands for President Trump’s personal tax returns.
On Tuesday evening, the conflict escalated when the New York Times published an article based on IRS tax transcripts from 1985 to 1994. The article claimed that Trump reported more than $1 billion in his real estate businesses during that span of ten years. Trump called the report a “Fake News hit job!” in response to the article.
“We do have a jail in the basement of the Capitol, but if we were arresting all of the people in the administration, we would have an overcrowded jail situation. And I’m not for that,” Pelosi joked in response to the question.
On Wednesday, Pelosi stated that Trump is “goading” the Democrats and becoming “self-impeachable” by obstructing aides from testifying on the Mueller report and blocking the subpoenas from the House Judiciary Committee.
White House Counsel Don McGahn is the latest official to be subpoenaed. According to Fox News, the White House blocked McGahn’s testimony and the requested documents, saying that “committee should direct future requests for those documents to the White House.”
According to Fox News, Pelosi said: “The point is, that every single day, whether it’s obstruction, obstruction, obstruction of having people come to the table with facts, ignoring subpoenas every single day, the president is making a case.”
