As Democrats prepared to approve the procedures Trump toadies have demanded for the impeachment inquiry, Top Toady Rep. Nevin Nunes resorted to some creative name calling to distract from Dear Leader's obvious wrongdoings.

Predictably, Fox News host Laura Ingraham didn't mention how many of the Republican demands were about to be met by the Democratic rules for impeachment when she hosted her all-Republican panel the night before they were voted in.

But Ingraham seemed nervous about what the evidence shows about her favorite p***y grabber because this was the opening exchange:

Then, perhaps realizing Ingraham might have a point, Nunes deflected. He made a blanket statement, “I think we're going to be OK, because the facts just aren't there,” but he didn't cite a single fact missing or otherwise.

Nunes did have lots of mud to sling, though:

The other Trumper guests, Reps. Lee Zeldin and Bradley Byrne were a Greek chorus of sycophancy. Zeldin predicted “a total Schiff show,” which earned a cackle of approval from Ingraham. Then he started whining that the House resolution doesn't “guarantee” the minority party can call witnesses or that the transcripts will be released or that there will be an “equal allocation of staff” and that Trump's team can't present evidence or cross-examine witnesses.

Ingraham ignored the fact that Fox's own legal expert has twice told Fox viewers that lead impeachment investigator Rep. Adam Schiff is following the rules.

Zeldin continued, “So, listen, they're losing the process argument. You want to have a substance argument, bring it on Adam Schiff, because we know that Ukraine didn't even ask about a hold on aid until after August 29th, and it was released shortly thereafter." He forgot to mention the aid was probably released because Trump was under great pressure to do so. Nobody reminded the viewers.

“And you know what the United States of America had to get from Ukraine in order to release to hold on aid? Nothing!” Zeldin said. That may be even more disgusting and anti-American than Nunes' smear. The aid was not a gift. It was appropriated by Congress to impede Russian aggression, i.e. it was thought to benefit our national security.

But national security interests often take a long back seat to Trump interests on Fox News these days. Ingraham suggested that the only national security interest is what Dear Leader says it is: “The Deep State at the State Department wants to run the show. They're the elected people. Trump's just along for the ride, and that's how this goes,” she sneered.

Then Nunes launched what I predict will be a significant right-wing/Republican talking point as we go forward: that Trump was right to screw Ukraine:

Ingraham just happened to have at the ready, a January 11, 2017 article from Politico with the unfortunately salacious title, “Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire.” It's very long and very weedy but it states clearly that Ukraine's complicated behavior was nothing like Russia's Putin-directed meddling in our 2016 election

There’s little evidence of such a top-down effort by Ukraine. Longtime observers suggest that the rampant corruption, factionalism and economic struggles plaguing the country — not to mention its ongoing strife with Russia — would render it unable to pull off an ambitious covert interference campaign in another country’s election. And President Petro Poroshenko’s administration, along with the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, insists that Ukraine stayed neutral in the race.

Furthermore, the "Ukraine did it too" meme has been debunked, including by one of the article's authors.

But I guarantee you that that will not stop the Trump toadies and their Fox News accomplices from likening Ukraine to Russia (and vice versa) in an effort to defend Trump's traitorous behavior.

Published with permission of Newshounds.us