Category: Senate

The numbers keep adding up against McConnell’s cover-up trial: 75% of voters want witnesses

Posted on by Joan McCarter

Senate Republicans are skating on pretty darned thin political ice, and Moscow Mitch McConnell is whipping them into the danger area in Donald Trump’s impeachment trial. Here’s the latest from Quinnipiac which finds that 75% of voters want the Senate to hear witnesses. "There may be heated debate among lawmakers about whether witnesses should testify at the impeachment trial of President Trump, but it's a different story outside the Beltway. Three-quarters of American voters say witnesses should be allowed to testify, and that includes nearly half of Republican voters," said Quinnipiac University Poll Analyst Mary Snow in the polling memo.

That includes includes 49% of Republicans, 95% of Democrats, and 75% of independents. What’s more, 53% of voters say Trump is lying about his actions in Ukraine, compared to 40% who say he’s being truthful (the cult remains). For those “independent” senators like Susan Collins, here’s a number: 53% of independents say Trump is lying. Among all voters, 54% say he abused his power, 52% say he obstructed Congress, and 47% say he should be removed. Oh, and 57% say they are paying a lot of attention to the proceedings. That’s got to be shaking up some Senate Republican offices right now.

Let's add to the pressure. Please give $1 to our nominee fund to help Democrats and end McConnell's career as majority leader.  

Schiff speaks after Trump’s defense rests: ‘You simply can’t have a fair trial without witnesses’

Posted on by Laura Clawson

Following what Rep. Adam Schiff described as the “rather abrupt end to the president’s case,” the House impeachment managers spoke to the press, with Schiff saying it was “clear that [Trump’s lawyers] are still reeling” from the revelation that former national security adviser John Bolton wrote in his book that Donald Trump directly told him that military aid to Ukraine was being held up to pressure the country to investigate Trump’s political opponents.

Schiff offered a brutal assessment of the defense’s arguments and continued to press hard for the Senate to hold a fair trial, saying that Trump’s lawyers “really did not, cannot defend the president on the facts,” despite their presentation of a “list of grievances, which I’m sure the president was delighted to hear but nonetheless, not particularly relevant to the charges.”

“I don’t think frankly that we could have made as effective a case for John Bolton’s testimony as the president’s own lawyers,” Schiff said. “And part of the way they did that today was the bulk of Mr. Sekulow’s argument was this is merely a policy difference. That’s all this is—they’re seeking to impeach the president over a policy difference. As if, as Sekulow would have us believe, Donald Trump released the military aid because he was so grateful that the Ukrainian parliament passed a anti-corruption court bill, and he was just waiting for that the whole time. No one believes that. No one believes that.”

Schiff returned again and again to the need for a fair trial in the Senate. Asked if the House will subpoena Bolton if the Senate fails to call him as a witness, he refused to talk about a “back-up, fallback position” because “At the end of the day nothing is sufficient if the Senate doesn’t decide to have a fair trial, and you simply can’t have a fair trial without witnesses.”

New poll: 82% of voters say Bolton must testify in impeachment trial

Posted on by Joan McCarter

Donald Trump's lawyers and Senate enablers are doing their damnedest to pretend that former national security adviser John Bolton is just some guy making stuff up in "An unpublished manuscript, that some reporters, maybe, have some idea what it said. If you want to call that evidence." They might want to rethink that considering new polling from Navigator research showing that a whopping 82% of registered voters think Bolton should testify at the impeachment hearing.

What's more, and this is something, that question was included in a poll in the field last week, before the report from Bolton's leaked manuscript which says flat-out that Trump withheld aid to Ukraine for his own political gain. From the toplines of the poll, respondents were asked "If John Bolton has firsthand knowledge of Donald Trump's actions relating to Ukraine and investigating Joe Biden, how important is it for John Bolton to testify in the Senate impeachment trial?" A total of 82% say yes—56% say it's very important and 26% say it's somewhat important to hear from him. That includes 70% of Republicans, with 33% saying it's very important and 37% somewhat important.

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Collins’ tepid support for impeachment witnesses isn’t playing well back home

Posted on by Joan McCarter

Sen. Susan Collins, last seen in high manufactured dudgeon over incivility in Donald Trump's impeachment hearing, seems less concerned over the revelation from former national security adviser John Bolton that Trump did indeed try to extort Ukraine to influence the 2020 election. The reports about Bolton’s upcoming book "strengthen the case" for hearing witnesses, she said, which some analysts are taking as support for calling witnesses. It's not, though; it's Collins holding her finger in the wind.

