Month: January 2021

Calls Mount For Republican Liz Cheney To Resign Leadership Post After Calling For Trump’s Impeachment

Posted on by Rusty Weiss

A growing number of GOP lawmakers are calling on Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) to resign from her leadership post following a statement indicating she would vote to impeach President Trump.

Cheney, the House GOP Conference chairwoman, came out as the No. 3 Republican Representative to say she would vote in favor of impeachment.

“The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack,” Cheney said in a statement.

“Everything that followed was his doing. None of this would have happened without the President.”

Cheney added, “The President could have immediately and forcefully intervened to stop the violence. He did not.”

“There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution,” she concluded in some of the harshest rhetoric yet seen by a Republican lawmaker.

RELATED: Hillary Clinton Calls Capitol Riots ‘Result Of White-Supremacist Grievances,’ Wants Trump Impeached

Calls Mount For Liz Cheney to Resign After Impeachment Statement

Showing a divide in the Republican party over the impeachment issue, some lawmakers called on Liz Cheney to resign from her leadership post after the comments.

“I don’t think she should be the chair of the Republican conference anymore,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), the head of the House Freedom Caucus, told Fox News.

“The reality is she’s not representing the conference – she’s not representing the Republican ideals.”

Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-MT) also joined calls for Conference Chair Liz Cheney to resign from leadership after her call to impeach President Trump.

“When Representative Cheney came out for impeachment today, she failed to consult with the Conference, failed to abide by the spirit of the rules of the Republican Conference, and ignored the preferences of Republican voters,” Rosendale said in a statement.

“She is weakening our conference at a key moment for personal political gain and is unfit to lead. She must step down as Conference Chair.”

RELATED: Nancy Pelosi Accuses Capitol Rioters Of Choosing ‘Their Whiteness’ Over Democracy

Cheney Working Against President Trump

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) called for Cheney’s resignation over the summer, suggesting she had been working behind the scenes to squash the President’s agenda.

“Liz Cheney has worked behind the scenes (and now in public) against @realDonaldTrump and his agenda,” Gaetz tweeted. “House Republicans deserve better as our Conference Chair. Liz Cheney should step down or be removed.”

President Trump referred to Cheney and Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) as part of a “surrender caucus” after both went on record to state they would not object to the electoral vote count.

Trump has long portrayed her as a war hawk in opposition to his administration because he refuses to engage in “endless wars.”

“Liz Cheney is only upset because I have been actively getting our great and beautiful Country out of the ridiculous and costly Endless Wars,” Trump tweeted amidst Gaetz’s calls for her to step down.

“I am also making our so-called allies pay tens of billions of dollars in delinquent military costs,” he added. “They must, at least, treat us fairly!”

Biggs, according to Fox News, said if Cheney weren’t as high-ranking a Republican on the Conference her comments would likely be dismissed.

But her leadership role is why she must step down.

The post Calls Mount For Republican Liz Cheney To Resign Leadership Post After Calling For Trump’s Impeachment appeared first on The Political Insider.

Report: Mitch McConnell Signals Support For Impeachment, Says It Will Help Rid GOP Of Trump

Posted on by Rusty Weiss

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has reportedly signaled support for impeachment, thinking the Democrats’ move could help the GOP get rid of President Trump and his movement.

The New York Times initially claimed that McConnell was “pleased” that House Democrats had introduced articles of impeachment against Trump.

Fox News adds that multiple sources have claimed McConnell is “done” and “furious” with the President.

The Kentucky Republican, according to Fox, “told associates that impeachment will help rid the Republican Party of Trump and his movement.”

McConnell’s anger, according to the article, stems not only from the way President Trump handled the Capitol riots last week, but the fact that Republicans lost their majority in the Senate after the Georgia runoffs.

RELATED: Hillary Clinton Calls Capitol Riots ‘Result Of White-Supremacist Grievances,’ Wants Trump Impeached

Mitch McConnell Supports Impeachment?

The House of Representatives voted on Tuesday to pass a resolution urging Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove the president from office.

Pence declined, setting up an impeachment vote for Wednesday morning. 

McConnell’s support of such a move, if true, is reprehensible – an impeachment vote without concern for facts or witnesses, without a defense for the President, based solely on the media’s spin on what happened at the Capitol.

You would think the Senate Majority Leader would have learned how the media and the Democrats operate over the years.

They’re stirring up anger in the country right now by claiming the President incited rioters.

Did he? When? Where? At the rally, the President told attendees to be peaceful.

“We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated. I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”

After some in the crowd began breaking the law, the President told them to “go home” and “go in peace.”

“You have to go home now, we have to be peaceful,” Trump said in a video censored by Twitter. “We have to have law and order, we have to respect our great people in law and order. We don’t want anybody hurt, it’s a very tough period of time.”

Yet the narrative has remained due to Trump’s continued insistence in the same video that the election was stolen from him, which critics have said contributed to the violence.

RELATED: Nancy Pelosi Accuses Capitol Rioters Of Choosing ‘Their Whiteness’ Over Democracy

How Will McConnell Vote?

Despite the Fox News report of McConnell seemingly supporting impeachment, they are quick to note that “it is unclear how McConnell would vote in an impeachment trial … It is not clear at this point whether McConnell would vote to convict.”

The Daily Mail cites GOP sources as saying there is a “better than 50/50” chance Mitch McConnell votes to convict Trump in impeachment trial because he “wants him purged from the GOP.”

But it wouldn’t purge Trump and his supporters, it would simply fracture the GOP beyond repair.

Remember, it was just weeks ago that a Rasmussen survey indicated 72 percent of Republican voters want their legislators to be more like President Trump.

