Tag: GOP senate

McConnell Vows To Kill 395 Bills Passed By House

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell confirmed on Thursday that he is blocking about 400 pieces of legislation that have passed the House of Representatives, and made it clear that he intends to kill every one of them.

Speaking to Fox News, McConnell (R-KY), the self-proclaimed “Grim Reaper,” confirmed that he was holding up 395 pieces of legislation, which does not take into account the growing pile of bills that have made it to his desk since the start of the new year.

“It is true. They’ve been on full left-wing parade over there, trotting out all of their left-wing solutions that are going to be issues in the fall campaign,” McConnell replied. “We’re not gonna pass those.” Continue reading.

Republicans ready to look past Trump’s brash intervention in Roger Stone case

Washington Post logoCongressional Republicans showed little sign Wednesday that they would move to check President Trump’s brash public intervention in the federal prosecution of a former campaign confidant, leaving Democrats largely alone to fume about the evaporation of another norm of American governance.

Trump this week publicly decried a Justice Department sentencing recommendation for political operative Roger Stone, then congratulated Attorney General William P. Barr in an early-morning tweet Wednesday for “taking charge” and overruling it — creating at least the appearance that the long-standing taboo against overt political influence on prosecutorial matters had been obliterated.

But what ensued on Capitol Hill on Wednesday appeared to be less of a break-the-glass moment of crisis and more of a recurring episode in a three-year-old soap opera: While Democrats were aghast, members of the president’s party either expressed mild dismay or excused Trump’s tampering entirely. Continue reading.

Graham Promises Senate Probe Of Bidens

From the February 2 edition of Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo:

MARIA BARTIROMO (ANCHOR): Schumer this morning signaling that the Democrats will not accept an acquittal as legitimate. Nancy Pelosi hinting that she is going to call Bolton in the House. John Bolton. What’s the dems next move? And how are you going to get anything done, Senator, if you actually got the other side constantly pushing to find out dirt on Donald Trump?

LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): Well, the president has been successful in spite of all of this. I hope we can turn the page as a nation and focus on issues important. But as Nancy Pelosi calls Bolton, here is what I would say. They’re impeaching the president for suspension of aid that was eventually received, trying to leverage an investigation that never happened. This is ridiculous. Mueller broke their heart. They won’t let it go. They hate this man. Pelosi is no longer Speaker of the House. Just in name only. I don’t know if they will ever let it go. Here is what I’m going to do. If they talk to Bolton, I will bring in State Department officials, and ask them why didn’t you do something about the obvious conflict of interest Joe Biden had? Joe Biden’s effort to combat corruption in the Ukraine became a joke, when Joe Biden got before the Ukrainian parliament talking about sweetheart deals, and reforming the energy sector, I can only imagine how they were laughing under their breath. What about your son, Vice President Biden, sitting on the most corrupt board in Ukraine, Burisma, receiving $3 million dollars. I can only imagine if a Republican done what Biden had done. But we’re going to get to the bottom of this. And I can prove beyond any doubt that Joe Biden’s effort in the Ukraine to root out corruption was undercut because he let his son sit on the board of the most corrupt company in the Ukraine and we’ll not give him a pass on that. Continue reading.

The impeachment evidence will catch up to Republicans and Trump — whether they ignore it or not

Washington Post logoDONALD TRUMP’S presidency has been, among other things, a war against truth. So it’s fitting that in making the case for his removal from office this week, House impeachment managers showered the Senate with facts. Over and over again, Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) and his co-managers laid out the hard evidence that Mr. Trump used presidential powers to pressure Ukraine into announcing investigations that would aid his reelection campaign, and that he engaged in unprecedented obstruction of Congress’s subsequent investigation.

Videos of testimony and damning statements by Mr. Trump, as well as images of revealing text messages among administration officials, were exhibited repeatedly on the Senate floor, prompting some Republicans to complain that they were being forced to rehear the same pieces of evidence. So be it: GOP senators intent on exonerating the president without bothering to fairly consider the case against him should at least be forced to face the reality of his abuses. Meanwhile, busy Americans who took the time to tune in to the proceedings for even an hour or two between Wednesday and Friday likely heard a substantial version of the case.

Several strands of the managers’ argument struck us as particularly on point. One presentation laid out a 10-point proof that in pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Mr. Trump was pursuing not U.S. foreign policy but his private interests. The campaign was orchestrated by his lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, who said publicly that he was seeking to benefit Mr. Trump, not the country. Mr. Giuliani convinced Mr. Trump that there was dirt to be found in Ukraine on Joe Biden; but a presentation by Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-Tex.) demolished the claim that Mr. Biden acted improperly when, as vice president, he sought the ouster of a corrupt Ukrainian prosecutor. Continue reading.

