On this Salcedo Storm Podcast:

Conservative Chairman of the GOP of Texas, Matt Rinaldi, BEFORE the Senate impeachment verdict.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Attorney General Ken passion, acquitted on all impeachment charges. Here’s the thing kids, I’m not going to let this go and I don’t think you should either. The leftists who call themselves Republicans who delivered for Democrats for socialists in the Texas House have to pay a mighty price for doing what they did. What they did is they filed articles of impeachment, with no proof, no evidence of a crime and effort to get rid of a political opponent who was standing up to Democrats getting in their way and for the so called Crime of stopping Marxism. Left wing extremism, anti Americanis. 

Ken Paxton was to be impeached at the hands of the so called Republican Party and the Texas State House Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, who was the epitome of professionalism. So proud of that guy after being silent for months let loose on the degenerates on the anti American anti Texan leftists who call themselves Republicans inside the Texas House. And here’s what the lieutenant governor had to say. 

“I’ve been unusually quiet for the last three months. So the House of Representatives sent the articles of impeachment against Attorney General to us on very short notice, in the final hours of the regular legislative session. The law requires the Senate to receive the articles and have a trial. And once I realized I would be the presiding officer and judge, I thought it was my duty to be quiet on this issue. Otherwise, how could I oversee a fair trial? I’ve done my very best to do so the last three months, and especially the last two weeks. Now the trial is over. I want to take a few minutes before we close to put a few remarks in the court record for future legislators to read in the event of another impeachment one day on both what the House and Senate did. Senators. First I want to once again thank you for doing your work. You all were thorough. You were thoughtful. You were professional. I watched all of you each day. listen intently to every word that was said by every witness. Many of you took notes nonstop. I want to thank the Rules Committee, Senator Birdwell the chair, I want to thank the rules committee for their tireless work. Senator Hoffman, Senator West, Senator Hanna HOSA, Senator Creighton, Senator King, Senator Flores, you worked many hours for the last three months. You wrote 31 rules that were approved by the Senate 25 to three. And those senators when you brought them to them, they made adjustments and suggestions to those rules. As you know, it was a collaborative effort from all members. All of us studied past impeachments from all across the country to learn from the mistakes of past impeachments. So we wouldn’t make the same errors. Now, the 31 rules weren’t perfect. But you can be proud of the rules you passed. They were our guide for these last 90 days or so. And through this process. I want to mention one rule that really stands out to me for future legislators, I believe to follow and that was putting a reasonable time clock on both parties to present their case. Otherwise this trial could have lasted, as some others have for months, or at least four or five weeks. Both sides. were in agreement immediately. On the time clock and how it should be allocated. And I appreciate both parties, for your cooperation, not only on that, and much of that was actually part of your suggestion as well. But on every rule, I said to both parties when we met here a week before the trial to do a walkthrough, that we wanted to have a fair trial and protect the integrity of the body, integrity of this great chamber. And each of you fulfilled that. I was proud of both of you, how you conduct yourselves on the court. I feel it’s important to set the full record straight on this trial. Because I want people in the future to have a full picture of what happened. And how did we get here. I’ve spent most of the last 90 days as many of you have preparing for this trial, I’ve issued over 240 subpoenas. I’ve studied numerous motions, written multiple orders, read hundreds of pages of history, rules, documents, and worked on every detail of this trial with you. And with our incredible secretary of the Senate, the clerk of the court, who turned this chamber into a courtroom, and her great staff. I have had a total view of this process from the very first day, the House sent over the Articles of Impeachment to us in May. With all due respect to the house. We didn’t need to be told in the final arguments how important this vote was. I believe the quote was, this will if you’re like me, be the hardest, the most difficult the heaviest vote that you will ever cast in your time in the legislature. This vote will be the vote you’re remembered for most. Our members already knew that. And I’ve known that for the last three months. If only the House members who voted for impeachment would have followed that instruction in the house. We may not have been here in the House to vote to send the articles of impeachment against the Attorney General to the Senate happened in only a few days, with virtually no time for 150 members to even study the articles. The speaker on his team ran through the first impeachment of the statewide official in Texas over 100 years, while paying no attention to the precedent that the House set and every other