Category: Impeachment

Mitt Romney Suggests Trump Impeachment Necessary For ‘Unity In Our Country’

Posted on by John Hanson

Republican Senator Mitt Romney suggested Sunday that impeaching former President Donald Trump could bring national unity.

The “Never Trump” Senator made his comments on “Fox News Sunday” with host Chris Wallace.

Watch the interview below.

RELATED: Pelosi Sending Impeachment Article to Senate Monday, GOP Senators Warn McConnell Against Vote To Convict

Romney Argues Senate Trial Necessary For Unity

Wallace asked Romney, “Senator, do you support holding this impeachment trial, and what do you think the rules should be on the length of the trial and whether or not to call witnesses?”

Romney replied, “Well, we’re certainly going to have a trial. I wish that weren’t necessary, with the president’s conduct with regard to the call to the secretary of state in Georgia as well as the incitation towards the insurrection that led to the attack on the Capital calls for a trial.”

Then the anti-Trump Republican suggested that the impeachment could bring more unity for the U.S.

“If we are going to have unity in our country, I think it’s important to recognize the need for accountability, for truth, and justice,” Romney said.

Romney: ‘Pretty Clear’ Trump Spent A Year Trying To ‘Corrupt The Election’

He added, “So I think there will be a trial, and I hope it goes as quickly as possible, but that’s up to the council on both sides.”

Romney said it has been “pretty clear” over the last year and Trump had been trying to corrupt the election.

“I think it’s pretty clear that over the last year or so there has been an effort to corrupt the election of the United States and it was not by President Biden, it was by President Trump and that corruption we saw with regards to the conduct in Ukraine as well as the call to Secretary of state Raffensperger as well as the in citation to insurrection.”

Romney has a long history of anti-Trump sentiment.

Romney was the only Republican Senator to vote to convict President Trump during the first impeachment trial. 

In 2016, Romney famously gave a “Never Trump” speech when it became clear that Trump was likely to win the Republican nomination for President.

RELATED: Joy Behar Comes Unglued – Says Trump ‘Made It His Business For Four Years To Rape This Country’

The Utah senator finished his interview with Wallace by saying Trump provoked an attack on American democracy.

“I mean, this is obviously very serious and an attack on the very foundation of our democracy, and it is something that has to be considered and resolved,” Romney added.

Watch:

The post Mitt Romney Suggests Trump Impeachment Necessary For ‘Unity In Our Country’ appeared first on The Political Insider.

Morning Digest: Three pro-impeachment Republicans have landed primary challenges—and more could soon

Posted on by Daily Kos Elections

The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, Carolyn Fiddler, and Matt Booker, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.

Leading Off

● Impeachment: Following the House's recent move to impeach Donald Trump for incitement of insurrection, the 10 Republicans who voted in favor of holding Trump accountable for his actions are now almost all facing intense intra-party anger—including, in many cases, talk of potential primary challenges. Here's the latest on each:

CA-21: Republican leaders in Fresno County are enraged with Rep. David Valadao, with the local party's chair saying his organization wouldn't support the congressman "if the election were held today." But Valadao is at least somewhat insulated thanks to California's top-two primary system, which makes it exceedingly hard for partisans to oust incumbents in a primary since they'd have to finish third to miss out on the November general election—something that's never happened in a congressional race.

IL-16: Gene Koprowski, a former official with a conservative think tank called the Heartland Institute, recently told the New York Times that he was raising money for a potential campaign against Rep. Adam Kinzinger, but Koprowski​ added that he wouldn't enter the race until the Democratic-led state legislature finishes the redistricting process. Koprowski​ earned some very unfavorable notice in 2018 when HuffPost reported that he'd been charged with stalking a female colleague, and that senior Heartland officials sought to protect him.

Campaign Action

MI-03: Army National Guard veteran Tom Norton, who unsuccessfully sought the GOP nod in Michigan's 3rd District last year when it was an open seat last year, is running against Rep. Peter Meijer once again. Norton raised very little and finished a distant third with just 16% of the vote. His Twitter feed is filled with remarks like, "If there is no such thing as gender, how can @KamalaHarris be a historic female?" and "If your gay go be gay that is your right. But when you remove a body part your not a woman your still a man.  We are normalizing crazy."

