Category: Impeachment

Boy, does Susan Collins look like a craven, partisan hack today or what?

Posted on by Joan McCarter

What a day for Maine Sen. Susan Collins, huh? Her colleague, Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, just provided a master class in political principle, courage, and independence—you know, all those qualities Collins has pretended to possess during her too-long Senate career. How will she look anything other than craven, compared to that? Her actions seem particularly gutless after the cringe-inducing interview she gave CBS to explain her vote to acquit impeached president Donald Trump.

"I believe that the president has learned from this case," Collins said. "The president has been impeached. That's a pretty big lesson." Uh, huh. How much has he learned? The Washington Post's Josh Dawsey tweets the answer, reporting on the pre-State of the Union lunch Trump had with news anchors: "Asked about Sen. Susan Collins saying he'd learned a lesson, Trump told the anchors he did not agree. He had done nothing wrong. 'It was a perfect call.'" So much for that. Now Collins says she shouldn't have said "believe" and a better word would have been "hopes." Uh, huh. 

Collins has chosen her side, and Maine knows it. Please give $1 to help Democrats in each of these crucial Senate races, but especially the one in Maine!

It’s just like the time she "hoped" Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's promise to give her a vote on her health bills in return for her support on the GOP Tax Scam was "ironclad." Just like she hoped that now-confirmed Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh would respect precedent on Roe v. Wade.

She's not impressing anyone in Maine, and her actions are drawing very unfavorable comparisons to Romney with political observers back home. Steve Collins, the State House reporter for the Sun Journal in Lewiston and apparently no relation to the senator, tweeted that the combination of Romney's decision and Trump's disavowal of having learned a damn thing "combine to make her decision to acquit politically dicier." He continues, "She likes to claim the middle ground. But it's Romney, not her, who is standing on it."

Trump Acquitted By U.S. Senate On All Charges

Posted on by Guest Author

On Wednesday afternoon the U.S. Senate voted to acquit President Donald Trump on the both articles of impeachment against him.

The first article alleging abuse of power was voted down, an outcome many expected since the trial began on January 21.

Trump Acquitted

Removing Trump from office would have required the support of at least 67 members of the GOP-led Senate, or two-thirds. Only Senator Mitt Romney broke ranks with the 53 Republicans to buck his party and vote to convict.

RELATED: Trump Wins Witness Vote 51-49 – Acquittal Looks Solid

No president in America’s history has ever been removed from office through the impeachment process.

Trump Acquitted on Both Articles

On to voting on the second article of impeachment, the obstruction of Congress charge, Trump was acquitted 53-47. Romney voted with Republicans on this second charge.

The two Articles of Impeachment against the President were approved in the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives in December, both centering on Trump’s alleged request that Ukraine probe former US Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, over their dealings in Ukraine.

Democrats have insisted Trump made a phone call in July 2019 with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that constituted a quid pro quo because $391 million in US military aid to Ukraine was being withheld at the time.

RELATED: Trump Lawyer to Schiff’s Team: You’re Conducting ‘Massive Election Interference’ And Americans Will Make You Pay

Trump Described Impeachment as a ‘Witch Hunt’ Throughout

Throughout the impeachment process, Trump has denied any wrongdoing, and repeatedly described the entire event as a partisan “witch hunt.”

Even though the articles pass the House, impeachment was expected to fail in the Senate.

The beginning of the end for impeachment truly happened when the Senate voted last week, 51 to 49, to not call any witnesses in the trial.

The post Trump Acquitted By U.S. Senate On All Charges appeared first on The Political Insider.

Republicans have hell to pay for torching our republic. Make. Them. Pay. NOW

Posted on by David Nir

It is darkness in the daytime, and the only light is cast by the bonfire of despotism into which the Republican Party is pitching our Constitution.

Donald Trump has transgressed two of the oldest and gravest injunctions known to humankind—thou shalt not steal and thou shalt not bear false witness—and Republican senators have admitted that he is guilty.

It is our duty to win back the Senate. Please give before it is too late.

But for all their professed fealty to tradition, to law and order, to knowing right from wrong, they simply do not care. They have decided that it’s not against the law to commit a crime, so long as the wicked leader of their death cult is the criminal.

A reckoning is now due. The Republicans in the Senate have shown us that they will not deliver justice, so we must deliver justice ourselves.

While Republicans have confessed they will do everything in their power to rig these next elections, we must do everything in our power to ensure that they are free, that they are fair, and that Republicans lose—as badly as possible.

Let us show just how serious we are. We can contribute today to help unseat the most vulnerable Republican senators come November. The more we give, the greater the fear we will instill in them, and the more likely we are to prevail.

We are disgusted, we are dismayed, we are filled with sorrow. But we are also very, very angry, and we must channel that anger. Republicans want to put our democracy to the torch, but together we can douse those flames and build anew.

Please, give whatever you can right now. The future of our dear republic depends on it.

Senate Republicans—minus Romney—tie themselves to Trump’s legacy with impeachment acquittal

Posted on by Laura Clawson

Senate Republicans turned the impeachment trial of Donald Trump into a cover-up, and what they weren’t able to cover up, they—with one notable exception—have now dismissed as meaningless. The Senate voted 52 to 48 to acquit Donald Trump on abuse of power, with every Republican but Sen. Mitt Romney voting to acquit, and 53 to 47 to acquit on obstruction of Congress, with Romney joining the rest of the Republicans. Romney earlier announced his decision in an emotional speech that was a challenge and a rebuke to those of his Republican colleagues who voted to acquit despite having voted to hear witnesses or despite having said that Donald Trump did something wrong and the House managers proved it.