impeachment before. In the past. The house had transparent and open investigations for all to see, including other House members. The target of the investigation was notified and invited to attend with counsel and given an opportunity to cross examine witnesses that were placed under oath before testimony was taken. At the conclusion of past house investigations, the evidence was laid out for weeks for House members to evaluate not ours, before they took their vote on articles of impeachment. Representative John smithy, a longtime House member who has argued cases before the Texas Supreme Court spoke on the House floor during impeachment vote in May. He was one of only 23 who voted against impeachment. Referred Representative Smithee said the house could not legitimately impeach general Paxton on the record because there was no record to send to the Senate. He said the house was not following the rule of law. He said the house approach and I quote, Representative Smithy. Hang on now and judge them later confirming this representative Moreau, the chair of the House investigating committee settle on the House floor. The house is not the body that does the fact finding. The fact finding occurs in the Senate and the oath for any witnesses would occur there. Well, that’s just not true. As Representative Smithee said that’s exactly what they did in 1970. He said the last house impeachment of a statewide official in 1917 was governor Ferguson, John Smith. He said he was conducted like a full trial before the house, sent it to the Senate. Witnesses were put under oath and cross examined by the defendant. He said this time no house witness were put under oath and the defendant was denied the right to cross examined Representative Smithee told his fellow members the house process was in defensible. Representative Smith. He said the House did not follow the rules of evidence and their case was based on Triple hearsay, that would never be allowed in court. I think Representative Smith the speech was one of the most honest and courageous speeches I’ve ever heard other in the house. And if you want to watch it online, go to YouTube. Look up John Smithee. That’s smi th e his floor speech on the passionate impeachment. It’s an amazing, courageous speech to give when he knew he was only one of 23 Not voting for impeachment. And the next regular session, we should amend the Constitution on the issue of impeachment as currently written that allowed this flawed process to happen. Any testimony given an A house impeachment investigation must be given under oath and the target of that impeachment must be allowed to present with a lawyer to cross examine the witnesses or Otherwise people can say anything they want without any accountability or need to be truthful because there is no threat of perjury. The house must also give members a minimum of two weeks to review all evidence given under oath before voting on such a serious matter. Had they done those two things. This trial may never have happened. And when the House sends Articles of Impeachment to the Senate, if they do in the future, the official should not be put on unpaid leave through the process. The federal system does not allow that. Why do we allow that in Texas, President Clinton and President Trump did not have to step down from the Oval Office from their duties during their impeachment process. And members, this is not a partisan issue. We owe it to future legislators to make these changes so that no future official impeached by the House whether Republican, Democrat or Independent, is subject to the way this impeachment process occurred in the house this year. millions of taxpayer dollars have been wasted on this impeachment. 31 senators and a large Senate staff that made this trial possible have put their family life, their jobs, their business over hold for the last three months after already being here from January to June. I’m going to call next week for a full audit of all taxpayer money spent by the house from the beginning of their investigation in March to their final bills they get from their lawyers, we will provide our costs as well that were forced on us by the House impeachment. One big difference. We didn’t pay a huge team of outside lawyers and investigators. We did it mostly, with our own staff, working endless hours, with no extra pay. As Representative Smith, he said, This is not the way it has happened in the past on the house. That’s why I believe we’ve only had two prior impeachments. Our founders expected better. It should have never happened this year. And hopefully it doesn’t again, unless we address this in the Constitution. And finally members, may God continue to bless the greatest place God ever created on Earth. The place we call Texas, we are the envy of the world. We are the America that all America used to be. And that’s why people move here from every state of the union by the hundreds of 1000s. Every year. Members, each of you took an oath on the Sam Houston Bible on the first day of this trial. And I know no matter how you voted, you lived up to that oath and how you saw the evidence. I thank you again for the professionalism you demonstrated every day for the last three months. I’m honored and I’m proud to serve with you as lieutenant governor. So the question is now what our conversation with a conservative chairman of the Republican Party of Texas, Matt Rinaldi up next on the Salcedo storm podcast. And now a word from our sponsor. 

