Clyburn: House may wait until after Biden’s first 100 days to send impeachment articles to Senate

House Majority Whip James Clyburn on Sunday said House Democrats might wait until after President-elect Joe Biden's first 100 days in office to send any articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump to the Senate, a move that would give the incoming President time to tackle his agenda in Congress before the start of a time-consuming trial.
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An early Republican Trump critic feels vindicated

Forgive Bob Corker if he sounds like he’s going to say, “I told you so.”

The former senator was lonely as a Republican critic of President Donald Trump, beginning in 2017. While most GOP lawmakers kept quiet about their concerns, Corker warned the White House had become an “adult daycare” and that Trump’s Cabinet members “help separate our country from chaos.” He even held a hearing to scrutinize the president’s power to use nuclear weapons.

Corker retired rather than run for a third term in 2018 amid a feud with Trump and potentially tough primary. But after a flood of GOP condemnation of Trump for inciting a deadly riot at the Capitol, the Tennessee Republican says he’s been vindicated.

“Nobody's perfect. You don't ever have all of the information. But I think I’ve been validated,” said Corker. “My observations about his character and his conduct certainly have been validated, unfortunately, with people's lives being lost. And our country appearing to be run by a tin pot dictator to people around the world.”

Now with Trump on his way out and the GOP reckoning with Trumpism, Corker isn’t ruling out another run for office. He said that he has completed his self-imposed two-year sabbatical from public life, though his two terms in the Senate were enough to satisfy his desire to legislate.

His state's governorship is up in 2022, and obviously a wide-open presidential primary waits in 2024. Corker has never considered challenging Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R), according to a source familiar with his thinking.

"Republicans are going to have to have a real debate about who they are going to be," he said. "The Republican Party has been a party of adults, and people who make tough decisions. Obviously, that hasn't been the case in recent times."

Corker also sees a potential silver-lining to this week’s chaos. It was costly, Corker said, but now the president has been exposed in a way that will shrink his political influence permanently.

It allowed “his true character [to be] revealed in a way that hopefully will diminish his impact on our country in the future,” Corker said. “So that is the one plus that comes out of this. People have been able to see firsthand what all of us have known, just who he really is.”

Corker says he doesn’t regret his “last-second” vote for Trump in 2016 given the choice he had at the time between Trump and Hillary Clinton. He says he did not support Trump or Joe Biden in 2020, choosing to write in “someone who I thought had most fully represented, from my standpoint, the kind of person that I thought ought to be president.”

Corker has not been as outspoken over the last two years as former Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, another Republican who criticized the president during the first two years of his administration. But both had something in common: the sense that they and the other handful of GOP Trump critics were outliers in their own party, particularly before Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) was elected as a stern counterweight to Trump. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) also kept their distance from Trump and were among the few Trump critics.

But after criticizing the president so directly, neither Corker nor Flake ran for reelection.

“There wasn’t any support whatsoever,” said Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who was one of the few Democrats that tried to work with Trump. “I give Bob credit for speaking out. Bob did speak out. And Bob tried to do the best he could from a very disadvantaged situation. Because Trump still had the support of the people.”

Corker was considered by Trump as a potential secretary of State and vice president, but withdrew from contention from vice presidential consideration and helped confirm former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson after Trump chose him to be his top diplomat. Corker praised Trump’s foreign policy instincts in late 2016.

The rift between Corker and Trump began in 2017 after Trump defended white supremacists rallying in Charlottesville, Va. From there the feud deepened into Trump attacking Corker as a “lightweight” and “incompetent” as chairman, and Corker contending that Trump could start “World War Three.”

In explaining his vote for Trump in 2016, Corker described an evolution of how he saw Trump the candidate compared to Trump the president. He said Trump at first seemed like a pro wrestling character telling people what they wanted to hear, but ended up as “a crude demagogue.” Of course, many saw Trump that way from the moment he lashed out at Mexican immigrants the day he declared his candidacy.

But Trump’s most damaging rhetoric is now certainly his post-election refusal to admit defeat, which few Republicans initially spoke out against. Many in the GOP took more than a month to acknowledge Biden’s win. Some only recognized Biden as the next president this month.

