Tag: Senate sham trial

New polls find McConnell’s sham impeachment trial of Trump didn’t fool the American public

AlterNet logoBy a 15-point margin Americans say that, despite being acquitted in the Senate, Donald Trump has not been cleared of wrongdoing in the Ukraine matter. Fully 55% say Trump has not been exonerated by his acquittal while 40% believe he has, according a new Quinnipiac poll released Monday. The views of independents track almost perfectly with those findings, with 54% saying Trump has not been cleared and 40% saying he has.

What this means more broadly is that Americans weren’t fooled by Republicans’ sham trial one bit. In the poll, 51% still believe that Trump’s actions were serious enough to warrant impeachment, while 46% believe they didn’t reach the threshold. Independents are split on that question 49% to 49%. Perhaps even more telling are respondents’ views on whether the Senate trial was conducted fairly:

  • Unfairly: 59%
  • Fairly: 35%

That finding is almost identical to Monmouth polling also released today, showing 58% say the trial was unfair, while 35% say it was fair. In effect, Senate Republicans’ sham trial only inspired confidence in GOP voters, 54% of whom called it fair, while Democrats (78%-18%) and independents (56%-39%) overwhelmingly found it unfair. View the post here.

Nancy Pelosi Rips Republicans For ‘Normalizing Lawlessness’ In Scathing Op-Ed

The GOP-controlled Senate has ensured Trump remains “an ongoing threat to American democracy,” Pelosi wrote in a column for The Washington Post.

Nancy Pelosi on Friday launched a fresh attack on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and the GOP senators who earlier this week voted to acquit President Donald Trump on impeachment charges.

The Democratic House speaker, in a searing editorial for The Washington Post titled “McConnell and the GOP Senate are accomplices to Trump’s wrongdoing,” accused them of “normalizing lawlessness and rejecting the checks and balances of our Constitution.”

Pelosi noted how Trump’s defense team “all but” conceded the president’s misconduct in the Ukraine scandal, in which she said he “abused the power of his office to pressure a foreign power to help him cheat in an American election” before stonewalling the congressional investigation into said allegation and preventing key witnesses from testifying in the Senate trial. Continue reading.

Fox Judge: Guilty Trump Was Acquitted, Not Exonerated

“The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” — George Orwell, “1984”

The Senate trial of President Donald Trump ended not with a bang but a whimper. What different outcome could one expect from a trial without so much as a single witness, a single document, any cross-examination or a defendant respectful enough to show up?

Law students are taught early on that a trial is not a grudge match or an ordeal; it is a search for the truth. Trial lawyers know that cross-examination is the most effective truth-testing tool available to them. But the search for the truth requires witnesses, and when the command from Senate Republican leaders came down that there shall be no witnesses, the truth-telling mission of Trump’s trial was radically transformed into a steamroller of political power.

And in its wake is a Congress ceding power to the presidency, almost as if the states had ratified a constitutional amendment redefining the impeachment language to permit a president to engage in high crimes and misdemeanors so long as he believes that they are in the national interest and so long as his party has an iron-clad grip on the Senate. Continue reading.

Republicans sense momentum after impeachment win

The Hill logoHouse Republicans believe they are gaining momentum after a terrible week for Democrats and a strong one for President Trump.

GOP lawmakers are becoming optimistic they have a chance to pick up seats or even win back the majority in November.

Taking back the House would require picking up at least 18 seats and would be a tough climb, but Republicans say the turmoil in the Democratic Party and a strong economy bolstering Trump give them reasons for optimism. Continue reading.

Nancy Pelosi: McConnell and the GOP Senate are accomplices to Trump’s wrongdoing

Washington Post logoNancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California, is speaker of the House of Representatives.

For more than 200 years, our republic has endured, not only because of the wisdom of our Founders and the brilliance of our Constitution, but because of the generations of patriotic Americans who have had the courage to risk their lives to defend it.