MI-06: Veteran Rep. Fred Upton was censured over the weekend​ by the Republican Party​ of Allegan County​, which is one of the six counties​ in his southwest Michigan seat. Upton, a relative pragmatist in today's GOP, has often been targeted in primaries for his previous apostasies, and last year, he turned in a relatively soft 63-37 win over businesswoman Elena Oelke, who appears to have raised no money at all.

NY-24: Local Republican and Conservative Party officials are quite pissed at Rep. John Katko, though there's been no real talk of a primary challenge yet. However, Katko was already on thin ice with the Conservative Party, whom he infuriated last cycle when he cosponsored a bill that condemned Trump's ban on transgender Americans serving in the armed forces. Some (but not all) of the damage was later repaired, but loss of Conservative support could prove very dangerous: In 2018, Katko defeated Democrat Dana Balter by 13,694 votes while earning 16,972 votes on the Conservative Party line. New York's 24th is one of just two districts Joe Biden won on this list (along with California's 21st), so defections on Katko's right flank could cause him serious trouble in the general election as much as in a primary.

OH-16: Former state Rep. Christina Hagan, who sought Ohio's 16th District once before, "is not ruling out" a challenge to Rep. Anthony Gonzalez, says Politico. Hagan lost to Gonzalez 53-41 in the GOP primary in 2018, when the 16th had become open, then ran unsuccessfully in the neighboring 13th District last year, falling 52-45 to Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan.

SC-07: We've previously written about two Republicans who are considering challenges to Rep. Tom Rice, but now a third is threatening to enter the fray. Former NYPD officer John Cummings, who raised $11 million in a futile bid against AOC last year, is reportedly thinking about taking his grift show down South for a potential primary bid. Rice may be the most vulnerable Republican on this list because South Carolina, alone among these nine states, requires runoffs if no candidate secures a majority, meaning Rice can't pin his hopes of survival on winning renomination with a mere plurality.

WA-03, WA-04: Republican leaders in Washington's 3rd and 4th Districts are hopping mad and say they expect both Reps. Jaime Herrera Beutler and Dan Newhouse to face primary challenges, though no names have emerged yet. However, like Valadao, both enjoy a measure of protection thanks to Washington's top-two primary system, which works just like California's.

WY-AL: Politico reports that Air Force veteran Bryan Miller is "expected" to run against Rep. Liz Cheney, though in a brief quote, he doesn't say anything about his plans. If he does enter, however, that might paradoxically be good news for Cheney, since she already landed one credible opponent, state Sen. Anthony Bouchard, just the other day. Contra Tom Rice in South Carolina, Cheney could escape with a plurality because Wyoming has no runoffs.

Senate

● GA-Sen: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution suggests that former Republican state Rep. Earl Ehrhart might be considering a bid against Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, who is up for re-election for a full six-year term in 2022. Ehrhart served in the state House for 30 years before retiring in 2018, making him the longest-serving Republican in the lower chamber, though he's still only 61 years old.

● WI-Sen: Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, who previously had not ruled out a bid against Republican Sen. Ron Johnson next year, now confirms he's "given consideration" to a possible campaign, though he hasn't offered a timetable for a decision. Barnes, a former state representative, was elected on a ticket with Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in 2018 and would be Wisconsin's first Black senator.

Governors

● RI-Gov: With Rhode Island Lt. Gov. Daniel McKee set to replace Gov. Gina Raimondo if she's confirmed as Joe Biden's new Commerce secretary, we were curious to know how well people who've ascended to the governorship in this manner fare when they choose to seek election in their own right. Fortunately, the University of Minnesota's Eric Ostermeier has answered this question in depth.

Since 1900, 174 second-in-command office-holders (including not only lieutenant governors but also—depending on the state—secretaries of state, state senate presidents, and state house speakers) have become governor in their own right, though only 128 were eligible to run in the following election (some, for instance, were only elevated after relevant primaries had passed). Of these, 109 chose to do so, but only a little more than half—59, or 54%—succeeded: 21 failed to win their party's nomination, while 29 lost general elections.

That's considerably lower than the overall re-election rate for governors, which from 1963 through 2013 was 75%, according to an earlier Ostermeier analysis. However, that figure includes these "elevated governors," so the actual re-election rate for governors first elected in their own right is even higher. That'll be something for McKee to think about both in terms of the Democratic primary and, should he prevail, next year's general election as well.

