House Democrats leading the impeachment charge have set a new standard by using circumstantial evidence and failing to draw bipartisan support, former Assistant U.S. Attorney Andy McCarthy said Wednesday.
Appearing on "America's Newsroom" with host Bill Hemmer, McCarthy said Democrats have presented a "circumstantial case about nothing."
"In the end here, nothing happened," he said, noting that President Trump's phone call with the president of Ukraine did not represent "perfect" conduct.
"We don't approach anything like the egregious misconduct that should be necessary before a president is removed from office. ... If there's no reasonable possibility that the Senate would convict and remove the president, the Congress, the House, should not be impeaching the president in the first place," he said.
On Wednesday, the historic vote on two articles of impeachment -- charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress -- is slated for 6 p.m. ET. There will be six hours of debate time allotted equally divided among the two sides.
A recent Fox News poll showed that while most Democrats favor impeaching and removing the president from office, most Republicans are opposed. A new high of 45 percent of independents favor impeachment, up from 38 in late October.
McCarthy hearkened back to "Special Report" host Bret Baier's point previously on the show that "after this day America will never talk about the 45th president of the United States the same way again" and that the president will "always now be" one of the three impeached presidents in history.
But he said the history books will also view this impeachment case much differently than previous ones.
"I think history also has to be looked at in terms of, what does this mean for the history of the United States?"
"I don't think the president, for long, is going to be one of the handful of presidents who is impeached," he concluded. "Because, if this is the new standard, every president from here on out is impeachable."
