Tag: Senate impeachment trial

Justice John Roberts legacy will hinge on whether he lets Republicans get away with their sham impeachment trial: CNN

AlterNet logoAccording to CNN legal analyst & Supreme Court biographer Joan Biskupic, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts is currently facing the defining moment of his career on the bench as he presides over the impeachment trial of Donald Trump and he needs to give serious thought as to how history will treat him if he allows the Republican Party to brush aside the charges against the president.

With the Republican-controlled Senate expected to vote to block attempts to allow witnesses to appear in the trial — or end in a 50-50 deadlock — it will be up to Roberts to decide if he wants to intercede and keep the trial alive.

“Roberts has led the US Supreme Court for 15 years. Now age 65, he may serve another 15 years as chief justice. But Friday, he could face a moment on the elevated Senate dais that significantly shapes his legacy — if it gets to that point,” she wrote. “The chief justice could be pressed to break a tie vote on whether witnesses will be called. And he will almost certainly face further pleas by Democratic House managers to intervene and require a deeper review of the Trump allegations.” Continue reading.

GOP whitewash nearly complete: Will they pay in November?

AlterNet logoMitch McConnell’s cover-up of Donald Trump’s corruption looks like it will soon be complete — but not before a betrayal so big it could blow the GOP’s chances of holding the Senate in November.

After 10 days of arguing over whether to allow evidence in Trump’s impeachment trial, the Senate is expected to vote Friday on whether to allow witnesses, a vote Majority Leader Mitch McConnell now believes he will win. Republicans are determined to fast-track the end of a trial where the defendant has offered no real denial of what he’s accused, has refused to provide any material evidence and has already paid off the jury.

Such a lazy defense is precisely why McConnell wanted to avoid an impeachment process altogether. Public opinion had decidedly turned against Trump and the GOP Senate since the trial began. Hundreds took to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to call for witnesses, as 75% of voters in a new Monmouth University poll say witnesses should be allowed to testify. A straw poll on witnesses among GOP senators earlier this week was tighter than McConnell expected after it was revealed that former White House national security adviser John Bolton has a forthcoming tell-all which reportedly lays bare Trump’s plan to pressure Ukraine into investigating Joe Biden. Continue reading.

4 takeaways from the final day of questions in Trump’s impeachment trial

Washington Post logoSenators spent Thursday asking questions in President Trump’s impeachment trial, and that was apparently enough for two key Republican senators to come down on how they’ll vote Friday on whether to extend the trial by calling witnesses including former national security adviser John Bolton.

Below are the takeaways from the day.

1. Democrats almost certainly aren’t getting the four Republicans they need to call witnesses

The biggest news of the day came at the end of the trial’s question-and-answer session, at nearly 11 p.m. There are only four potential swing votes, and one of them, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), said he won’t vote to call witnesses.

Alan Dershowitz for the Defense: L’État, C’est Trump

At the Senate impeachment trial on Wednesday, Donald Trump’s lawyer said that the President can do just about anything he wants.

An hour into the Senate trial of Donald John Trump on Wednesday, the emeritus Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz came to the floor to answer a question from a former Harvard law student, Senator Ted Cruz, of Texas. In theory, it was a question that went to the heart of the impeachment case against Trump, about the President’s imposition of a quid pro quo on military aid to Ukraine and whether his motivations mattered. Dershowitz had something larger and more profound to say, however: Donald Trump has the power to do just about anything he wants to do, and there’s nothing that the U.S. Senate can or should do about it. Continue reading “Alan Dershowitz for the Defense: L’État, C’est Trump”

Dershowitz says media ‘willfully distorted’ his view of presidential power

The Hill logoHarvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz on Thursday sought to clarify remarks he made at President Trump’s impeachment trial while articulating his view of presidential power, saying media outlets “willfully distorted” his argument.

Dershowitz said CNN, MSNBC and other news outlets intentionally ignored a nuanced point he made on Wednesday about the mental state a president must possess in order to commit an impeachable offense.

“They characterized my argument as if I had said that if a president believes that his reelection was in the national interest, he can do anything,” Dershowitz, a opinion contributor to The Hill, said on Twitter. Continue reading.

Video here: https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/480669-dershowitz-says-media-willfully-distorted-his-view-of-presidential?jwsource=cl

GOP senators believe they have the votes to block witnesses

The Hill logoIt was clear to Senate Republicans on Wednesday after a morning meeting between Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) that the question of having additional witnesses is settled, and the Senate will vote Friday to wrap up the impeachment trial of President Trump.