Today, let’s get to our guest the conservative chairman of the Republican Party of Texas Matt Rinaldi Mr. Chairman, welcome back. 

Hey, how you doing Chris? 

Doing great, sir. I want to play a soundbite for you which I think is emblematic. it typifies this entire impeachment process of the Attorney General of the great state of Texas, Ken Paxton. This is the moment when the House managers legal team mistakenly rest their case they did so by mistake and and open up a basically a window into level of competency of the Republicans who launched this impeachment. Listen:

“Your Honor, at this time the house and managers rest. Just he just rested without a cross exam. I can recall the witness though I’m fine with that will recall this man, we will accept the rest. And that’s how it works. Certainly. Right. I mean, I want to concede he’s absolutely right. That apologize. I think he is entitled to his day in court. But.” 

Yeah. Doesn’t that put an exclamation point on an absolutely crooked Dade feeling? establishment Republican effort? 

Yeah. I mean, it, it was emblematic of everything else that happened in this trial, which is complete malpractice by the house. I mean, this has been an utter embarrassment for them. They came in saying you will be shocked by the evidence. And not only did they overly sell it, there was there wasn’t there wasn’t any evidence of the cry. Three, at least three of their witnesses admitted that. And they’ve shown zero evidence that not only would justify impeachment, but zero evidence of a crime being committed at all, in an absolute disaster for the house. And I expect unless political considerations come into play, which you never know. I expect the Senate to acquit. But Attorney General. 

I expect to and you would have to be that we expect all the Democrats to agree that they were going to vote to impeach no matter what. I think we can see that because this is a this is not a legal proceeding. This is a political proceeding. So I I came up with something and I actually reached out to you on on x and to Jonathan Stickland on x and put out a theory that I developed yesterday. Because as you probably are aware because you’ve you’ve worked in the house, the individual 60 Republicans that joined 61. Socialists, and in voting for this impeachment based on no evidence, you know that the majority of those air quotes Republicans don’t know their rear ends from a hole in the ground and voted trusting Dade Phelan, trusting Dustin burrows trusting that, that there was some there there this this GOP leader, so called GOP leadership in the Texas House, now that they’ve gone through this process and realize their vote was not only wasted, but was based on a lie put out there by date feeling and his little Cabal. And now those Republicans are facing possible removal from their office from angry voters. Do you think this might have been Dade Phelan objective all along was to flip the house to Democrat control? 

No, I think that’s probably a step too far for me. But you bring up the overarching point, right? And it’s that David feeling has cut up his members and his supporters more than any speaker in my memory. Like, for example, Joe Straus, for all of his fault, never, ever would have subjected his members to this sort of embarrassment. And they need to be thinking right now. What would we be better served by, you know, apologizing, saying, We were misled by the speaker and picking a new person to leave Republicans in the House. I would hope that if anybody has a shred of integrity, and maybe this is a CYA, but let’s let’s let’s talk about those types of lawmakers who would cast a vote, knowing knowing that none of these individuals were put under oath and developing this impeachment case, knowing that they had zero facts and would say, Well, I’m gonna vote for impeachment, anyway. Doesn’t that doesn’t that reflect and gross irresponsibility and prove positive to voters, that these people are not worth being in positions of power and authority to begin with? 