“You realize in a republic as mature as ours, you can still have someone like this who tells the public non-truths, [people] believe and follow him,” Corker said. “I wish there have been much greater pushback. I'm glad to see it taking place now.”

Corker had previously said he was was "saddened" after some senators, including Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), who succeeded him, and new Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) had a plan to "undermine democracy" by objecting to Biden's Electoral College win. But he praised Blackburn and Hagerty when they reversed course after the riot.

Most Democrats and some Republicans want to remove Trump from office now, whether it’s through impeachment or invoking the 25th Amendment. Echoing concerns Corker hinted at in his 2017 Foreign Relations Committee hearing, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has spoken to the military out of worry about Trump having the nuclear codes.

Even as a top Trump critic and someone who is currently not facing the prospect of a political campaign, Corker doesn’t think the president’s immediate ouster is necessary: “No military officer is going to carry out some crazy command that he might offer.”

“We’re at a weak moment in our country, and certainly foreign adversaries, if they wish to do something over the next 14 days we’re in a weakened place. I don't think that happens,” Corker said. “If we can somehow survive [until Jan. 20] without doing anything else that undercuts our nation, and undercuts our democracy, I think we’re better off just letting him ease on out of here. Never to return again.”

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Dems grapple with impeachment realities in race to punish Trump

Speaker Nancy Pelosi and senior Democrats are still weighing whether to impeach President Donald Trump next week, concerned that the resulting Senate trial — all but certain to end in acquittal — would hamstring the first critical weeks of Joe Biden’s presidency.

Pelosi and her leadership team discussed several options for holding Trump accountable for inciting a deadly riot at the Capitol during a two-hour call Saturday night. Several top Democrats, including House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn — a close Biden ally — raised concerns that any effort to quickly confirm Biden’s Cabinet nominees or pass a major coronavirus relief package would be delayed for weeks by a Senate impeachment trial.

Democrats were not taking impeachment off the table, but the leadership team spent Saturday night batting around several potential scenarios for the coming days, including impeaching Trump in the House midweek but not immediately sending the article of impeachment to the Senate, which would initiate an immediate trial. Pelosi took similar steps after Trump’s first impeachment in 2019.

The party’s dilemma is that while the vast majority of Democrats are prepared to vote next week to remove Trump from office, key parts of the caucus have also become acutely aware that impeachment would pose complications for Democrats’ agenda. But failing to take action is also not an option, with furious lawmakers eager to exact punishment for the president’s role in the attacks on the Capitol on Wednesday, which resulted in five deaths.

Pelosi told members in a letter Saturday night that they should prepare to return to Washington next week. But her missive made no mention of impeachment nor the push for the 25th Amendment, noting only that discussions were ongoing about how to proceed.

“It is absolutely essential that those who perpetrated the assault on our democracy be held accountable,” Pelosi wrote. “There must be a recognition that this desecration was instigated by the President.”

Democrats will likely need to make the decision within the next 24 hours, since members will require notice to return to Washington.

A group of Democrats, led by Reps. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), has drafted a formal impeachment resolution, which they plan to introduce Monday. The measure would impeach Trump for high crimes and misdemeanors “by willfully inciting violence against the government of the United States.”

That resolution had more than 185 cosponsors as of Saturday night — nearly the entire Democratic Caucus — but no Republicans.

Still, if Democrats did move to impeach, the effort isn’t expected to result in Trump’s ouster with just 11 days left in his term. The Senate likely wouldn’t even begin Trump’s impeachment trial until after Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20. Even then, it’s not clear if any Senate Republicans would join with Democrats to convict Trump.

Democrats began discussing the possibility of impeachment the same day that a pro-Trump mob invaded the Capitol on Wednesday, fatally injuring a police officer, terrorizing lawmakers and staff, and bringing an hourslong halt to Congress’ effort to certify Biden’s Electoral College victory. In an hourlong speech before the riots, Trump urged his supporters to march to the Capitol, saying “you’ll never take back our country with weakness” and declaring he would “never concede.”

