Category: US Senate

Trump and Kevin McCarthy battled during expletive-filled phone call while the Capitol was under siege: report

After the completion of the fourth day of Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial, CNN published a bombshell new report on phone call the then-president had during the January 6th insurrection.

“In an expletive-laced phone call with House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy while the Capitol was under attack, then-President Donald Trump said the rioters cared more about the election results than McCarthy did. ‘Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,’ Trump said, according to lawmakers who were briefed on the call afterward by McCarthy,” CNN reported Friday.

“Trump’s comment set off what Republican lawmakers familiar with the call described as a shouting match between the two men. A furious McCarthy told the President the rioters were breaking into his office through the windows, and asked Trump, ‘Who the f*ck do you think you are talking to?’ according to a Republican lawmaker familiar with the call,” CNN reported. “The Republican members of Congress said the exchange showed Trump had no intention of calling off the rioters even as lawmakers were pleading with him to intervene. Several said it amounted to a dereliction of his presidential duty.” Continue reading.

For the Defense: Twisted Facts and Other Staples of the Trump Playbook

New York Times logo

The lawyers representing the former president in his impeachment trial are the latest in a rotating cast that has always had trouble satisfying a mercurial and headstrong client.

Ever since Donald J. Trump began his run for president, he has been surrounded by an ever-shifting cast of lawyers with varying abilities to control, channel and satisfy their mercurial and headstrong client.

During the final weeks of the 2016 campaign, Michael D. Cohen arranged for hush money payments to be made to a former pornographic film actress. In the second year of Mr. Trump’s presidency, John M. Dowd, the head of the team defending the president in the Russia investigation, quit after he concluded that Mr. Trump was refusing to listen to his counsel.

By Mr. Trump’s third year in office, he had found a new lawyer to do his bidding as Rudolph W. Giuliani first undertook a campaign to undermine Joseph R. Biden Jr. and then helped lead the fruitless effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election, with stops in Ukraine and at Four Seasons Total Landscaping along the way. Continue reading.

Graham’s post-election call with Raffensperger will be scrutinized in Georgia probe, person familiar with inquiry says

Washington Post logo

An Atlanta-area prosecutor plans to scrutinize a post-Election Day phone call between Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger as part of a criminal investigation into whether former president Donald Trump or his allies broke Georgia laws while trying to reverse his defeat in the state, according to a person familiar with the probe.

The individual, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing probe, said the inquiry by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis will include an examination of the call Graham, a staunch Trump ally, made to Raffensperger 10 days after the Nov. 3 election.

During their conversation, Graham asked the Georgia secretary of state whether he had the power to toss out all mail ballots in certain counties, Raffensperger told The Washington Post in an interview days later. He said Graham appeared to be asking him to improperly find a way to set aside legally cast ballots. Continue reading.

Why it matters that some GOP senators huddled with Trump’s lawyers

Graham, Lee, and Cruz aren’t just ignoring their impeachment oath, they’re flaunting their indifference to their responsibilities.

Donald Trump’s Senate impeachment proceedings is only a “trial” in a colloquial sense. Many Americans have some sense of how a case is tried in court, and this isn’t it.

Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.), for example, is overseeing the proceedings, while also serving as a “juror.” He’s also, incidentally, a witness to the crime. In fact, in this case, each of the jurors are witnesses, which in a normal trial would never be permissible.

And because the usual rules and procedures of an American trial do not apply to the Senate’s impeachment proceedings, it stands to reason that there will be dramatic differences in how senators approach their responsibilities. But by any sensible measure, it’s tough to defend tactics like these. Continue reading.

Chuck Todd accuses Trump’s defense team of ignoring ‘the real elephants in the room’ in the trial

AlterNet logo

During Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial, his defense team has insisted that the former president never called for violence during his speech at the “Save America Rally” in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6 — that he never encouraged anything other than peaceful protest. But when NBC News’ Chuck Todd discussed the trial with his colleague, Lester Holt, on Friday, he stressed that such claims ignore the totality of what Trump said the day a mob violently attacked the U.S. Capitol Building.