She needs to be seen as open to calling witnesses because her performance thus far is not playing particularly well back home. The Portland Press Herald published an op-ed over the weekend lambasting her stunt during the House managers’ presentation, in which she sent a sternly worded note to Chief Justice John Roberts saying that Democrats were being mean. "Instead of demanding to see every last shred of evidence of the president's conduct before she voted on whether he is guilty of manipulating America’s foreign policy and national security interests to cheat in an election, she chose to get lost in the weeds" of procedure, editorial page editor Greg Kesich wrote.

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!

Those procedural weeds have nothing to do with getting at the truth, something that Amy Fried, professor of political science at the University of Maine, is writing about at the Bangor Daily News. "In one universe, that of televised ads run by her campaign, Susan Collins is a stalwart independent," Fried writes. "In an alternative universe where Collins was independent, initially she would have vigorously backed the efforts to receive witnesses and documents blocked by the White House."

Collins' Kavanaugh vote should have been a lesson to her about just how shaky her image as an "independent" is back home. Her performance in this impeachment, thus far, is eroding it further. It could end up being her total undoing.

Dem Impeachment Manager Echoes Adam Schiff – This is About the Election

Posted on by Rusty Weiss

Rep. Jason Crow, currently serving as a Democrat impeachment manager, admits that his party’s efforts are due to the upcoming presidential election. It is a similar argument to one made by Adam Schiff recently.

Crow’s admission came during an interview with MSNBC’s Chuck Rosenberg, in which the host addressed the Democrat party’s alternating sense of urgency regarding the need to remove President Trump from office.

“Did the House move too quickly?” Rosenberg asked, noting that had the House conducted a thorough effort in the first place, they wouldn’t need the Senate to do their job now.

“No, I think the House proceeded in the way that it should have proceeded,” Crow insisted. “There was urgency, but it was also thoughtful and deliberate, it occurred over several months period of time.”

He then – perhaps accidentally – admitted what that urgency entailed.

“There is some urgency here,” Crow explained, before adding, “it does have to do with the elections that are coming up later this year.”

RELATED: Schiff: Impeachment Necessary to Stop Trump In 2020

Stunning!

You mean to tell me the Democrats are using impeachment to try and sway the election in their favor? To change the outcome of not only the 2020 election but the 2016 election as well?

Color me shocked.

Except that A) It’s already pretty obvious to anyone with a working set of eyes and ears and B) They’ve already admitted this before.

Crow’s impeachment manager colleague, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, confessed that he and his colleagues could not wait on impeachment because the threat of President Trump winning re-election is too great.

“The argument, ‘why don’t you just wait?’ comes down to this,” Schiff claimed. “‘Why don’t you just let him cheat in just one more election? Why not let him have foreign help one more time?'”

In one fell swoop, Schiff is suggesting President Trump is cheating to win in 2020 and claiming he already cheated in 2016.

Is anybody here old enough to remember when Schiff and his colleagues were telling everybody who would listen that the notion of a rigged election is ludicrous and not accepting the results is a ‘threat to democracy’?

RELATED: Adam Schiff Wants Trump Removed Because He Won’t Do “What’s Right For This Country”

This is Why They’re Doing It

It isn’t just Schiff and Crow who have flat-out said the Democrat party is trying to interfere and rig the 2020 presidential election.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who promoted Schiff and Crow to the ranks of impeachment managers, admitted recently that her party is pursuing the unpopular sham because “civilization, as we know it today, is at stake in the next election.”

Rep. Al Green, the Texas Democrat who believes articles of impeachment should address slavery, has said he’s “concerned if we don’t impeach this president, he will get re-elected.”

And Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York socialist and darling of the Democrat party, got this whole process rolling by warning: “We don’t have the luxury of time. Yes, this is an emergency.”

Senator Ted Cruz explained exactly why they are doing this.

“This is a partisan sham because they’re mad – the House Democrats – are mad at the American people for electing President Trump,” he said.

Now, they’re telling you exactly that, and they’re saying it to your face.

The post Dem Impeachment Manager Echoes Adam Schiff – This is About the Election appeared first on The Political Insider.