Trying to cheat in an election? These Republicans are fine with it, as long as it benefits Republicans. Withholding aid to another country for your own personal benefit? Again, fine by Republican senators, if you’re on their team. This vote will inextricably link the legacy of these Republican senators with Trump’s own legacy. They will go down in history as people who embraced abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

Donald Trump Jr. wants Mitt Romney expelled from Republican Party for standing up to daddy

Posted on by Mark Sumner

The idea that Donald Trump’s impeachment has been “completely partisan” is a talking point that Republicans, including Trump, have used as reflexively as breathing. It’s been at the middle of every claim that the process against Trump was somehow unfair, somehow different from that faced by Bill Clinton, and somehow violated statements House Democrats had previously made about the need for multiparty support in an impeachment. But the truth is that the House vote wasn’t purely partisan, because the vote for Trump’s impeachment also included the support of Justin Amash. 

Amash would have still been a Republican except that he was forced out of the Republican caucus back in July explicitly because he failed to join with other Republicans in wholeheartedly supporting Trump when it came to the results of the Mueller report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. 

Now Mitt Romney has voted for Trump’s removal based on the evidence in the impeachment trial. And it’s no surprise who wants to put Romney’s head on a pike.

In a Jan. 24 story, CBS News correspondent Nancy Cordes reported, "A Trump confidant tells CBS News that Republican senators have been warned: Vote against the president and your head will be on a pike.” But when Rep. Adam Schiff mentioned this in the Senate—despite correctly citing the source and saying he hoped it wasn’t true—Republican senators got a serious case of the vapors. Susan Collins shouted out, “That’s not true,” and Indiana Republican Mike Braun declared, "There’s never been arm-twisting.” The chest-beating and moaning continued into the night, with Fox News hosts making this statement the Designated Thing To Be Offended About for that day of the trial.

The idea that Trump would not take vengeance on any senator who didn’t vote his way was always ridiculous. Of course he would. Of course he will. Vengeance is Trump’s middle name. He just spells it funny.

But while Trump himself is having a moment of funk, or has smashed his phone, in the aftermath of Romney’s genuinely stirring speech, the man whose entire existence is a demonstration that there are worse Donald Trumps than Donald Trump jumped in to show exactly how accurate the “pike” statement was all along. Tweeting on Wednesday afternoon, Donald Trump Jr. proclaimed that Mitt Romney “should be expelled from the Senate GOP conference” and added the hashtag #expelMitt.

Fox News began promoting the tweet shortly after it appeared, and Trump supporters are working hard to get the tag trending (though, so far, unsuccessfully). Break out the pikes! 

Why is Trump Jr. so mad at Romney? For doing what Junior could never do.

Fox host Chris Wallace tells Romney that his action means "this is war." Wallace: "Donald Trump will never forgive you for this." Romney replies by quoting from a hymn: �Do what is right. Let the consequence follow.�

— Felicia Sonmez (@feliciasonmez) February 5, 2020

Romney delivers scathing rebuke of Senate GOP’s fecklessness, calling Trump’s abuses ‘appalling’

Posted on by Kerry Eleveld

Utah Sen. Mitt Romney pledged Wednesday to do what no other GOP senator would: take a vote of conscience to convict Donald Trump of impeachable offenses. Romney's vote seals Trump's fate in the annals of history as the only president to ever draw bipartisan support for removal of office.

But Romney’s declaration from the Senate floor was much more than just a recitation of what he planned to do, it was an unmistakable rebuke of all his Republican colleagues who had abandoned their responsibilities as public servants for the comforts of the GOP's herd mentality. "Were I to ignore the evidence what has been presented and disregard what I believe my oath and the Constitution demands of me for the sake of a partisan end, it would, I fear, expose my character to history's rebuke and the censure of my own conscience," Romney said from the Senate floor. Wow.

In explaining his vote, Romney filleted the arguments of Trump's defense team, namely that Trump couldn't be impeached without having committed a crime, that Biden's conduct warranted Trump's actions, and that the ultimate decision should be left up to the voters. In response, Romney said it "defies reason" to believe that a president can only be removed from office for criminal behavior. As for Joe and Hunter Biden, he concluded there was no evidence of criminal conduct on their part and therefore no justification whatsoever for Trump's call to investigate. "There's no question in my mind that were their names not Biden, the president would never have done what he did," Romney noted. Finally, he explained that the framers had charged the Senate with the power to remove a president precisely so the partisan sentiments of voters wouldn't dictate a president's fate. 

After ticking through a list of Trump's actions, Romney concluded, "The president is guilty of an appalling abuse of public trust. What he did was not perfect. No, it was a flagrant assault on our electoral rights, our national security, and our fundamental values."

Romney added that "corrupting an election" in order to stay in office was "perhaps the most abusive and destructive violation of one's oath of office that I can imagine."

In short, Romney held up a mirror for the Republican caucus so they could see what a trash heap it had become. In speaking his conscience, he also provided Senate Democrats with a wealth of material for defeating vulnerable Senate Republicans in the upcoming election. Prior to giving his remarks, Romney told the New York Times, “I think the case was made.” He isn't the first GOP senator to agree that Trump did what he’s accused of doing, he's just the first to actually uphold his oath of office. Kudos to him.

Wanna restore responsible leadership to the Senate? Give $2 right now to make that vision a reality in November.

Here’s some excerpts of Romney’s speech. 

ROMNEY: "Were I to ignore the evidence that has been presented & disregard what I believe my oath & the constitution demands of me for the sake of a partisan end, it would, I fear, expose my character to history's rebuke & the censor of my own conscience." pic.twitter.com/psdRhPTbWr

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 5, 2020