Tag: GOP senate

GOP, Trump look to smother impeachment inquiry

The Hill logoRepublicans in Congress are coalescing around a slow-down strategy designed to stifle the Democrats’ impeachment investigation into President Trump.

It’s a strategy that mimics the administration’s largely successful efforts to hamper investigations into Trump’s role in Russia’s 2016 election interference. The White House refused requests for disputed information in those probes, and the battles are now bogged down in the courts.

Republicans are now pulling a page from that playbook in hopes of smothering the impeachment inquiry arising from Trump’s communications with Ukraine before it gains any more steam.

View the complete October 9 article by Mike Lillis on The Hill website here.

Anxious GOP treads carefully with Trump defense

The Hill logoRank-and-file Republicans are treading carefully when it comes to speaking out about the escalating controversy surrounding President Trump‘s entreaties that foreign governments investigate former Vice President Joe Biden.

Republicans don’t want to get on the bad side of Trump, who is a powerhouse within the party. But they recognize a danger in speaking out too forcefully in defense of the president as details about Trump and his administration’s actions slowly trickle out.

“They’re handling [it] correctly,” one former GOP lawmaker told The Hill, referring to the cautious approach.

View the complete October 7 article by Juliegrace Brufke on The Hill website here.

Senate Democrat blasts Republicans’ ‘blind partisan loyalty’ to Trump

Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy slammed Republicans on Sunday, accusing them of being more loyal to President Donald Trump than the country amid a House impeachment inquiry centered on the commander in chief‘s efforts to push Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son.

“This entire country should be scared that at a moment when we need patriots, what we are getting is blind partisan loyalty,” Murphy said in an interview on “Meet the Press.”

Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, followed Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who made waves last week when he said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that the top U.S. diplomat to the European Union told him in August that nearly $400 million in aid to Ukraine was being held up in exchange for Kiev probing U.S. elections, a charge Trump later denied in a phone call with the senator.

View the complete October 6 article by Connor O’Brien on the Politico website here.

These 2 Republican senators are pushing AG Barr for Ukraine investigation on Democrats

AlterNet logoAlthough a few Republicans in the U.S. Senate have said that they find the Ukraine scandal troubling — including Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah and Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska — others have been rallying to President Donald Trump’s defense. And two GOP senators are responding to the scandal by calling for an investigation of Democratic actions in Ukraine during the 2016 presidential race.

Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, according to the Washington Times, are asking Attorney General William Barr and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate claims that Democrats, in 2016, colluded with the Ukrainian government to undermine Trump’s presidential campaign. And Grassley and Johnson are alleging that Democratic consultant Alexandra Chalupa worked with the Ukrainian government to obtain Trump-related opposition research.

In a letter to Barr, Grassley and Johnson wrote, “Ukrainian efforts abetted by a U.S. political party to interfere in the 2016 election should not be ignored. Such allegations of corruption deserve due scrutiny, and the American people have a right to know when foreign forces attempted to undermine our Democrat processes.”

View the September 30 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.

As Trump Complains Democrats ‘Do Nothing,’ McConnell Holds Up 400 Bills

Donald Trump, lashing out over the continued revelations about his attempts to solicit foreign election help, slammed the Democrats on Friday as a “do nothing” party for their decision to move forward on impeachment.

“The Democrats are now to be known as the DO NOTHING PARTY!” he wrote.

At almost the precise moment Trump made those comments, Democrats were holding a press conference to highlight some of their legislative accomplishments so far this year.

View the complete September 28 article by Oliver Willis on the National Memo website here.

Republicans might oppose impeachment, but do they condone what Trump did?

Washington Post logoFor most of the time President Trump has been in office, Republican elected officials have chosen to look away or down during difficult moments. They have preferred silence over speaking out, whether out of a fear of political retaliation or a calculation that the value of policies he and they are pursuing outweigh any damage brought about by his behavior.

The revelations of the past two weeks put Republicans in new and far more uncomfortable territory, but little has changed so far in their posture toward the president. They are doing all they can to keep their heads down, showing once again the degree to which the president has cowed the Grand Old Party.

First it was the reports by the media, starting with The Washington Post and then by others, about the existence of a whistleblower’s complaint charging Trump with using his office to ask a foreign leader to attack a political rival.

View the complete September 28 article by Dan Blaz on The Washington Post website here.

Cracks emerge among Senate Republicans over Trump urging Ukrainian leader to investigate Biden

Washington Post logoSeveral Senate Republicans were privately stunned Wednesday and questioned the White House’s judgment after it released a rough transcript of President Trump’s call with the Ukraine president that showed Trump offering the help of the U.S. attorney general to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.

One Senate Republican, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly, said the transcript’s release was a “huge mistake” that the GOP now has to confront and defend — while the party argues at the same time that House Democrats are overreaching with their impeachment inquiry of Trump.

Three other GOP senators complained privately in discussions with The Washington Post that the White House erred by releasing the transcript, arguing that it sets a precedent for future presidents about disclosure of calls with foreign leaders and could be seen as a concession to Democrats.

View the complete September 25 article by Robert Costa on The Washington Post website here.

This is rare’: Every Republican senator just joined the Democrats to stand up to Trump

AlterNet logoSenate Republicans on Tuesday were united in demanding President Donald Trump’s administration turn over the whistleblower report as required by law.

“The Senate has *unanimously* agreed to Schumer’s resolution calling for the whistleblower complaint to be turned over the intelligence committees immediately,” Bloomberg’s Steven Dennis reported Tuesday.

“That’s every Senate Republican plus every Democrat now via unanimous consent agreeing to call on the Trump administration to cough up the whistleblower complaint, not just the phone call transcript,” he noted.

View the complete September 24 article by David Badash on the New Civil Rights Movement website here.

Senate GOP vows to quash impeachment articles

The Hill logoSenate Republicans are vowing to quickly quash any articles of impeachment that pass the House and warn that Democrats will feel a political backlash if they go forward and impeach President Trump.

Republican senators say there are no grounds to impeach Trump and are daring Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to embark on what they dismiss as a fool’s errand that will turn off swing voters.

“My response to them is go hard or go home,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over impeachment.  “If you want to impeach him, stop talking. Do it. Do it. Go to Amazon, buy a spine and do it. And let’s get after it.”

View the complete September 24 article by Alexander Bolton on The Hill website here.

Senate Confirms Inexperienced Trump Donor As UAE Ambassador

Since it first received diplomatic recognition in 1972, every United States ambassador to the United Arab Emirates has been a career diplomat — until now.

After nearly an 18-month delay, on Tuesday the Senate confirmed Donald Trump’s nominee — wealthy businessman and GOP megadonor John Rakolta, Jr. — to be the nation’s chief representative in Abu Dhabi.

The confirmation came on a 63-30 vote, after almost no discussion on the Senate floor. A handful of Senate Democrats and independent Sen. Angus King of Maine joined with the Republican majority in support.

View the complete September 17 article by Josh Israel on the National Memo website here.