Tag: Moscow Mitch

Trump and McConnell just took over the nation’s most liberal court: report

AlterNet logoLost in all of the attention being paid to the impeachment of Donald Trump has been the packing the courts with conservative justices by the president with the full support of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

Worst of all, reports Politico, the Republican majority has taken over the traditionally liberal 9th Circuit, long a bastion of fending off conservative initiatives.

The report states, “The Senate confirmation of Lawrence VanDyke and Patrick Bumatay to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals this month brought to nine the number of appointments President Donald Trump has made to the 29-member bench that serves as the last stop for nearly all legal complaints lodged in nine Western states. Democratic-appointed judges now hold a three-seat majority, compared with 11 at the start of Trump’s presidency.”

Continue reading

Nancy Pelosi delivers brutal takedown after McConnell screed: ‘Frankly, I don’t care what the Republicans say’

AlterNet logoHouse Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said on Thursday that she would name managers to take the impeachment of president Donald Trump to the Senate after Republicans set the ground rules for a trial.

In a rant on the Senate floor earlier on Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) accused Democrats of undermining the Constitution by impeaching Trump. He gave no indication that Republicans are backing down from their threat not to allow witnesses in Trump’s Senate trial.

Pelosi kicked off her weekly press conference by observing that she and other Democrats have a “spring” in their step after the impeachment vote. Continue reading

Democratic Representative Calls on McConnell to Recuse Himself and Threatens Mistrial

Representative Jackie Speier (D., Calif.) has called on Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell to recuse himself from the impending impeachment trial over his admission that he would not be an “impartial juror” and his claim that the trial was politically motivated.

“I’m not an impartial juror,” McConnell told CNN on Tuesday. “This is a political process. There is not anything judicial about it. Impeachment is a political decision.”

Speier responded by arguing that McConnell’s statement should disqualify him from participating in the impeachment trial. Continue reading

Toxic McConnell-Schumer relationship strains impeachment talks

The Hill logoThe toxic relationship between Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) has left senators pessimistic about reaching a deal to set the rules of President Trump’s impeachment trial.

The leaders already have scars from the battles over Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court in 2018, efforts to repeal ObamaCare in 2017 and McConnell’s refusal to hold a vote on former President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court in 2016, among other controversies.

So perhaps it should not be surprising that talks on rules for the trial are off to a rocky start. Continue reading

Secretary Chao Under Scrutiny For Grants To Husband McConnell’s Home State

A Government Accountability Office (GAO) examination has raised serious concerns about the process by which Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao determined project grant recipients, finding that it did not treat all applicants with “the assurance of fairness.”

One of the beneficiaries of that process was Boone County, Kentucky — a jurisdiction represented by Chao’s husband, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Politico reported on Tuesday that a $67.4 million grant application for Boone was “initially flagged by professional staff as incomplete.” After the Department of Transportation gave Boone and a minority of the other incomplete applicants a second chance to fix their submission, Chao selected it as among the 26 grant winners from an initial pool of 258 applicants. Continue reading

Mitch McConnell’s plethora of political sins revealed in distressing profile

Mitch McConnell finally has the power he’s longed for since he was a 22-year-old intern for Sen. John Sherman, but his ruthless march to become Senate majority leader has seen him abandon almost all of his stated principles — and earned him a lot of enemies.

The Kentucky Republican has been unpopular in his home state for years, but last summer saw his approval rating plunge to 18 percent after MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough tarred and feathered him with the nickname “Moscow Mitch,” and he’s increasingly seen as “the man who sold America,” reported Rolling Stone.

“For so many years, McConnell has seemed maddeningly invincible,” wrote Bob Moser in a lengthy magazine profile. “But now, just a few years after achieving his lifelong goal of becoming Senate majority leader, it appears that every political sin the man has committed on his relentless march to power is coming back to haunt him at once.”

Continue reading

Schumer calls for testimony from Mulvaney, Bolton in proposal to GOP on parameters for Trump impeachment trial

Washington Post logoThe top Senate Democrat on Sunday called for subpoenaing several senior Trump administration officials who have yet to testify in the House’s impeachment probe as witnesses for President Trump’s likely trial — part of an opening salvo in negotiations that could determine the parameters for the Senate proceedings next month.

In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) outlined a number of procedural demands that Democrats say would make the Senate trial fair and able to be completed “within a reasonable period of time.”

That includes subpoenas issued by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. for acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney; Robert Blair, a senior adviser to Mulvaney; former national security adviser John Bolton; and Michael Duffey, a top official at the Office of Management and Budget. Mulvaney, Blair and Duffey had been subpoenaed by the House committees and defied the summons; Bolton has not been subpoenaed but indicated he would fight one in court.

Continue reading

McConnell’s impeachment collusion admission handed the Democrats a powerful new weapon to damage the president

AlterNet logoMitch McConnell’s admission on Fox News that he is working behind the scenes with the White House to stack the Senate impeachment trial gives Democrats a potent weapon against the GOP, wrote Greg Sargent and Paul Waldman in the Washington Post.

“If Democrats play their procedural cards right, they can pressure Republicans to allow for a much fairer and more open trial that could actually produce new revelations — and if they refuse, extract a political price for it,” they wrote.

“By telling Sean Hannity that the process of Trump’s trial will be set up ‘in coordination with Trump’s legal team,’ McConnell told the world he wants to rig the process to produce maximal benefit for Trump,” they explained. “But McConnell might not actually be able to do this, if he doesn’t have 51 GOP votes for it — which could be the case, if vulnerable GOP senators don’t want to go along with it. And that allows Democrats to make a public case for a much fairer and more open process — and to try to force those vulnerable GOP senators to take a stand on whether they, too, want a fair and open process.”

Continue reading

Majority Leader Admits ‘Coordinating’ With White House On Senate Trial

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell admitted Thursday night that he was “coordinating” defense strategies with the White House ahead of Donald Trump’s Senate impeachment trial.

“Everything I do during this [trial preparation], I’m coordinating with White House counsel,” McConnell told Fox News host Sean Hannity.

“There will be no difference between the president’s position and our position as to how to handle this, to the extent that we can,” he added.

Continue reading

NOTE:  We note again that the Majority Leader will be the Jury Foreman for the impeachment trail. So, the person responsible for impartial review and deliberation is coordinating with the defendant’s legal team. 

McConnell indicates he’ll let Trump’s lawyers dictate Trump’s impeachment trial

Washington Post logoAs soon as the House votes to impeach President Trump — which is likely to happen next week — it is no longer in charge of the process. The situation then goes over to the Republican-controlled Senate, where Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. will preside but the GOP otherwise can control much of the length and substance of the process.

And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is indicating he’ll endeavor to give the White House whatever kind of trial it wants.

Appearing on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show on Thursday night, McConnell made a point of saying that he would be coordinating with White House counsel Pat Cipollone every step of the way.

Continue reading