There was no discussion of witnesses at a Senate GOP lunch meeting Wednesday, which was held a couple hours after McConnell and Murkowski met for about 20 to 30 minutes.

That was seen as a sign by several senators that Democrats will fail to convince four Republicans to join them in calling for witnesses. Without a vote to hear from witnesses, the trial could end as soon as Friday.  Continue reading.

‘He’s in big trouble’: Vulnerable GOP senator tempts fate as he backs Trump’s cover-up

AlterNet logoFormer Missouri Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill warned on Wednesday that Republican Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado is risking his seat by complying with the GOP plan to limit President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial.

With the initial stages of the trial coming to a close, senators will soon face a choice of whether to bring witnesses into the trial or to move toward a final vote on Trump’s removal. Democrats have been urging for lawmakers to bring in witnesses, including, most prominently, former National Security Adviser John Bolton to fill out the factual record, a plan most Americans approve of. Most Republicans, however, are eager to get the trial over with and fear that bringing forward more witnesses might only make their goal of acquitting Trump harder.

So attention has turned to the key Republican senators believed to be most likely to split with the president’s interest, including Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, and Mitt Romney of Utah. And on Wednesday, a key Republican from a swing state — Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado — announced that he is opposed to bringing forward more witnesses, including Bolton. Continue reading.

Trump’s lawyers gave thousands to Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz before the impeachment trial began

AlterNet logoPresident Trump’s legal team made numerous campaign contributions to Republican senators overseeing the impeachment trial.

Former independent counsels Ken Starr and Robert Ray, who both investigated former President Bill Clinton ahead of his impeachment, contributed thousands of dollars to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell last year before they joined the president’s team, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics (CFPR).

Starr, who lamented that “we are living in … the age of impeachment” during the trial on Monday and accused Democrats of waging a “domestic war,” gave $2,800 to McConnell in July 2019, according to CFPR. Continue reading.

In The Senate, An Explosion Of Phony Indignation

Rep. Adam Schiff, lead House manager of the impeachment case against President Donald Trump, delivered a tour de force last week, painfully, crushingly detailing the president’s obvious guilt and decimating his defenses. It’s fair to say, however, that this did not go over all that agreeably with Senate Republicans who, determined to sidestep the evidence of Trump’s abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, opted for phony professions of outrage at being called to account.

Leading the charge was Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), whose depressing forfeiture of a once-meaningful reputation for independence has led former admirers to shake their heads at what fear of a Republican primary can do to a person’s conscience. Collins claimed to be appalled at Congressman Jerry Nadler’s use of the phrase “cover-up” to describe conduct by Senate Republicans that can’t easily be described otherwise. Trump’s “defense” of the mountain of evidence against him is the patently false assertion that none of it is “first-hand.” But Republicans have not merely looked the other way at Trump’s blanket order that the documents reflecting his conduct be withheld and the aides to whom he gave orders be gagged; presented with a simple request that the documents be turned over and the aides be required to tell the truth, they made the request impossible. For his part, the president does not hide the fact that he is hiding the facts. “We’re doing very well,” Trump boasted about the impeachment proceedings last week. “(H)onestly, we have all the material. They don’t have the material.”

Collins is upset about the phrase “cover-up.” Too bad. That is precisely what it is, and her objection to a phrase that fits the GOP’s conduct like a glove makes her look ridiculous. Evidently, in the United States Senate, which Collins claims to revere, it is now permissible to block the truth and impermissible to speak it. Continue reading.

Angry Republicans Fear Bolton ‘Domino Effect’ In Trial

It isn’t hard to understand why so many of President Donald Trump’s defenders are hoping and praying that former National Security Advisor John Bolton will not testify during his impeachment trial. Bolton, according to the New York Times, alleges in his book, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir that Trump and his colleagues did have a “quid pro quo” with the Ukrainian government — Ukraine would receive military aid from the U.S., but only if it investigated former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.

Axios reporter Alayna Treene examines the fallout from the Bolton bombshell in two separate articles published on Tuesday morning: one on the “domino effect” that Republicans fear if Bolton testifies, the other on the sense of urgency that Bolton is creating among Trump’s impeachment defense team.

Bolton’s book isn’t actually due out until March 17. But a manuscript of the book, Maggie Haberman and Michael S. Schmidt reported in the Times over the weekend, was leaked — and in that manuscript, Bolton alleges that Trump linked military aid to Ukraine with an investigation of the Bidens. That “quid pro quo,” House Democrats have been asserting, is an impeachable offense. Continue reading.