Yeah, I mean, it was and you had every well respected lawyer in the house, on the other side of the impeachment telling you that this is irresponsible, that this is terrible precedent. There are people on the other side who are well respected lawyers in the House who didn’t vote for Ken Paxton who voted for George P. Bush, who was who are telling the house this is a very bad idea. This is dumb. We should not do this. Okay, well, they didn’t listen to and then. 

You brought up George P. Bush, and the influence of the bushes the influence of Obama. The influence of the Biden regime in this effort to remove arguably one of the most effective attorney generals, attorneys general in the United States at pushing back and protecting the people of Texas, from out of control left wing policies that harm the people of Texas. What do you make of this unholy alliance between Obama the bushes and and Dade Phelan and the left wing Republican leadership in the House? 

I mean, I think it’s been, it’s what flows naturally from the decision to share leadership with the Democratic Party in the House by giving them powerful committee chairmanships. And being the only state legislature in the whole country that does so since the Senate, you know, ended that practice, the house is the only only legislative body, it you cannot make a deal with a political party that’s trying to jail, their political opponent. Democrats are trying to put Republicans in jail, and we’re appointing them to leadership positions. What do you think’s gonna happen? 

True enough. Matt Rinaldi our guest right now, folks, he’s the conservative chairman of the Republican Party of Texas. So 30,000 feet up, where do we go from here? Where does the Republican Party of Texas go? When when folks are acting in the name of the Republican Party and undertaking, frankly, baseless political maneuvers, designed to get rid of those who are not on board with the Democrat Republican Cabal? That has been pushed by Dade Phelan and his Democrat allies?
Yeah, I mean, and the Republican Party of Texas is going to unite all of the Republican office holders, of course, you stand with parties, the vast majority of them, you know, even House House members, like Brian Harrison, like Tony Pender halls, pretty much all of the Senate or congressional delegation, statewide office holders, we’re all united towards taking the state in the country in 2024. We just need to bring this group of people in the house over who has decided to share leadership with Democrats. And it has resulted in a coup against the statewide Republican office. And we need to make sure that never happens. 

True. And he took me right where I wanted to go because I’m not comfortable with at the end of all of this saying, Oh, it was it was all a lie. It was all baseless. It was a waste of taxpayers money, in pursuit for a power grab to put to keep the bush dynasty alive and to to put in Republicans in control. And like Charlie Guerin, or like Dustin burrows, or like Todd Hunter, they want to find the nearest Buttcheeck of a Democrat to firmly plant their lips on. I am not in the mood at the end of this to say, Oh, well, we escaped this one. Let’s move on. I think there ought to be some accountability for this absolute abuse of power and authority undertaken by the so called leadership of the Republican Party in Texas in the Texas House. Don’t you think there should be accountability? 

Yeah, I do. I mean, I think there should be accountability. It’s unclear where that’s going to come from I’d like to know the motivations behind this. I’d love someone to investigate the motivations behind this little coup attempt now that we’ve seen that there’s nothing there. And you know, even if there is no accountability from an official investigation, the voters, of course, are the ultimate accountability. And they’re going to have a primary and the number one issue in their primaries are going to be how did your rep vote in this impeachment hearing when they had a choice to stand with Republicans or stand with Democrats? Who did they stand with? And I think that’s gonna be very important. 

Now, you have a lot of experience inside of Texas government. Is there a remedy for a one of the big three that the Speaker of the Texas House and a cabal of so called Republicans? Is there a remedy for for maybe the Senate, or for put somebody in a position of power and authority in the state of Texas to say, Oh, you just took us for a ride. You misrepresented. You lied, you obviously skated and now we’re learning why they never put any of their to build their case. They didn’t put any of these people under oath, because they would have perjured themselves in the effort to impeach Ken Paxton. Is there is there a remedy that can be launched? They would say, Now, you folks who have taken us on this ride are now criminally liable for what you’ve done? Is there a remedy? 