Tuesday in impeachment: Trump’s defense team closes out opening arguments

Posted on by Laura Clawson

Donald Trump’s impeachment defense team spent Monday strenuously ignoring the news that there is a firsthand witness willing to testify under subpoena that Trump linked military aid to Ukraine to the country helping him out with some election interference. Expect more of the same on Tuesday, when the defense’s opening arguments resume at 1 PM ET.

This is the final day of defense arguments, and in theory it could stretch into the early hours of Wednesday, since Trump’s lawyers haven’t even used half of their 24 hours. But it’s generally expected that they won’t use all their time. This makes sense: Since they’re not spending meaningful time on the facts or evidence, every hour of defense arguments is another hour of repetition of the same lies and conspiracy theories and spurious constitutional claims, with the occasional detour into “They’re tying themselves to Rudy Giuliani? Really?”

After opening arguments from both sides have ended—likely starting Wednesday—the senators will have a chance to submit written questions to be read by Chief Justice John Roberts. The question-and-answer period will last 16 hours.

The big question for the week is whether Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will then be able to rush an acquittal, or whether four or more Republican senators will decide that former national security adviser John Bolton’s eyewitness account of Trump’s Ukraine extortion is worth hearing—or at least that the political downside of such an extreme cover-up is too big to risk. But first we have to get through the rest of these mendacious opening arguments.

Sen. Martha McSally defends insulting a reporter with rambling, self-satisfied op-ed

Posted on by Hunter

Republican Sen. Martha McSally will never be mistaken for a person of integrity. She is, however, the sort of Trumpian person who likes to invent insults and fundraise off them by selling overpriced T-shirts emblazoned with them. McSally responded to a CNN reporter's question about whether she would consider new evidence in the impeachment trial of Donald Trump by calling the reporter a "liberal hack," saying, "I'm not talking to you," and walking away. Within hours, McSally's website sported a new "You're a liberal hack" T-shirt as fundraising gimmick. Bask, America, in the glow of the world's greatest deliberative body and its assembled merchandise.

All of that looked boorish, unnecessary, and more than a little cowardly; McSally also faced calls to apologize to the reporter who had asked a perfectly legitimate question of a public official. So now McSally's got a long, rambling, extremely whining op-ed out, complaining that she, of course, is the real victim here.

Again, let's keep in mind that the chief justice of the United States recently called the Senate by its preferred porn name, World's Greatest Deliberative Body, as we try to glean any meaningful content from this piece other than self-satisfied grunting noises.

McSally writes, "Predictably, his entire industry melted down. How dare someone – a woman, perhaps? – ‘lash out’ at a reporter like that! In a hallway, no less! The pearl-clutching was more over-the-top than I could have ever imagined."

All right, that is about enough of that. There's also quite a bit of McSally reminding the world that she is a veteran, saying that, "as a combat veteran who survived situations where foggy communications could get people killed, I don't have time for the language games they expect you to play in Washington."

Right, because insulting reporters and refusing to answer the most fundamental questions about the single biggest issue and story in the country today is saving people from "getting killed." So brave. So, so very brave.

The rest of piece seems to be an entirely contentless stream-of-consciousness bashing of the "liberal media" and "DNC talking points," and by God I flew 325 combat hours so I should be able to insult all the reporters I want to because they are "liars" and this is, yes, pretty much what Donald Trump himself would write if he did not have bone spurs and if he allowed ANYONE AROUND HIM to edit his burping thoughts into complete sentences.

But the central message is unmistakable: The press is "liberal"; therefore the free press is an enemy, and attacks on it are therefore not only justified but required of all Good Republicans as we trundle toward the great Republican future in which no reporters will ask questions that our lawmakers do not like. And you can support this new Republican future by buying our favorite insults printed on T-shirts.

Is Trump’s legal defense resonating with Republican senators?

Posted on by PBS NewsHour - Politics
President Trump's legal team has begun its defense in his Senate impeachment trial. The central argument: Trump did nothing wrong, and the summary of his call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky shows no evidence of conditioning military aid on investigations. But John Bolton reportedly says that did occur. Amna Nawaz reports and Lisa Desjardins and Yamiche Alcindor join Judy Woodruff.