“The president of the United States incited his supporters, these violent protesters, to storm the Capitol, disrupt that process to try to prevent it from happening, so he would remain in office,” Cicilline said Saturday.

If Pelosi moves ahead, the decision would set off an expedited legal and legislative process that Democrats are scrambling to finalize. But with less than two weeks until Biden takes the oath, Democrats will need to condense months of preparation, arguments and proceedings into a matter of days.

One of the House’s architects of the 2019 impeachment said the case against Trump is so strong — and so public — that the House could justify moving at lightning speed if it chooses.

“The president incited insurrection after working his followers into a frenzy with lies about the election. He sicced them on a coordinate branch of government. If that’s not a high crime and misdemeanor, I don’t know what is,” said Norm Eisen, who advised Pelosi and the House Judiciary Committee during the first Trump impeachment. “This is a case where Congress can move quickly, the House can move quickly if it chooses to.”

During the first impeachment, Eisen was among those who advocated ensuring Trump had ample opportunities to rebut evidence and present his own case. But this time, he says, Trump was so blatant in his incitement of violence, built on a monthslong campaign to mislead supporters the election was stolen, that a lengthy investigation is unnecessary.

“What more do you need?” he wondered.

With few exceptions, the House Democratic Caucus has been in lockstep behind the push to impeach Trump. Still, a growing number of Democrats began to privately raise concerns Friday and Saturday that impeaching Trump could undermine the start of Biden’s presidency, noting that the Democrats’ push now looked doomed in the Senate.

Other Democrats have raised concerns that impeaching Trump just before he leaves office could make him a martyr to his supporters and empower him further. And others still are wary of gathering at the Capitol for a highly charged impeachment process that could present another security risk days after this week’s riot.

“We would rather not be doing this. We're on the eve of a new president. And we're excited about that,” Cicilline said on CNN, acknowledging those concerns. “But we simply can't say, you know what, just let the 12 days pass, let it go, it's no big deal.”

The few Republicans who have indicated openness to impeachment, such as Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), said they first wanted to see what kind of process the House undertook. Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) told Fox News on Saturday that he believed Trump “committed impeachable offenses” but said he doesn’t know if the process is “possible or practical” at this juncture. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) has called for Trump to resign but has not tipped her hand on impeachment yet.

Multiple House Democrats have spent the last 48 hours phoning their GOP colleagues, some of whom are personal friends, imploring them to consider voting to impeach Trump. But those pleas have been largely fruitless, several lawmakers and aides said.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) is considered likely to vote for it, though it is not certain, according to several people familiar with the conversations. Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) may also consider voting yes, according to one source.

Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.), who belongs to the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, said she has tried and failed to persuade several Republicans that she “was hopeful would fall on the right side of all this.”

“The thing that most disappointed me about that was not that they didn’t see the point — not that they didn’t understand why this needed to happen. But that their default position was, we just don't have time,” Houlahan said in an interview.

“That, to me, is inexcusable.”

The Democrats’ dayslong process would be a sharp break from every impeachment in history, including Democrats’ 2019 impeachment of Trump, which stretched more than three months in the House alone.

Democrats, at the time, emphasized how crucial it was to afford multiple opportunities for Trump to have due process and the ability to rebut charges against him. It’s unclear whether Trump will be given those same opportunities this time — and whether Democrats intend to engage any of the lawyers who represented him last time.

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Saturday Night Owls: Black cops recount their day fighting ‘racist ass terrorists’ at Capitol

Night Owls, a themed open thread, appears at Daily Kos seven days a week

11 DAYS UNTIL JOE BIDEN AND KAMALA HARRIS TAKE THE OATH OF OFFICE

Emmanuel Felton at Buzzfeed News writes—These Black Capitol Police Officers Describe Fighting Off "Racist Ass Terrorists":

BuzzFeed News spoke to two Black officers who described a harrowing day in which they were forced to endure racist abuse — including repeatedly being called the n-word — as they tried to do their job of protecting the Capitol building, and by extension the very functioning of American democracy. The officers said they were wrong footed, fighting off an invading force that their managers had downplayed, and not prepared them for. They had all been issued gas masks, for example, but management didn’t tell them to bring them in on the day. Capitol Police did not respond to BuzzFeed News’s request for comment about the allegations made by officers. [...]

