Former Clinton campaign strategist and life-long Democrat Mark Penn said that Democrats are hurting the country by pushing for investigations on President Donald Trump.
Speaking with Mark Levin on Fox News Sunday, Penn drew on his experience dealing with impeachment in the Clinton administration.
“I spent a lot of time with President Clinton, and I spent an entire year, 1998, on an impeachment that didn't happen that tore the country apart. And I thought at that time, ‘Never again.’ And then I see all of those things developing again. In fairness, even worse.” (Fox News)
Penn said Democrats must understand no collusion was found and move on to issues Americans “care about.”
“I think the duty would have been to look at the Mueller report, understand that Russia collusion was not found. That finding obstruction of something that wasn't obstructed is ludicrous. And to move on, to get onto infrastructure, to get on healthcare. Get on the issues they care about...These investigations are really -- were started on the basis of no real evidence and look how they were allowed to tear our country apart."
Penn continued by saying Democrats have successfully “whipped everyone up” with the "biggest lie perpetuated on the American public."
"They created a base built on a fundamental mistruth here that started with Christopher Steele and the GPS Fusion dossier that created a huge echo chamber. They went everywhere.
They went to Democrats, they went to Reed, they went to the CIA, they went to the FBI, and they went to foreign intelligence operations. They went to the State Department. It all came in as though it was real.
And then that created a frenzy within our FBI and our own -- and then that created a frenzy within the public. It's the biggest lie that I've ever seen perpetrated on the American public, and it's whipped everyone up.
I would have liked to have seen our politicians at the end of the day after the Mueller report came out, get together and say, 'We thought maybe there was something there. But there wasn't.' And they didn't."
Penn highlighted how the public overwhelmingly prefers compromise to investigations.
"America wants somebody to bring it together. And the politicians, I think, have the wrong attitude that they've got to keep America partisan and apart.
And I think that if they just got together, as we did in 1996, and all the way up until what I thought was a wrong impeachment, come together around a balanced budget, around welfare reform, around immigration reform, around one thing after another. The public wants that again.
Every time I and my polls run a question, do you want investigations or infrastructure? Eighty percent, 'I want infrastructure.' Do you want that people should stick to their principles, no matter what, or compromise to the other side? Sixty, seventy percent say compromise. Get things done. Right?
The legislature is supposed to get things done. Our Congress has a 23 percent approval rating because the American public wants them to solve infrastructure, immigration, healthcare, all these issues that are sitting on the table."
Penn concluded by saying that investigations overwhelmingly hurt the president.
"No one can be an effective President, or as effective as they could be, if they are under constant threats and investigations," he said.
Penn's comments come after House Democrats threatened to hold Attorney General William Bar in contempt of Congress if he did not obey a subpoena to release evidence gathered by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. After striking a deal with the DOJ to release some materials, the House Judiciary Committee began a series of hearings looking into 10 possible incidents that could translate to obstruction of justice identified by Mr. Mueller.
Life-long Democrat and former Clinton strategist Mark Penn on collusion:
— Elizabeth Harrington (@LizRNC) June 10, 2019
"It's the biggest lie that I have ever seen perpetrated on the American public" pic.twitter.com/gaWV79Qqvb