But, tragically, the American people have watched President Trump and Republicans in Congress dismantle the Constitution that we cherish.

The House impeachment managers, led by Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), presented to the Senate and the public an incontrovertible truth that the president himself has admitted: President Trump abused the power of his office to pressure a foreign power to help him cheat in an American election. And when he was caught, the president launched an unprecedented coverup to block Congress from holding him accountable. The president’s actions undermined our national security, jeopardized the integrity of our elections and violated the Constitution. Continue reading.

Senators try to punt their way out of trouble and Trump’s line of fire

It may look like a winning strategy today, but the election is still nine months away

OPINION — Don’t you just hate it when someone uses a sports metaphor to teach a life lesson? So do I, usually. But with the Super Bowl not a week in the rearview mirror, it would be impossible to ignore the concept of the punt — getting out of a tough situation by moving the ball as far as possible toward the opponent’s end zone.

If you’re playing against a Patrick Mahomes-led Kansas City Chiefs, you’re merely buying some time before the inevitable score. But senators using that tactic in an impeached President Donald Trump’s trial are no doubt hoping any payback comes late, or not at all.

For them, it’s a way to satisfy both their consciences and a Trump-supporting voting base. Continue reading.

Fox News legal analyst: Trump guilty as charged in impeachment trial — and ‘morally bankrupt’ Republicans ‘trashed’ the Constitution

AlterNet logoFox News legal analyst Andrew Napolitano blasted Senate Republicans for acquitting President Donald Trump in his impeachment trial without hearing a single witness.

The former New Jersey Superior Court judge said a trial should be a search for truth, but the Fox News contributor wrote in his new column that GOP senators instead turned the impeachment into “a steamroller of political power” by blocking witness testimony.

“The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears,” Napolitano wrote, quoting from George Orwell’s “1984.” “It was their final, most essential command.” Continue reading.

President celebrates Senate acquittal at the White House, expresses no contrition and calls Democratic leaders ‘vicious and mean’

Washington Post logoPresident Trump celebrated his Senate acquittal Thursday at a White House event that stretched more than an hour, expressing no contrition and calling Democratic leaders “vicious and mean” while portraying his impeachment as the continuation of scrutiny he has faced since he announced his run for the presidency in 2015.

“We’ve been going through this now for almost three years. It was evil, it was corrupt,” he told a packed East Room crowd. Trump expressed no remorse related to the allegation that he inappropriately pressured the leader of Ukraine to investigate his political rivals, despite some Republican senators calling his actions wrong.

“This is a day of celebration because we went through hell,” he said.

Senate Majority Agrees Trump Is Guilty — And Acquits Him Anyway

Even with no witness testimony, a majority in the 100-member U.S. Senate indicated in some way that Donald Trump acted inappropriately when he pressured Ukraine’s president to dig up dirt on his political rivals. But on Wednesday, senators voted 52 to 48 to acquit him anyway on the charge of abusing his office. The Senate also voted to acquit him 53 to 47 on the charge of obstruction.

In December, Trump became just the third president in U.S. history to be impeached by the House of Representatives. By historic numbers, the House accused him of obstruction and abuse of power.

While Trump and his Republican defenders have repeatedly claimed the impeachment was not bipartisan — ignoring that conservative Rep. Justin Amash left the GOP over his opposition to Trump and voted in favor — the vote to convict was bipartisan. Continue reading.

Romney shocks GOP with vote to convict

The Hill logoSen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) shocked his fellow Republican senators and surprised much of the nation on Wednesday with a dramatic floor speech announcing he would vote to convict President Trump on the impeachment charge of abuse of power.

Romney announced his decision in a nearly empty Senate chamber just hours before the Senate voted to acquit Trump and after fellow GOP colleagues such as Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) had already announced they would not vote to convict Trump.

Just as surprising as his vote was the intensity of the 2012 Republican presidential nominee’s language. Continue reading.