The answer is outside of the voters? I don’t know. Presumably, if there was any fraud or anything perjury, such would be prosecuted by a district attorney. In a criminal matter, but now the Senate can start an impeachment hearing for a house speaker for example, however, the house can remove the speaker and replace him with a motion to vacate. In the special session. Oh, and that certainly is a remedy. If someone chooses to bring in I think they need 76 signatures so much start the signatures. See to me immediately, we might not get the most conservative member in the house as the next speaker, but hopefully we can get somebody who treats his members a little better. 

Now, but Matt Rinaldi is our guest, folks, conservative, chairman of the Republican Party of Texas, there was a gag order in place that was issued by the presiding judge over this the Lieutenant Governor of the state of Texas, Dan Patrick, that was violated on several occasions by Texas House members trying to keep up this fiction that this was at all legitimate. They broke that gag order that now I’m not a lawyer, but I know that’s illegal. should there not be an effort to prosecute those members of the Texas House? Who are part of this cabal who violated the gag order to to put their spin out there in the left wing press? 

Yeah, absolutely. And you know what I mean, we’re talking about Jared Paterson, Cody Harris, specifically. And you can see when you look at like they do it on Twitter, and of course, you look at the retweets, and it’s all of the people in House leadership, retweeting it, because that technically isn’t a violation of the gag order. So you know, what they do they get the Stooges to go violate the gag order, and then they they retweet it, which isn’t a violation in order to get the news out. But yes, it should be prosecuted. It’s actually punishable by a $500. Fine, or up to six months in county jail. Presumably that would be Dan Patrick, in the Senate courts, you know, authority to prosecute. I don’t think he’ll do that, given political considerations, but, but he should do something. What No, I’m right there with you. Because, look, and by the way, by your count how many of these air quotes Republicans actually did violate that gag order? The gag order, rather, gang order, but that’s a Freudian slip, a gag order? How many of them have this cabal did that by your account? 

I only saw 2, personally, but I’m sure there were more. I’m hearing. I’m hearing 12. I’m hearing they’re all 12 of them violated again. And I hear that somebody’s keeping a running list. And let me let me just ask you if actions aren’t taken against these Republicans who violated a lawful gag order, doesn’t that further undermine the credibility of the government of the state of Texas? 

I mean, I think it does. And I think if I’m in the Senate right now, I’m pretty upset at what they’re trying to do. They’re not only making a mockery of the court of impeachment by, you know, not having a case and not not presenting evidence. They’re also making a mockery of the court by completely flouting the the Lieutenant Governor’s orders and thumbing their nose at the Senate think it’s disgraceful, and the Senate’s conducted itself, wonderfully during this whole process, and Patrick has been very admirable and being the judge of this case, not even being a lawyer is excellent. And very impartial. I thought getting advice from Judge Elana Meyers, great ideas. She’s an exceptional jurist, in Texas and, you know, just high praise for the Senate. 

No, I gotta tell you, I was angry when Gov Ed looked at a lawful order from Governor Abbott and they ignored it. I was I was livid at that, that they could do that without any penalty. And I’m equally livid that the Lieutenant Governor puts a gag order in place that was respected by Ken Paxton, it was respected by everybody else on the other side, but those with an agenda in the Texas House just simply ignored it thinking that they were above the law. And I think it sends a wrong message to allow those people who think they are above the law to get away with it. Matt Rinaldi everybody the he is the conservative chairman of the Republican Party of Texas always appreciate the time the visit and the job you do sir keep in touch. 

Thank you take care. 

That’s gonna do it for the Saucedo storm podcast, visit Texas scorecard.com and Chris salcedo.com. Those two websites will keep you up to date on what’s happening around the country and here in the great state of Texas and you can also find me at Chris Salcedo shows on AM 700k SCV the voice of Texas and on Newsmax TV, Joey visit again, my friends remember this, a society’s worth isn’t measured by how much power is stolen by government, rather by how much power is reserved for you and me. We the People, stay safe out there my friends. 

Transcribed by https://otter.ai