Tag: McConnell sham impeachment trial

‘Emotion’ from Trump’s legal team wins presidential plaudits

The Hill logoThe American public and U.S. Senate got its first real introduction on Tuesday to Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel who has been a key player on impeachment for President Trump.

The former corporate lawyer had not been a major public face for the president until Tuesday, when he offered a passionate defense of Trump that might have even surprised his boss with its made-for-a-television audience salvos.

“Pat Cipollone is a high-quality human being. I was very impressed with Pat. He had great emotion yesterday,” Trump told reporters at a news conference in Davos. “Pat is a brilliant guy but I’ve never seen that emotion and that’s real emotion.” Continue reading.

White House lawyers shout down Democrats during late-night impeachment trial — after Trump starts tweeting

AlterNet logoPresident Donald Trump woke up and began tweeting around midnight EST during the Senate impeachment trial over the amendments over the rules. That’s when a noticeable thing changed on the Senate floor: Trump’s team started yelling.

Nearing 1 a.m. EST Tuesday morning while the president was tweeting about impeachment, his team began attacking Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) personally. They called him a liar and accused him of attacking the president and demanded an apology. After nearly 12 hours this was the first time the White House got even remotely animated after a dull defense of the president.

It wasn’t lost on those watching the late-night proceedings. You can see the comments below:

Elie Mystal

✔@ElieNYC

ahhhhhjaklsdflasjdfalkjadsf

Pat Cipollone: “President Trump is a man of his word.”
HahahahahaahahahahahahahaLOLMGhahahahaha

Oh holy crap, my office light just literally blinked out. I think I laughed the bulb out.

2,523

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How McConnell Plans To Conceal New Witnesses In Trump Trial

During the House’s impeachment inquiry, Republicans raged about the process, condemning Democrats for holding witness interviews behind closed doors and even trying to dismiss the entire investigation because of it.

Donald Trump himself said the process had “zero transparency” because of the closed-door depositions. Republicans went as far as protesting the process by storming a secure area of the Capitol where the closed-door depositions were being held, a move that compromised national security.

However, under the impeachment trial rules crafted by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, any potential impeachment witnesses would first need to be deposed behind closed doors — adopting a process the GOP attacked Democrats for using. The “Senate shall decide after deposition which witnesses shall testify, pursuant to the impeachment rules,” according to McConnell’s resolution. Continue reading.

Trump’s impeachment defense is designed to destroy guardrails on presidential power

Washington Post logoSENATE REPUBLICANS on Tuesday were laying the groundwork for a truncated trial of President Trump that would be a perversion of justice. Proposals by Democrats to obtain critical evidence were voted down. Unless several senators change their positions, votes to acquit Mr. Trump on the House’s charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress could come as soon as next week without any testimony by witnesses or review of key documents. That would be unprecedented compared with previous presidential impeachments. It would gravely damage the only mechanism the Constitution provides for checking a rogue president.

Yet the rigging of the trial process may not be the most damaging legacy of the exhibition Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) is orchestrating in full collaboration with the White House. That might flow from the brazen case being laid out by Mr. Trump’s lawyers. The defense brief they filed Monday argues that the president “did absolutely nothing wrong” when he pressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to launch investigations of Joe Biden and a Russian-promoted conspiracy theory about the 2016 election. It further contends that Mr. Trump was entirely within his rights when he refused all cooperation with the House impeachment inquiry, including rejecting subpoenas for testimony and documents. It says he cannot be impeached because he violated no law.

By asking senators to ratify those positions, Mr. Trump and his lawyers are, in effect, seeking consent for an extraordinary expansion of his powers. An acquittal vote would confirm to Mr. Trump that he is free to solicit foreign interference in the 2020 election and to withhold congressionally appropriated aid to induce such interference. It would suggest that he can press foreign leaders to launch a criminal investigation of any American citizen he designates, even in the absence of a preexisting U.S. probe, or any evidence. Continue reading.

Senate rejects subpoenaing Mulvaney to testify in impeachment trial

The Hill logoSenate Republicans rejected an effort by Democrats to call White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney to testify at the outset of the impeachment trial.

Democrats forced a vote to get language included in the resolution on the trial rules that would subpoena Mulvaney, who previously defied a subpoena to appear as part of the House impeachment inquiry.

But senators voted 53-47 along party lines to table the amendment, effectively killing it. Democrats needed four Republican senators to support their efforts to get a deal on calling Mulvaney to testify as part of the rules resolution.  Continue reading.

Senate rejects Democratic effort to subpoena acting White House chief of staff Mulvaney for testimony in Trump’s impeachment trial

Washington Post logoSenators began debate Tuesday afternoon over the rules that will guide the impeachment trial of President Trump — just the third in history of a U.S. president — focused on his conduct toward Ukraine.

The Senate rejected Democratic amendments to subpoena records from the White House, State Department, Defense Department and Office of Management and Budget related to the Ukraine probe. The White House stonewalled requests for those records by House investigators during their inquiry.

The Senate also rejected amendments to subpoena Trump administration officials, including acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney; his senior adviser, Robert Blair; and top Office of Management and Budget official Michael Duffey. Each amendment was tabled on a 53-to-47 party-line vote. Continue reading.

McConnell drops two-day limit on opening arguments

The Hill logoSenate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), in the face of strong criticism from Democrats, is backing off his proposed requirement that House impeachment managers and President Trump’s lawyers each fit their opening arguments into two-day windows.

McConnell amended his organizing resolution for Trump’s impeachment trial at the last minute to give each side three days to make their opening arguments, which can last for up to 24 hours, the same amount of time given to the prosecution and defense during the 1999 impeachment trial of President Clinton.

The GOP leader made another significant amendment to his resolution by allowing the House impeachment inquiry to be entered into the Senate’s official trial record — subject to hearsay objections — something McConnell declined to greenlight in his initial proposal. Continue reading.

We Must Hear From Witnesses

For no good reason, Mitch McConnell wants to keep this trial from having any witnesses. He’s thrown up all kinds of hurdles to prevent their testimony.

A fair trial must have witnesses. We need to hear from the multiple first-hand witnesses who have potentially critical information about Trump’s abuse of power, but were blocked by Trump from participating in the House inquiry:

JOHN BOLTON:
Trump’s former National Security Advisor John Bolton said he is willing to testify before the Senate, but Republicans refuse to let him. Continue reading “We Must Hear From Witnesses”