Parnas pressure grows on Senate GOP

The Hill logoPressure is growing on Senate Republicans to call Lev Parnas, an associate of President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, to testify in the impeachment trial. 

Democrats are opening the door to hearing from Parnas as a witness at the impeachment trial after an explosive round of media interviews and new evidence released by House Democrats, which details Parnas’s role in trying to convince the Ukrainian government to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden.

The revelations, Democrats argue, underscore the need for witnesses and documents — something Republicans have so far resisted.  Continue reading.

Trump may not be removed by the Senate, but he’s still terrified of his trial — here’s why

AlterNet logoDonald Trump is scared. The Senate trial following his impeachment for a blackmail and campaign cheating scheme starts next week, and it’s driving him to distraction. He was supposed to host a lame event at the White House on Thursday to bolster fake concerns that white evangelicals are being oppressed, but blew off pandering to his strongest supporters for an hour, likely because he couldn’t pry himself away from news coverage of the impeachment trial’s kickoff. After ending the event swiftly, Trump then tweeted angrily, “I JUST GOT IMPEACHED FOR MAKING A PERFECT PHONE CALL!”

(As with most things the president says, this was untrue — he was impeached weeks ago, in December.)

Trump’s cold sweats are significant, because everyone who has been following this case knows that the Senate will acquit him. Not because he’s innocent — no one who has actually consulted the evidence is foolish enough to believe that — but because Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the Republicans who control the Senate decided long ago that they would cover up for their shamelessly corrupt president no matter what he does. With such an assured outcome, Trump’s fears seem overblown and silly, even for someone crippled by sociopathic narcissism and its accompanying paranoia. Continue reading.

GOP threatens to weaponize impeachment witnesses amid standoff

The Hill logoRepublicans are threatening to weaponize a fight on Senate impeachment witnesses amid growing concerns that moderates within their caucus could help Democrats call former national security adviser John Bolton to testify. 

After weeks of pledging that they would hold a quick trial with no witnesses from either side, Republicans — from Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on down — are sending public warning shots that if their GOP colleagues open the door to Democratic witnesses they’ll respond in kind, forcing votes on a slew of controversial individuals.

The pressure tactics are the latest shift in strategy as Republican leaders try to navigate the factions in their caucus, where moderates want to leave the potential for witnesses on the table and conservatives are anxious to quickly acquit President Trump.  Continue reading.

GOP Senators Swear To Do ‘Impartial Justice’

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts officially swore in senators on Thursday for the impeachment trial of Donald Trump, asking all senators to take an oath of impartiality.

“Do you solemnly swear that in all things appertaining to the trial of the impeachment of Donald John Trump, president of the United States, now pending, you will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws, so help you God?” reads the oath 99 senators swore, signing their name in a book to make their oath official. One senator was missing from the swearing in: Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe, who was in his home state tending to a sick family member.

By taking that oath, however, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham committed perjury, as both previously said aloud that they do not plan to be impartial at all. Continue reading.

Trump trial poses toughest test yet for Roberts

The Hill logoChief Justice John Roberts will soon discover firsthand that while the Supreme Court and the Senate sit on adjacent Washington city blocks, the two institutions occupy separate worlds.

Roberts on Thursday appeared in the Senate in his black robes to preside over President Trump‘s impeachment trial, leaving the collegiality of the court for a chamber marked in recent years by partisan fighting.

The chief justice was led by a procession of Judiciary Committee and Rules Committee members to the well of the chamber. There, he raised his right hand and swore to do “impartial justice” — the kind of oath he is more accustomed to hearing from advocates before the Supreme Court. Continue reading.

‘Weak’: Former White House counsel breaks down why McConnell’s arguments on impeachment ‘precedent’ are deeply flawed

AlterNet logoSenate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has made it abundantly clear that he doesn’t consider himself an “impartial juror” in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial and that he will be coordinating with Trump in the weeks ahead. One of the Kentucky Republican’s arguments is that Trump’s impeachment, unlike the impeachment of Present Bill Clinton in the late 1990s, has not been handled in a fair way. But former White House Counsel Bob Bauer, in a January 16 article for Benjamin Wittes’ Lawfare website, lays out some of reasons why McConnell’s arguments on impeachment “precedent” are misleading.

McConnell has argued that Trump’s impeachment in the U.S. House of Representatives was handled in an overtly “partisan” manner by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff and other Democrats — while Clinton’s impeachment in the late 1990s was not. Bauer totally disagrees.

“McConnell’s history is weak,” Bauer asserts. “More than 90% of the House Republicans voted for Clinton’s impeachment; more than 90% of Republican senators voted for convicting him. By any measure, among lawmakers, there was overwhelming Republican Party support for ousting a Democratic president from office. McConnell’s professed claims of historically unprecedented partisanship is founded on the pointless distinction between fully party-line and just-over-90% party-line support.” Continue reading.