Ric Grenell to Newsmax TV: Impeachment Trial Is a 'Joke'

Former Acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell lamented the impeachment of former President Donald Trump on Friday, accusing Democrats on Newsmax TV of severely politicizing the process and governing as a whole, calling it ''a joke.''

''What the Democrats have successfully done now, is politicized impeachment,'' Grenell said on ''The Chris Salcedo Show.'' ''So, going forward now, when Republicans get control of the House and Senate, and they will, may take a couple of years, but they will, they will then have to decide: 'Do we go back and impeach Jimmy Carter for the Panama Canal? Or do we take the high road and try to get impeachment back to what it was designed to be?’

''The Democrats have ruined impeachment. They’ve put it into the political toolshed.''

Grenell, who also served as the U.S. ambassador to Germany under Trump, compared the current impeachment trial of Trump in the Senate to the Internal Revenue Service scandal under former President Barack Obama, which was accused of using the tax authority to stymie Tea Party political groups.

He also referenced Operation Fast and Furious, an Obama-era program that allowed firearms to be purchased illegally in an attempt to track them to Mexican drug cartels, but ended up with fewer than half the weapons recovered and one was found to have used to kill a U.S. border patrol agent.

''It’s weaponizing government once again,'' Grenell said about the impeachment trial. ''They’ve done it with the IRS. They’ve done it with Fast 'n Furious, a whole bunch of agencies.''

Grenell said the trial is getting very little attention outside of Washington, D.C., including himself, a self-described ''political animal.''

''Everybody outside of Washington knows this is a joke,'' Grenell said. ''This is why the impeachment is going nowhere, and most people are not paying attention.''

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