● VA-Gov: Bob McDonnell, who was the last Republican to serve as governor of Virginia, has endorsed Del. Kirk Cox, who is hoping to break the GOP's long losing streak this fall. When McDonnell won office in 2009, that was in fact the last time any Republican won a statewide race in Virginia.

Mayors

● Cincinnati, OH Mayor: Hamilton County Commissioner Denise Driehaus, a Democrat, said on Friday that she would not run for mayor this year.

Democratic Senator Hirono Reveals Real Goal Behind Trump Impeachment Effort

Posted on by LifeZette

Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, spoke out on Saturday to reveal what the real goal behind the impeachment effort against former President Donald Trump.

Hirono Reveals Real Goal Of Impeachment 

While appearing on MSNBC, Hirono said that the true goal of the impeachment push against Trump is to hold him accountable for the “violent insurrection” and prevent him from running for office again.

“It’s very clear, Tiffany, that we need to not only hold the president accountable through an impeachment trial but to get on with passing a COVID relief bill,” she said.

“And we can do both. Much of this depends on Mitch McConnell’s willingness to do the right thing for the American people,” she continued. “So, that’s where we are, Tiffany. I know we can do both. All it takes is will on the parts of the Republicans at this point.”

“Whether 17 of them will go along to convict this president of what we all experienced as a violent insurrection at the Capitol remains to be seen,” Hirono added. “I think a few of them will, but I don’t know that we’re going to get 17. But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t proceed to hold this president accountable, and that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t stop him from ever seeking elected office again, and that just takes a majority vote.”

Related: Pelosi Sending Impeachment Article to Senate Monday, GOP Senators Warn McConnell Against Vote To Convict

Klobuchar Chimes In

This comes as Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) also spoke out to claim that Americans are “going to get more and more evidence over the next few weeks” about Trump’s alleged insurrection.

“I thoroughly believe that we can handle this impeachment trial and just as the American people are doing, juggle what we need to get done,” Klobuchar said. “Get the homeland security secretary through. We just had the insurrection at the Capitol. Get people confirmed for Joe Biden’s cabinet. And yes, get people the help that they need. That’s what this next month is going to be about.”

“I think we’re going to get more and more evidence over the next few weeks as if it’s not enough that he’s sent an angry mob down The Mall to invade the Capitol, didn’t try to stop it, and a police officer was killed. I don’t really know what else you need to know,” she added.

“The facts were there,” Klobuchar continued. “We saw it right there on the platform during the inauguration, as you could still see the spray paint at the bottom of many of the columns.”

Related: Freshman GOP Rep Admits Voting To Impeach Trump May Have Destroyed His Career

This piece was written by James Samson on January 24, 2021. It originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

Read more at LifeZette:
Biden Accuser Tara Reade Reemerges To Say It Was ‘Unspeakably Hard To Watch The Man Who Assaulted Me’ Be Inaugurated
Liz Cheney Squirms As She Twice Refuses To Say If Senate Should Hold Impeachment Trial For Trump
Reprogramming “Cultists” and Protecting Dignitaries of the Opposite Political Party

The post Democratic Senator Hirono Reveals Real Goal Behind Trump Impeachment Effort appeared first on The Political Insider.

Watch Florida Republican try to explain why he thinks Trump impeachment trial is ‘stupid’

Posted on (Updated by Marissa Higgins

Appearing on Fox News Sunday to chat with host Chris Wallace, Sen. Marco Rubio delved into his feelings on former President Donald Trump. What about Trump, specifically? Oh, just the articles of impeachment against him. In a word, Rubio said he finds the trial “stupid.”

In a very slightly more eloquent attempt to express himself, Rubio said he feels, “We already have a flaming fire in this country,” and that a trial would amount to “a bunch of gasoline.” Basically, just another way of arguing that a trial would rupture unity efforts, even though as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi argued last week, ignoring all that’s gone is actually what is more likely to sow division in the country. Why? Because we need accountability. 

As of Sunday morning, at least one Republican sees the impeachment trial differently than Rubio, however. We can check out more of what Rubio said below, as well as what one of his peers in the Senate argued.

Rubio said he does think Trump “bears responsibility for some of what happened” and that it was “certainly a foreseeable consequence of everything that was going on.” It would be fascinating to hear what Rubio qualifies as “some” of what happened when a group of pro-Trump rioters surged into the U.S. Capitol and effectively terrorized elected officials. Rubio, instead, stressed he thinks that is “separate” from the idea of revisiting it and “stirring” it up. 