Not like McConnell, a wishy-washy character who bends at the whim of the media.

Last week, Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE) indicated he would “definitely consider” a vote to impeach President Trump or support having him removed from office through the 25th Amendment.

“If they come together and have a process, I will definitely consider whatever articles they might move, because … I believe the president has disregarded his oath of office,” said Sasse.

Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) would almost assuredly vote to convict in an impeachment trial. He was, after all, the lone Senate Republican to vote to convict Trump in the first contrived impeachment trial.

If McConnell gets on board, it’s easy to visualize a whole host of other Republicans stabbing Trump in the back and getting to the necessary 67 votes to convict.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) admitted in a recent ’60 Minutes’ interview that Trump running for president again is one of the motivations “that people have for advocating for impeachment.”

She added that it would be preferable to use the 25th Amendment “because it gets rid of him.”

Imagine how broken Mitch McConnell must be in order to agree with Nancy Pelosi on impeachment.

The post Report: Mitch McConnell Signals Support For Impeachment, Says It Will Help Rid GOP Of Trump appeared first on The Political Insider.

The second impeachment of Donald Trump is underway, and this time, several Republicans are on board

Posted on by Laura Clawson

The House convened at 9 AM ET for the second impeachment of Donald Trump. And this time around, several Republicans are voting to impeach, after Trump incited an attack on the Capitol in an effort to block Congress from doing its job and finalizing the election results. After that attack, far more Republicans still voted to block the true election results on Trump’s behalf than will vote to impeach him, but go figure, sending a mob of insurrectionists to threaten the lives of your own vice president and members of Congress will get at least a few Republicans to admit that there’s a problem.

Republicans Reps. Liz Cheney, John Katko, Adam Kinzinger, Fred Upton, and Jaime Herrera Beutler have all publicly said they will vote to impeach. “The president of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack,” Cheney, the third-ranking House Republican, said in a statement announcing her decision. “There has never been a greater betrayal by a president of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.”

Kinzinger asked “If these actions . . . are not worthy of impeachment, then what is an impeachable offense?”

These Republicans are expected to be joined by several others, but the final number is not yet known.

There’s a single article of impeachment, for “incitement of insurrection,” under debate. Trump “gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of Government,” it reads. “He threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power, and imperiled a coequal branch of Government. He thereby betrayed his trust as President, to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.”

The theory of how this will proceed, per CNN’s Manu Raju, is after an hour of debate, there will be two procedural votes, then two hours of debate, followed by the vote. In reality it will probably take longer than that implies. A vote is expected Wednesday evening.

After that, impeachment will go to the Senate for a trial, with Majority Leader-for-now Mitch McConnell reportedly not whipping votes to protect Trump, and supposedly himself open to voting to convict. Believe it when you see it, because McConnell would definitely pretend to be open to something like this to protect his reputation with the media, but then again, he too was under threat from Trump’s thugs and is reportedly very angry about it—and, presumably, about having lost his Senate majority.

You can watch the House proceedings on most television news stations or stream at the House clerk’s website, C-SPAN and YouTube, among other sites.

Actually, House Republicans, Democrats’ impeachment push has proven to be uniquely unifying

Posted on by Kerry Eleveld

If you've heard it once from the sedition party, you've probably heard it a hundred times already: Democrats' impeachment is horribly divisive at a time when the country needs healing and unity.

Thanks, GOP, for coming around to the unity argument more than four years too late, but it turns out you’re wrong. Again. In actuality, the Democrats' steely-eyed resolve to hold Donald Trump to account whether through the 25th Amendment or impeachment/conviction has proven to be a uniquely clarifying and unifying moment for the country. 

Here's a brief list of all the different entities that have rallied around the effort to put a final nail in this dark chapter of American history by punishing Trump in no uncertain terms:

  • Democrats in both the House and Senate, with few defections and uncharacteristic unity, are unapologetically focused—clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose
  • The FBI and Department of Justice, the nation's two chief law enforcement agencies, are tracking down and promising to arrest hundreds of individuals who took part in last week’s insurrection
  • Corporate titans like Hallmark, MasterCard and American Express—not necessarily known for their conscientious political giving—have halted political donations to the sedition party for the time being
  • In a dramatic shift, tech giants such as Twitter, Facebook, Apple, and Google have effectively deplatformed and simultaneously defanged Trump for the foreseeable future
  • The Joint Chiefs of Staff, made up of the heads of each military branch, issued an unprecedented joint statement Tuesday condemning the "sedition and insurrection" at the U.S. Capitol 
  • In early public opinion polls, more Americans back impeachment this time around than did the last time, with a weighted average of 13 polls showing 52% support for impeachment to 42% who oppose it—up from an average of about 47%/48% who supported impeachment following Trump's traitorous Ukraine call. Those numbers will almost surely get worse for Trump as more people and entities from all walks of life dump Trump. In Civiqs polling, Trump is headed toward the lowest job approval ratings of his entire tenure. At just 40% since the last update on Jan. 8, he looks to be tanking. Trump hasn't fallen below 40% on Civiqs since early 2017 after Republicans failed twice to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
    Civiqs Results

  • Sen. Mitch McConnell, Rep. Liz Cheney and various other GOP lawmakers are coming around to the idea of supporting Trump's impeachment. McConnell never does anything out of a sense of duty or patriotism, but he's clearly looking at the polling, the Georgia runoff results, and the defections among corporate donors and deciding that being on the right side of history is a better place for Republicans to be if the party is going to survive.

So apparently, impeachment only looks “divisive” to GOP seditionists like Reps. Kevin McCarthy, Jim Jordan and others. They made the wrong bet, as did Sens. Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz.