Former GOP senator warns Republicans they must ‘put country over party’ — ‘before it’s too late’

AlterNet logoWhen Arizona Republican Jeff Flake was serving in the U.S. Senate, he could be critical of President Donald Trump at times yet wasn’t a full-fledged Never Trump conservative like Washington Post columnist Max Boot, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough or GOP strategists Rick Wilson and Ana Navarro. And in an op-ed for the Washington Post, he addresses his former colleagues and urges them to “put country over party” when the time comes to serve as jurors in President Donald Trump’s Senate trial.

With Trump having been indicted on two articles of impeachment by the Democratic majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi can send them to the Senate for a trial —although she is holding onto them for now over concerns that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has no intention of honestly evaluating the articles.

Flake tells Republicans he used to serve with in the Senate, “I don’t envy you…. President Trump is on trial. But in a very real sense, so are you. And so is the political party to which we belong.” Continue reading