It’s the season for year-end lists and rankings, so here’s one.

2019’s biggest lie: Democrats saying “we had no choice”, “the President’s actions left us no choice” and so forth, in erstwhile defense of impeachment.

The only thing Donald Trump ever did to the Democrats was upset their shoo-in candidate in 2016.

Leading up to the 2016 election, although they gave him zero chance of winning, they repeatedly called on him to promise to “accept” the election results (as opposed to what? Block his ears? Raise an army?).

Once it became clear he had won the election, they chose not to accept them.

They chose to cry, scream, crash their diets, seek counseling. Threatened Canada and Australia with unwelcome immigration. Beseeched federal electors to fold.

And, significantly, they began using the “I” word, although without a single presidential act yet to his name. All choices.

After a half-dozen shaky premises for impeachment, they hung it on an obscure phone call.

It’s interesting to actually read the Horowitz IG report, not just emote about it. While headline writers will tell you that he found sufficient grounds to probe Trump-Russia, the report also makes clear that the FBI behaved in a way that should chill the blood of every American old enough to remember Hoover. Further, the report makes it clear that the “probe” went off track, ran into dead ends, didn’t justify the special counsel investigation, and was in the unworthy hands of politically-motivated hacks.

So, when Democrats say “we had no choice”, what they should be saying is that they made a choice.

Congressional oversight alone would’ve sufficed to ask and debate the following questions the Democrats claim to care about:

  • Was the Trump Administration’s interest in Ukrainian corruption appropriate and consistent, or merely Biden-oriented?
  • Was the delay in releasing aid good or bad policy?
  • What is, or should be, the primary goal of U.S. relations with Ukraine?
  • Was the dismissal of Ambassador Yovanovitch sound, or does she have a grievance?

The biggest lie of 2019 is “we had no choice” but to perpetuate a witch hunt and create a constitutional crisis.

The truth is that the they chose to start the fire.

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