Tag: Senate sham trial

Like McCain before him, Romney rebukes President Trump

2008 and 2012 presidential nominees have been most forceful GOP critics in the Senate

The greatest rebukes of Donald Trump’s presidency from the Republican side of the aisle have come from the two previous standard-bearers for the GOP.

When Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, a freshman senator best known for being the 2012 Republican nominee for president, announced Wednesday on the Senate floor that he would vote to convict Trump of abuse of power, it evoked memories of the time when the late Arizona Sen. John McCain voted in 2017 to thwart the president’s desired repeal of the 2010 health care law.

McCain, a hero of the Vietnam War and the 2008 Republican nominee for president, cast his vote with a dramatic thumbs-down that the current occupant of the Oval Office has not forgotten. Trump has continued to allude to the vote, which doomed GOP plans to nix the health care law, particularly during campaign rallies. Continue reading.

Statement on the Acquittal of President Donald Trump

SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA – Yesterday, DFL Chairman Ken Martin released the following statement in response to the acquittal of President Donald Trump:

“This is a deeply tragic day for our country, our Constitution and our Republic. Senate Republicans have chosen corruption over justice, party over country, and the shameless pursuit of power over their oaths to protect and defend our Constitution.

“Today, Republicans have emblazoned their names into a disgraceful chapter of our history books. Through their acquittal votes, Republicans normalized foreign intervention in our elections and set a precedent that politicians can lie to the American people, abuse the power of their offices, obstruct justice, and get away with it.”

 

Schiff: Senators who fail to convict Trump will not be ‘off the hook’

“I still think it’s enormously important that the president was impeached.”

House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff said on Sunday senators voting to keep President Donald Trump in office will not be “off the hook,” as Democrats look ahead to the president’s likely acquittal in the impeachment trial.

“I’m not letting the senators off the hook. We’re still going to go into to the Senate this week and make the case why this president needs to be removed,” Schiff said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “It will be up to the senators to make that final judgment, and the senators will be held accountable for it.”

Although the president will most likely remain in office, the lead House impeachment manager said, “I still think it’s enormously important that the president was impeached.” Continue reading.

GOP Sen. Lamar Alexander: Trump Made ‘Mistake’ By Pushing Russian Propaganda

The Tennessee lawmaker said he’s going to vote to acquit the president anyway.

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) on Sunday defended his key vote to block witnesses from being called in the impeachment trial, saying President Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine were “wrong” but not impeachable.

The Tennessee lawmaker told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that he will vote on Wednesday to acquit Trump, despite the president’s “inappropriate” actions and his “mistake” of echoing Russian talking points to Ukraine’s president.

“I think he shouldn’t have done it,” Alexander said of Trump conditioning U.S. military aid on Ukraine investigating political rival Joe Biden. “I think it was wrong. Inappropriate was the way I’d say ― improper, crossing the line.” Continue reading.

Dershowitz: Trump Crimes Are Excusable If His Re-election Is ‘In Public Interest’

Donald Trump’s defense lawyer Alan Dershowitz raised eyebrows on Wednesday when he argued that Trump has free reign to cheat in an election if he believes his victory would be in the best interest of the American people.

“If a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment,” Dershowitz said on the Senate floor, during the question-and-answer period of the impeachment trial against Trump.

Dershowitz’s argument got immediate pushback by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), a House impeachment manager, who has been arguing that Trump has to be removed from office because his cheating cuts at the very heart of the Constitutional right to free and fair elections. Continue reading.

5 takeaways from the Senate’s first day of questioning

Washington Post logoMembers of the Senate on Wednesday are finally getting to ask questions in the impeachment proceedings, but only in writing: Senate rules dictate that senators, known for grandstanding, have to write questions for the prosecution and defense that the chief justice reads out loud.

Here are five takeaways from the first of two days of the question-and-answer part of the Senate impeachment trial. Senators are expected to vote Friday on whether to extend the trial by allowing witnesses.

1. Trump’s defense embraces the ‘and so what if he did it’ argument

So what if Trump did hold up Ukraine’s military aid to get the country to investigate former vice president Joe Biden? That argument was first made earlier this week by Trump defense lawyer and Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz, who elaborated Wednesday in eyebrow-raising fashion in response to a question from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.). Continue reading.

Republicans Move to Block Impeachment Witnesses, Driving Toward Acquittal

New York Times logoEfforts to bring wavering Republicans into line appeared to be working as President Trump’s lawyers argued that anything a president did to win re-election was “in the public interest.”

WASHINGTON — The White House and Senate Republicans worked aggressively on Wednesday to discount damaging revelations from John R. Bolton and line up the votes to block new witnesses from testifying in President Trump’s impeachment trial, in a push to bring the proceeding to a swift close.

As the Senate opened a two-day, 16-hour period of questioning from senators, Mr. Trump laced into Mr. Bolton, his former national security adviser, whose unpublished manuscript contains an account that contradicts his impeachment defense. The president described Mr. Bolton on Twitter as a warmonger who had “begged” for his job, was fired, and then wrote “a nasty & untrue book.”

On Capitol Hill, Mr. Trump’s aides circulated a letter informing Mr. Bolton that the White House was moving to block publication of his forthcoming book, in which he wrote that the president refused to release military aid to Ukraine until its leaders committed to investigating his political rivals. That is a core element of the Democrats’ case, which charges Mr. Trump with seeking to enlist a foreign government to help him win re-election this year.