Tag: Senate GOP

Trump holds White House ‘celebration’ for impeachment acquittal

The Hill logoPresident Trump on Thursday celebrated his impeachment acquittal during a freewheeling White House speech in which he declared vindication and denied any shred of wrongdoing having survived the most perilous stretch of his presidency.

“This is really not a news conference, it’s not a speech. It’s not anything,” Trump said to a crowd of GOP lawmakers, Cabinet officials, family members and other supporters at the East Room of the White House. “It’s just, we’re sort of, it’s a celebration because we have something that just worked out.

“It’s called total acquittal,” said Trump, who held aloft a newspaper headline declaring him cleared by the GOP-controlled Senate. Continue reading.

‘They are afraid’: Democratic senator reveals what Republicans say about Trump behind closed doors

AlterNet logoIn a new op-ed published in the New York Times on the day Donald Trump was acquitted in his impeachment trial, Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio called out his Republican colleagues for their fear of the president.

Behind closed doors, he said, GOP senators openly admit to Trump’s flaws and misconduct:

In private, many of my colleagues agree that the president is reckless and unfit. They admit his lies. And they acknowledge what he did was wrong. They know this president has done things Richard Nixon never did. And they know that more damning evidence is likely to come out.

Continue reading.

Senators try to punt their way out of trouble and Trump’s line of fire

It may look like a winning strategy today, but the election is still nine months away

OPINION — Don’t you just hate it when someone uses a sports metaphor to teach a life lesson? So do I, usually. But with the Super Bowl not a week in the rearview mirror, it would be impossible to ignore the concept of the punt — getting out of a tough situation by moving the ball as far as possible toward the opponent’s end zone.

If you’re playing against a Patrick Mahomes-led Kansas City Chiefs, you’re merely buying some time before the inevitable score. But senators using that tactic in an impeached President Donald Trump’s trial are no doubt hoping any payback comes late, or not at all.

For them, it’s a way to satisfy both their consciences and a Trump-supporting voting base. Continue reading.

President celebrates Senate acquittal at the White House, expresses no contrition and calls Democratic leaders ‘vicious and mean’

Washington Post logoPresident Trump celebrated his Senate acquittal Thursday at a White House event that stretched more than an hour, expressing no contrition and calling Democratic leaders “vicious and mean” while portraying his impeachment as the continuation of scrutiny he has faced since he announced his run for the presidency in 2015.

“We’ve been going through this now for almost three years. It was evil, it was corrupt,” he told a packed East Room crowd. Trump expressed no remorse related to the allegation that he inappropriately pressured the leader of Ukraine to investigate his political rivals, despite some Republican senators calling his actions wrong.

“This is a day of celebration because we went through hell,” he said.

GOP senators request travel documents in Hunter Biden investigation

Washington Post logoThe ink was barely dry on President Trump’s acquittal when Republican Sens. Charles E. Grassley (Iowa) and Ron Johnson (Wis.) announced they would be investigating Hunter Biden — just as Trump had wanted Ukraine to do.

In a letter sent Wednesday to the head of the Secret Service, the senators write that they are “reviewing potential conflicts of interest posed by the business activities of Hunter Biden and his associates during the Obama administration, particularly with respect to his business activities in Ukraine and China.”

Specifically, they are seeking from the Secret Service any instances when Hunter Biden traveled with protective security detail during the time his father, Joe Biden, was vice president, as well as when he flew on government planes. Continue reading.

These Republicans said they hope Trump has learned a lesson from impeachment. He said he hasn’t

Washington Post logoThe Debrief: An occasional series offering a reporter’s insights

Let the voters decide. We can speak out against his behavior. And perhaps, just maybe, President Trump has learned from this whole impeachment episode.

Senate Republicans who’ve been uncomfortable with Trump for exerting pressure on Ukraine to launch political probes — but have declined to throw him out of office for it — have come up with a number of what they say are appropriate responses to Trump’s inappropriate conduct, if not impeachment.

But their answers to the question of how to chastise Trump for his dealings with Ukraine amount to little more than a slap on the wrist, again illustrating how Republican lawmakers have struggled to grapple with a president who, in their view, has pushed the boundaries of propriety. Continue reading.

Senate Majority Agrees Trump Is Guilty — And Acquits Him Anyway

Even with no witness testimony, a majority in the 100-member U.S. Senate indicated in some way that Donald Trump acted inappropriately when he pressured Ukraine’s president to dig up dirt on his political rivals. But on Wednesday, senators voted 52 to 48 to acquit him anyway on the charge of abusing his office. The Senate also voted to acquit him 53 to 47 on the charge of obstruction.

In December, Trump became just the third president in U.S. history to be impeached by the House of Representatives. By historic numbers, the House accused him of obstruction and abuse of power.

While Trump and his Republican defenders have repeatedly claimed the impeachment was not bipartisan — ignoring that conservative Rep. Justin Amash left the GOP over his opposition to Trump and voted in favor — the vote to convict was bipartisan. Continue reading.

House managers: Trump won’t be vindicated. The Senate won’t be, either.

Washington Post logoReps. Adam Schiff (Calif.), Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.), Zoe Lofgren (Calif.), Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), Val Demings (Fla.), Sylvia Garcia (Tex.) and Jason Crow (Colo.) were the Democratic House managers in the impeachment trial of President Trump.

Over the past two weeks, we have argued the impeachment case against President Trump, presenting overwhelming evidence that he solicited foreign interference to cheat in the next election and jeopardized our national security by withholding hundreds of millions of dollars in security assistance to pressure Ukraine to do his political bidding. When the president got caught and his scheme was exposed, he tried to cover it up and obstruct Congress’s investigation in an unprecedented fashion. As the trial progressed, a growing number of Republican senators acknowledged that the House had proved the president’s serious misconduct.

Throughout the trial, new and incriminating evidence against the president came to light almost daily, and there can be no doubt that it will continue to emerge in books, in newspapers or in congressional hearings. Most important, reports of former national security adviser John Bolton’s forthcoming book only further confirm that the president illegally withheld military aid to Ukraine until Kyiv announced the sham investigations that the president sought for his political benefit. Continue reading.

Colbert Gives Senate GOP A Dire Warning Over What Trump Will Do Now

“Late Show” host reveals the only lesson the president has learned from his impeachment acquittal.

“Late Show” host Stephen Colbert warned that President Donald Trump will only be emboldened now that he’s been acquitted in his Senate impeachment trial.

“It’s official: Nothing means anything,” Colbert said. “Right is wrong. Up is down. Missouri is Kansas.”

He said asking for foreign interference in an election is the “new normal.” And he cracked that Democratic presidential candidates have “no choice” but to ask for foreign help ― and did an impression of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) asking Russia to help find the “pee-pee tape.” Continue reading.

Romney shocks GOP with vote to convict

The Hill logoSen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) shocked his fellow Republican senators and surprised much of the nation on Wednesday with a dramatic floor speech announcing he would vote to convict President Trump on the impeachment charge of abuse of power.

Romney announced his decision in a nearly empty Senate chamber just hours before the Senate voted to acquit Trump and after fellow GOP colleagues such as Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) had already announced they would not vote to convict Trump.

Just as surprising as his vote was the intensity of the 2012 Republican presidential nominee’s language. Continue reading.