Here’s that clip.

Marco Rubio acknowledges Trump "bears responsibility" for the Capitol insurrection, but insists holding him accountable with an impeachment trial is the wrong move because it'll "stir up" the country again pic.twitter.com/egtvNAgrS8

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 24, 2021

Also related to the Trump family, Wallace asked Rubio how he feels about whispers that Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, may run for a senate seat in Florida. Given that Rubio is up for reelection in 2022, a primary challenge is considerably important. Rubio, however, dodged the meat of the question by declaring that he doesn't “really get into the parlor games of Washington.”

He did say that if he wants to be “back in the U.S Senate, I have to earn that every six years” and that he doesn’t own his seat. Which is true, but would ring as a touch more meaningful if Florida didn’t have rampant voter suppression issues. 

Wallace also spoke to Sen. Mitt Romney about the impeachment trial, posing the same question to both Republicans. Did they agree with fellow Republicans who argued that the trial should be thrown out under the alleged basis that it’s unconstitutional to convict a former president? Rubio said yes, he’d definitely vote to nix the trial, but Romney thinks the proceedings are constitutionally solid. (Which, of course, they are.)

“if you look at the preponderance of the legal opinion by scholars over the years,” Romney explained, “the preponderance of opinion is that yes, an impeachment trial is appropriate after someone leaves office.” Romney, who did vote to convict in the first trial, however, did not say how he would vote either way a second time, noting they have yet to actually hear arguments and evidence from both sides. 

Trump’s second impeachment is about more than you think

Posted on by Mark Sumner

When the House acted swiftly to impeach Donald Trump for a second time on Jan. 13, the actual Articles of Impeachment were shockingly brief. With just five pages, the first of which is completely taken up with the names of sponsors who signed onto the resolution, the gist of the single article is that Trump repeatedly issued false statements that inflamed the crowd and incited insurgents on Jan. 6. The statements cited in the resolution include Trump’s oft-repeated claim that “we won this election, and we won it by a landslide” and more aggressive statements like “if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

Those statements, which Trump repeated at the rally he held shortly before the insurgents swarmed up the steps of the Capitol, may seem scant. And arguments over whether they are really incitement to violence may seem to allow Republicans a lot of wiggle room when it comes to their vote. 

But the article is not everything that House members will be bringing to the Senate when they come for Trump’s trial on Feb. 8.

In addition to the article itself, there are considerably more detailed supporting documents. These documents don’t just cite the statements that Trump made on the morning of the assault on the Capitol, they cover the whole period following the election and show how Trump laid the groundwork for violence. That means that things like the phone call Trump made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, and tweets that Trump put out threatening any officials who got in his way, are fully covered. 

The document also details events on Jan. 6, including statements by Rudy Giuliani urging the crowd to have “have trial by combat,” and Donald Trump, Jr. warning Congress that “we’re coming for you.” And it points out how, when Trump got up to speak, he called out specific legislators as targets for the crowd’s hate before falsely telling them that he was going to walk up Pennsylvania Ave. with them.

The document is far from comprehensive. It doesn’t contain a full list of the 62 legal actions filed by Trump’s team. It doesn’t cover all the changes Trump made at the Pentagon following the election. It doesn’t discuss the scheme to sub in a Devin Nunes aide as head of the CIA. It doesn’t cover Michael Flynn’s plan to implement “partial martial law” or DOJ attorney Jeffrey Clark’s scheme to use the Justice Department to interfere in counting the electoral vote. 

But there is more than enough in the provided documents to show that the crowd that pushed through police to hunt hostages in the halls of Congress wasn’t just inflamed by a few offhand words Trump delivered on that Wednesday morning. The insurgency was the result of weeks of incitement and of planning by both Trump and other members of his team. It was neither spontaneous nor an accident. It was an attempted coup.

And members of a failed coup should expect to pay a price.