“That was a heavily trained group of militia terrorists that attacked us,” said [one of the officers], who has been with the department for more than a decade. “They had radios, we found them, they had two-way communicators and earpieces. They had bear spray. They had flash bangs ... They were prepared. They strategically put two IEDs, pipe bombs in two different locations. These guys were military trained. A lot of them were former military,” the veteran said, referring to two suspected pipe bombs that were found outside the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee.

The officer even described coming face to face with police officers from across the country in the mob. He said some of them flashed the badges, telling him to let them through, and trying to explain that this was all part of a movement that was supposed to help.

“You have the nerve to be holding a blue lives matter flag, and you are out there fucking us up,” he told one group of protestors he encountered inside the Capitol. “[One guy] pulled out his badge and he said, ‘we’re doing this for you.’ Another guy had his badge. So I was like, ‘well, you gotta be kidding.’” [...]

In the seven years since Black Lives Matter has become a rallying cry, the image of a white cop, deciding how and when to enforce law and order, has become ubiquitous. On Wednesday, Americans saw something different, as Black officers tried to do the same, as they attempted to protect the very heart of American democracy. And instead of being honored by the supporters of a man who likes to call himself the “law and order” president, Black Capitol officers found themselves under attack.

“I got called a nigger 15 times today,” the veteran officer shouted in the rotunda to no one in particular. “Trump did this and we got all of these fucking people in our department that voted for him. How the fuck can you support him?”

“I cried for about 15 minutes and I just let it out.”

THREE OTHER ARTICLES WORTH READING

  • American Grotesque, by John Jeremiah SullivanInsane birthers and Glenn Beck-worshipping tea-partiers, proud racists and gun-toting antigovernment loons—they're all here, and they're all angry about something. John Jeremiah Sullivan goes deep into the bowels of the great American Rage Machine on a patriotic quest for common ground with his countrymen.  
  • The Day the Great Apes Died, by Sandy HingstonTwenty-five years ago, the tragedy at the World of Primates building broke the city’s heart and raised a loaded question: What, exactly, do we owe the animals in our care?  
  • Ginni Thomas, Wife of Clarence, Cheered On the Rally That Turned Into the Capitol Riot, by Mark Joseph Stern. “God Bless Each of You Standing Up or Praying!”  

TOP COMMENTSRESCUED DIARIES

QUOTATION

“Are you a communist?" "No I am an anti-fascist" "For a long time?" "Since I have understood fascism.”           ~~Ernest HemingwayFor Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)

TWEET OF THE DAY

This President is a clear and present danger to our country. While I have pushed other remedies for his criminal conduct, impeachment is the tool before us and warranted for his seditious acts. I will be voting yes on impeachment when brought to the House floor. (1/4)

— Rep. Kurt Schrader (@RepSchrader) January 10, 2021

BLAST FROM THE PAST

At Daily Kos on this date in 2004—Bush sweats “inside” books:

The Bush White House is nervous about two forthcoming books by former insiders. Ex-Bush Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill assails the president for a lack of interest in substantive policy in a book written by journalist Ron Suskind that will be trotted out with great fanfare on CBS's "60 Minutes" this weekend.

One Bush insider, however, ventures that no one really cares what a former Treasury secretary says. But, a book due out later by Richard Clarke, the White House's top terror expert under both President Clinton and President Bush, is another matter. Mr. Clarke is known to feel the Bush administration largely ignored the threat of terrorism and Osama bin Laden before 9-11, even after al Qaeda in June 2001 claimed responsibility for the bombing of the USS Cole, which killed 17 American soldiers.

Monday through Friday you can catch the Kagro in the Morning Show 9 AM ET by dropping in here, or you can download the Stitcher app (found in the app stores or at Stitcher.com), and find a live stream there, by searching for "Netroots Radio.”

Calls to impeach Trump gain momentum, Republicans ask Biden to intervene

Congressional calls for the impeachment of President Trump are gaining traction on both sides of the aisle, as lawmakers announced Saturday that impeachment would be introduced in the House Monday.