Todd told Holt, “They are trying to isolate the Jan. 6 speech. They are trying to ignore everything else about it. They’re trying to ignore all the tweets around it.”

Another talking point from Trump’s defenders has been that Democrats have also used heated rhetoric at times. And Todd dismissed that argument as disingenuous “whataboutism.” Continue reading.

Trump attorneys ridiculed for mind-numbing supercut video of Democrats saying ‘fight’

Former president Donald Trump’s attorney David Schoen showed a brain-pummeling supercut video of various Democrats saying the word “fight,” and viewers begged for mercy.

The nearly 10-minute video strung together brief snippets of President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and other Democrats using the word “fight” as a defense of Trump urging his Republican lawmakers and his supporters to challenge his election loss ahead of the deadly insurrection.

Viewers struggled to see the point — or to make it through the entire video without screaming. Continue reading.

Fox News analyst lays into Trump for how badly he betrayed the Constitution

AlterNet logo

Fox News contributor Andrew McCarthy did not mince words when he lambasted former President Donald Trump’s “indelibly stained” presidency due to the poor behavior he exhibited during the final days of his time in office. 

When McCarthy appeared for a podcast interview with Mediaite’s Aidan McLaughlin, he discussed a number of Trump’s controversies including his election fraud claims and the Capitol insurrection that opened the door for his second impeachment trial. McCarty, also a columnist at the National Review, admitted that he could not of any American president that behaved as poorly as Trump has.

“I can’t think of any other president, if you (don’t) just take January 6 by itself, but this whole continuum from November 3rd up until he left office, that’s as bad as anything I’m aware of in American history from an American president,” said McCarthy. Continue reading.

Even with acquittal, GOP sees trial ending Trump’s shot at future office

The Hill logo

Senate Republicans, including those who do not plan to vote to convict former President Trump, say this week’s impeachment trial has effectively ended any chance of him becoming the GOP presidential nominee in 2024.

From the viewpoint of some Republican senators, the compelling case presented by House prosecutors carries a silver lining: It means they likely won’t have to worry about Trump running for president again in three years, while at the same time eroding his influence in party politics more generally.

Several Republican senators became irate watching videos of the violence and chaos inside the Capitol on Jan. 6, including footage of police officers being called “pigs” and “traitors” and one officer screaming as he was crushed by rioters battering a police line. Continue reading.

‘Your Republican Party everybody’: GOP senators slammed after violating oaths by meeting with Trump lawyers

Provoking criticism that ranged from “jury tampering” and “another violation of their oath” to “such bullsh*t,” multiple Republican senators met with Donald Trump’s attorneys late Thursday—the third day of the former president impeachment trial over his incitement of the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

“We were discussing their legal strategy and sharing our thoughts,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), according to CNN correspondent Manu Raju, who reported that Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) also participated in the meeting. 

When asked by Raju whether it was appropriate to meet with the senators, who are jurors, Trump lawyer David Schoen said: “I think that’s the practice of impeachment. There’s nothing about this thing that has any semblance of due process whatsoever.” Continue reading.

If Convicting Trump Is Out of Reach, Managers Seek a Verdict From the Public and History

New York Times logo

The House Democrats prosecuting former President Donald J. Trump may not win the Senate trial, but they are using it to make the searing images of havoc the inexpungible legacy of his presidency.

As a day of violence and mayhem at the Capitol slid into evening last month, with blood shed, glass shattered and democracy besieged, President Donald J. Trump posted a message on Twitter that seemed to celebrate the moment. “Remember this day forever!” he urged.

The House Democrats prosecuting him at his Senate impeachment trial barely a month later hope to make sure everyone does.

With conviction in a polarized Senate seemingly out of reach, the House managers, as the prosecutors are known, are aiming their arguments at two other audiences beyond the chamber: the American people whose decision to deny Mr. Trump a second term was put at risk and the historians who will one day render their own judgments about the former president and his time in power. Continue reading.