Furious Trumpists are already lining up to primary Republicans who voted for impeachment

Posted on by David Nir

Following the House's recent move to impeach Donald Trump for incitement of insurrection, the 10 Republicans who voted in favor of holding Trump accountable for his actions are now almost all facing intense intra-party anger—including, in many cases, talk of potential primary challenges. Here's the latest on each:

CA-21: Republican leaders in Fresno County are enraged with Rep. David Valadao, with the local party's chair saying his organization wouldn't support the congressman "if the election were held today." But Valadao is at least somewhat insulated thanks to California's top-two primary system, which makes it exceedingly hard for partisans to oust incumbents in a primary since they'd have to finish third to miss out on the November general election—something that's never happened in a congressional race.

IL-16: Politico reports that Gene Koprowski, a former official with a conservative think tank called the Heartland Institute, "is already running" against Rep. Adam Kinzinger, but he doesn't appear to have done anything more than file paperwork with the FEC. Koprowski appears to have no social media presence, and if he did launch a campaign, he managed to earn zero attention from local press. He did, however, gain some notice in 2018 when HuffPost reported that he'd been charged with stalking a female colleague, and that senior Heartland officials sought to protect him.

MI-03: Army National Guard veteran Tom Norton, who unsuccessfully sought the GOP nod in Michigan's 3rd District last year when it was an open seat last year, is running against Rep. Peter Meijer once again. Norton raised very little and finished a distant third with just 16% of the vote. His Twitter feed is filled with remarks like, "If there is no such thing as gender, how can @KamalaHarris be a historic female?" and "If your gay go be gay that is your right. But when you remove a body part your not a woman your still a man.  We are normalizing crazy."

MI-06: There hasn't been any reporting yet about backlash directed at veteran Rep. Fred Upton, but that doesn't mean there isn't any. Upton, a relative pragmatist in today's GOP, has often been targeted in primaries for his previous apostasies, and last year, he turned in a relatively soft 63-37 win over businesswoman Elena Oelke, who appears to have raised no money at all.

NY-24: Local Republican and Conservative Party officials are quite pissed at Rep. John Katko, though there's been no real talk of a primary challenge yet. However, Katko was already on thin ice with the Conservative Party, whom he infuriated last cycle when he cosponsored a bill that condemned Trump's ban on transgender Americans serving in the armed forces. Some (but not all) of the damage was later repaired, but loss of Conservative support could prove very dangerous: In 2018, Katko defeated Democrat Dana Balter by 13,694 votes while earning 16,972 votes on the Conservative Party line. New York's 24th is one of just two districts Joe Biden won on this list (along with California's 21st), so defections on Katko’s right flank could cause him serious trouble in the general election as much as in a primary.

OH-16: Former state Rep. Christina Hagan, who sought Ohio's 16th District once before, "is not ruling out" a challenge to Rep. Anthony Gonzalez, says Politico. Hagan lost to Gonzalez 53-41 in the GOP primary in 2018, when the 16th had become open, then ran unsuccessfully in the neighboring 13th District last year, falling 52-45 to Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan.

SC-07: We've previously written about two Republicans who are considering challenges to Rep. Tom Rice, but now a third is threatening to enter the fray. Former NYPD officer John Cummings, who raised $11 million in a futile bid against AOC last year, is reportedly thinking about taking his grift show down South for a potential primary bid. Rice may be the most vulnerable Republican on this list because South Carolina, alone among these nine states, requires runoffs if no candidate secures a majority, meaning Rice can't pin his hopes of survival on winning renomination with a mere plurality.

WA-03, WA-04: Republican leaders in Washington's 3rd and 4th Districts are hopping mad and say they expect both Reps. Jaime Herrera Beutler and Dan Newhouse to face primary challenges, though no names have emerged yet. However, like Valadao, both enjoy a measure of protection thanks to Washington's top-two primary system, which works just like California's.

WY-AL: Politico reports that Air Force veteran Bryan Miller is "expected" to run against Rep. Liz Cheney, though in a brief quote, he doesn't say anything about his plans. If he does enter, however, that might paradoxically be good news for Cheney, since she already landed one credible opponent, state Sen. Anthony Bouchard, just the other day. Unlike Tom Rice in South Carolina, Cheney could escape with a plurality because Wyoming has no runoffs.

Senate nearing a deal on timing of Trump’s impeachment trial

Posted on by Daniel Bush
Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell are nearing a deal to begin an impeachment trial for former President Trump on Feb. 8, as they continue to iron out the final details including the length of a trial and allowing witnesses. This comes amid debates over sharing power in a 50-50 Senate. Dan Bush joins Judy Woodruff to discuss.