Tag: Mitch McConnell

Every Republican for himself: Mitch McConnell told senators in closed-door meeting to come up with their own Trump defense

AlterNet logoAccording to a report at HuffPost, Republican lawmakers, left without guidance by the White House on how to push back at the House impeachment hearings being conducted by the Democratic-led House, are being forced to come up with their own defense of embattled President Donald Trump.

With reports that the White House is the scene of a pitched battle over a which plan to use to fight the Democrats, Senate Republicans are floundering when confronted by the press on how they feel about impeachment hearings that could lead to them to have to vote on whether to force Trump from office.

According to the report, “Republicans have no unified argument in the impeachment inquiry of Donald Trump, in large part because they can’t agree on how best to defend the president — or for some, if they should.”

View the complete the complete November 10 article by Tom Boggioni from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

Trump judicial pick blows off Democrats’ questions on Ukraine

An appeals court nominee has ignored a request from Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, but still advances

An appeals court nominee has ignored a request from Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee to say whether he played a role in White House events now at the heart of the accelerating House impeachment probe — and Republicans haven’t let that halt his move through the confirmation process.

The committee voted 12-10 along party lines Thursday to advance the nomination of Steven Menashi, who works in the White House counsel’s office. President Donald Trump picked him for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit based in New York.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., filed cloture on the nomination Thursday afternoon. That move lines up a vote on Menashi early next week, just as the House holds its first public impeachment hearings focused on the events surrounding Trump’s controversial July 25 call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

View the complete November 7 article by Todd Ruger on The Roll Call website here.

Trump, GOP senators throw themselves a party to celebrate judicial overhaul

Mitch McConnell to POTUS: ‘Boy, you didn’t blow it. Neil Gorsuch is an all-star’

President Donald Trump and Republican senators took a victory lap  Wednesday to celebrate their push to put nearly 150 of their picks on federal benches from coast to coast.

“It starts with Mitch — because you never gave me a call and said, ‘Maybe we can do it an easier way,’” Trump said during a lively ceremony in the White House’s ornate East Room.

He was referring to using most of the Senate’s floor time to move judicial nominees, and not backing down when some of those individuals received pushback from Democrats — and even some Republicans.

View the complete November 6 article by John T. Bennett on The Roll Call website here.

U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips: Congress is working to protect against election meddling

But those bills are sitting on Sen. Mitch McConnell’s desk collecting dust.

Recently, I sat in a crowded committee room on Capitol Hill and asked the witness before me a simple question: “Congress has released a trove of political ads on Facebook bought by agents acting on behalf of foreign governments. Some of those ads were even paid for in Russian rubles, is that correct?”

The answer from Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO, was, “Congressman, that is correct.”

While we deal in nuance frequently in public policy, on this there is no doubt: Our adversaries have found a way to interfere in our elections by discouraging, dividing, and disinforming the American electorate. A unanimous report from our nation’s intelligence community, the findings of Independent Special Counsel Robert Mueller, a bipartisan Senate Intelligence panel, and now the testimony of the CEO of one of the world’s most influential communication platforms have made that abundantly clear.

View the complete November 4 commentary by Rep. Phillips on The Star Tribune website here.

Mitch McConnell warns Trump to stop attacking GOP senators who will decide his fate

Trump called Mitt Romney a “pompous ass.” Mitch reminded him Romney will be a juror in Trump’s impeachment trial

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell warned President Donald Trump to stop attacking Republican senators who will soon consider his fate at an impeachment trial, Politico reports.

McConnell met with Trump one-on-one at the White House last week and warned Trump to stop attacking senators like Mitt Romney, R-Utah, whom the president called a “pompous ass” after Romney said that Trump’s demand for Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden was “wrong and appalling.”

Attacking Romney was a “big mistake,” a former Senate aide told Politico, adding that the Utah senator will still be around in the chamber for at least another five years. “You can’t go guns blazing on the Senate.”

View the complete November 1 article by Igor Derysh on the Salon website here.

House Dems mourn bills buried in McConnell’s ‘legislative graveyard’

Halloween-timed display tweaks Senate leader for boasts of killing House bills

House Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries is stepping up his office’s Halloween decorations while expressing his frustration with a stalled agenda he blames on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Throughout the week, the chairman’s office has been displaying a “legislative graveyard,” featuring decorative tombstones inscribed with bills that have passed the House, but have yet to move in the Republican-controlled Senate.

The tombstones represent more than a dozen bills, including ones addressing climate change, pensions and gun purchase background checks.

View the complete October 31 article by Clyde McGrady on The Roll Call website here.

After McConnell advice, Trump lays off GOP senators on impeachment

The president’s team is betting that the cult of his personality and the power of his prolific Twitter feed will be enough to keep senators on his side.

Sitting inside the White House, Mitch McConnell gave Donald Trump some straightforward advice: Stop attacking senators — including Mitt Romney — who likely will soon judge your fate in an impeachment trial.

The one-on-one meeting last week between the Senate majority leader and the president covered several weighty issues including Syria, according to two people familiar with the conversation. But like everything these days when it comes to Trump, impeachment was high on the president’s mind.

And in this case, Trump appears to have listened to the man in the Senate who controls the future of his presidency.

View the complete October 30 article by Burgess Everett and Nancy Cook on the Politico website here.

McConnell to Republicans: Defend Trump on process

NOTE: Lawyers have a saying that if you have no facts to support your case, you attack process. We’re seeing that now with the GOP Senate.

The Hill logoSenate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is urging Republicans to focus on Democrats and their tactics in seeking to mount an effective defense of President Trump on impeachment.

One GOP lawmaker, summing up McConnell’s message to Republicans at a private lunch meeting Tuesday, quoted the GOP leader as saying, “This is going to be about process.”

McConnell recognizes that some members of his conference are uncomfortable defending Trump on charges his administration linked aid to Ukraine to that country’s government running politically motivated investigations meant to help the White House.

View the complete October 23 article by Alexander Bolton on The Hill website here.

McConnell Blames Trump’s Syria Disaster On…Obama

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post criticizing Donald Trump’s withdrawal of U.S. troops from northern Syria.

But there’s something distinctly missing from the piece: the words “Donald” and “Trump.”

Unbelievably, however, another name does appear in the piece: former President Barack Obama.

View the complete October 19 article by Emily Singer on the National Memo website here.

Trump advisers and DOJ enraged by Mulvaney remarks; Pelosi puts no timetable on impeachment inquiry

Washington Post logoWhite House and Justice Department officials were angered Thursday after a combative news briefing by acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney in which he insisted President Trump did nothing inappropriate, but seemed to confirm that Trump’s dealings with Ukraine amounted to a quid pro quo.

Mulvaney later said that his comments were misconstrued and that no conditions were put on releasing military aid to Ukraine.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) refused to put a timeline on the impeachment process, declining to say whether she agrees with the assessment of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) that the House would vote by Thanksgiving, setting up a Senate trial late this year.

View the complete October 17 article by Colby Itkowitz, Felicia Sonmez and John Wagner on The Washington Post website here.