It’s Chief Justice Roberts’ chance to be apolitical and impartial: Democrats need to make him do it

Posted on by Joan McCarter

Senate Republicans are making it very clear: the John Bolton bombshell that Donald Trump personally told him he was withholding congressionally mandated funds for Ukraine for his own political gain is nothing new. They knew it all already and it doesn't make a difference, so what? So there's no reason at all they need to hear directly from Bolton.

There's one person though, that shouldn't be thinking "so what": Chief Justice John Roberts. After all, he is the chief justice of the United States. He is supposed to be the one guy ultimately in charge of the rule of law for the whole land. He, as law professors Neal K. Katyal and Joshua A. Geltzer and former Republican Rep. Mickey Edwards argue, is the one person who could go over the Republicans' heads and order subpoenas from Bolton or any other witness who should testify. That's if Roberts doesn't want to go down in history as the chief justice who presided over the biggest sham of an impeachment trial for the most criminal president the nation's ever had. House impeachment managers need to put him to that test.

It's pretty simple. The House managers, Rep. Adam Schiff and team, can ask Roberts to issue the subpoenas. The lawyers explain that the impeachment rules in effect "specifically provide for the subpoenas of witnesses, going so far in Rule XXIV as to outline the specific language a subpoena must use—the 'form of subpoena to be issued on the application of the managers of the impeachment, or of the party impeached, or of his counsel.'" Furthermore, the rules provide that "the chief justice, as presiding officer, has the 'power to make and issue, by himself,' subpoenas." It would take a two-thirds vote of the Senate to overturn his decision to subpoena witnesses or documents. Republicans don't have 67 votes.

So far, Roberts has simply sat in the presiding chair and done nothing except to respond to Susan Collins' vapors and tell both sides to be nice to each other. That's just the way he wants it, undoubtedly. But he has a job, one the framers of the Constitution laid out clearly.

"The framers' wisdom in giving this responsibility to a member of the judiciary expected to be apolitical and impartial has never been clearer," write Katyal, Geltzer, and Edwards. The House managers need to make him do that job.

GOP Senators Plan for Acquittal After Witness Vote – Impeachment End Game in Sight

Posted on by Guest Author

If the vote to call witnesses fails, Senate GOP leaders might pursue a quick end to the ongoing impeachment trial.

Vote to Acquit Could Come as Early as Friday

Politico reports that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is mulling over using procedural moves to end debate and vote for Trump’s acquittal. It is expected that the vote to call witnesses will fail and Democrats will be unable to introduce more evidence. If that happens, Senator John Barrasso says the vote to acquit could come as early as Friday.

“The question is going to come to ‘Have you heard enough to make a decision or do you want witnesses?’ If people say, ‘We’re ready to vote,’ we’re going to vote right then,” said Barrasso.

RELATED: Report: Mitch McConnell Plans to Acquit Trump on Impeachment Charges

Politico reports, “Barrasso suggested that an acquittal vote could take place as soon as Friday — if senators don’t agree to subpoena additional witnesses or documentary evidence. Under the organizing resolution that controls the proceedings, Democrats could offer additional motions if the Senate votes down deposing additional witnesses — including former national security adviser John Bolton — but Republicans could then move to shut down debate and call for an up-or-down vote on acquittal.”

“We would,” said Sen. Joni Ernst of the quick acquittal vote. “If it fails, no more witnesses, no more documents. Then we would, I would think … I would imagine that then we would roll into that.”

If Democrats were to try to stall, it would be seen as a partisan attempt to hurt Trump. Democrats might want to go ahead and end this fiasco and risk doing any further damage to their party as the 2020 election nears.

RELATED: After Their Rush to Judgment, Democrats Now Seek to Stall on Impeachment

Please, Just Stop Already

Senate Democrats are already trying to figure out how to outwit McConnell if Republicans pursue this strategy.

“So the rules would have the vote on the articles come up immediately after a failed vote on witnesses. I think we are exploring what our options would be if we lost that witness vote,” said Sen. Chris Murphy according to Politico. “McConnell I would imagine would go straight [to the acquittal vote]. The rules don’t provide for anything.”

After Trump’s lawyer’s presentation, there are supposed to be 16 hours of questions to the House managers that will no doubt be highly scripted by both sides.

And so on, and so on. Can we just end this already?

The post GOP Senators Plan for Acquittal After Witness Vote – Impeachment End Game in Sight appeared first on The Political Insider.