Tag: Senate GOP

Like McCain before him, Romney rebukes President Trump

2008 and 2012 presidential nominees have been most forceful GOP critics in the Senate

The greatest rebukes of Donald Trump’s presidency from the Republican side of the aisle have come from the two previous standard-bearers for the GOP.

When Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, a freshman senator best known for being the 2012 Republican nominee for president, announced Wednesday on the Senate floor that he would vote to convict Trump of abuse of power, it evoked memories of the time when the late Arizona Sen. John McCain voted in 2017 to thwart the president’s desired repeal of the 2010 health care law.

McCain, a hero of the Vietnam War and the 2008 Republican nominee for president, cast his vote with a dramatic thumbs-down that the current occupant of the Oval Office has not forgotten. Trump has continued to allude to the vote, which doomed GOP plans to nix the health care law, particularly during campaign rallies. Continue reading.

Out of the impeachment, into the fallout

The trial ended Wednesday with acquittal, but investigations and court fights continue

The acquittal of President Donald Trump ended his impeachment trial Wednesday the way it always appeared it would, but the battle’s lasting fallout is just beginning for congressional power, the nation’s political landscape and ongoing legal fights between Trump and House Democrats.

The Senate voted 48-52 to reject the House’s abuse of power charge and 47-53 to reject the obstruction of Congress charge.

The trial’s ultimate result was never seriously in doubt, since at least 20 Republicans would have needed to cross Trump and party lines to get the supermajority of 67 votes needed to convict him for abuse of power or obstruction of Congress. Most of the drama ended with a 49-51 vote last week to reject a motion to subpoena more witnesses and documents. Continue reading.

End of impeachment trial to leave deep scars in Senate

The Hill logoThe bruising battle over President Trump’s impeachment will come to an end Wednesday afternoon, and senators who have clashed for weeks over trial procedures say it will leave deep scars that may take months to heal.

Former President Clinton’s 1999 impeachment trial was an intensely divisive affair, but senators say Trump’s trial has set a new standard for partisan warfare in a chamber once known for its collegiality.

The Senate is scheduled to vote at 4 p.m. Wednesday on two articles of impeachment, with every Republican expected to vote for acquittal. However, the votes of three centrist Democrats — Sens. Joe Manchin (W.Va.), Doug Jones (Ala.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) — remain up in the air. Continue reading.

Beyond the Partisan Fight, a Wealth of Evidence About Trump and Ukraine

New York Times logoRegardless of the Senate’s verdict, the impeachment inquiry, President Trump’s own words and other revelations yield a narrative establishing his involvement in the pressure campaign.

As the Senate moved toward acquitting President Trump on Wednesday, even some Republicans stopped trying to defend his actions or dispute the evidence, focusing instead on the idea that his conduct did not deserve removal from office, especially in an election year.

Mr. Trump’s “behavior was shameful and wrong,” and “his personal interests do not take precedence over those of this great nation,” Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, said on Monday. She went on to declare that she would nonetheless vote to acquit. Continue reading.

Senate votes to acquit Trump on articles of impeachment

The Hill logoThe Senate on Wednesday voted to acquit President Trump on impeachment charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress over his dealings with Ukraine, marking the end of the months-long saga that has dominated Washington.

Senators voted 48-52 on abuse of power and 47-53 on obstruction, falling well short of the two-thirds requirement for convicting Trump and removing him office.

But, in a blow to Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell‘s (R-Ky.) efforts to keep Republicans unified, Sen. Mitt Romney (Utah), the party’s 2012 presidential nominee, announced less than two hours before the vote that he would vote to convict Trump on the abuse of power charge, while acquitting him on the second article.  Continue reading.

Statement on the Acquittal of President Donald Trump

SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA – Yesterday, DFL Chairman Ken Martin released the following statement in response to the acquittal of President Donald Trump:

“This is a deeply tragic day for our country, our Constitution and our Republic. Senate Republicans have chosen corruption over justice, party over country, and the shameless pursuit of power over their oaths to protect and defend our Constitution.

“Today, Republicans have emblazoned their names into a disgraceful chapter of our history books. Through their acquittal votes, Republicans normalized foreign intervention in our elections and set a precedent that politicians can lie to the American people, abuse the power of their offices, obstruct justice, and get away with it.”

 

These 14 GOP Senators Supported Clinton’s Removal, But Not Trump’s

Donald Trump is expected to to be acquitted in his Senate impeachment trial on Wednesday, with most Republicans predicted to vote in his favor.

Among those standing steadfast with Trump are 14 current GOP senators who voted to impeach or remove President Clinton from office in the late 1990s. Many of those senators have since shifted their reasoning on why a president can’t  be removed from office.

Seven Republican senators serving today voted in 1999 to remove Clinton from office: Sens. Mike Crapo of Idaho, Mike Enzi of Wyoming, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Pat Roberts of Kansas, and Richard Shelby of Alabama. Continue reading.

How John Bolton can lawfully break his silence — and speak out against Trump: legal experts

AlterNet logoLast week during President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, Senate Republicans closed the door on the possibility of featuring former National Security Adviser John Bolton or anyone else as a witness: only two Republicans, Utah Sen. Mitt Romney and Maine Sen. Susan Collins, voted in favor of featuring witnesses during the trial. But Democrats are still determined to hear what Bolton has to say in his forthcoming book, “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir” (due out March 17). And legal experts Jameel Jaffer and Ramya Krishnan, in an article for Law & Crime, examine some possible ways in which Bolton can lawfully speak out on Ukraine.

“The fact that Bolton’s book is in the hands of the censors does not mean that Bolton could not share his story with the public now if he wanted to,” explain Jaffer (former deputy legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU) and Krishnan (a staff attorney at Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute).

One of the things the Trump White House has been doing in the hope of silencing Bolton is claiming that they are worried about him possibly revealing classified information. But according to Jaffer and Krishnan, there are ways around that. Continue reading.

Senate Republicans defend decision to bar new evidence as Trump acquittal vote nears

Washington Post logoSenate Republicans on Sunday acknowledged that President Trump was wrong to pressure Ukraine for his own political benefit, even as they defended their decision to prohibit new evidence in his impeachment trial while pressing ahead with the president’s all-but-certain acquittal.

The remarks from key Republicans — including Sens. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.) and Joni Ernst (Iowa) — came after the Trump administration revealed the existence of emails that could shed light on the president’s reasons for withholding military aid to Ukraine.

“I’m going to vote to acquit,” Alexander said in an interview on NBC News’s “Meet the Press.” “I’m very concerned about any action that we could take that would establish a perpetual impeachment in the House of Representatives whenever the House was a different party than the president. That would immobilize the Senate.” Continue reading.

The closing arguments in Trump’s Senate trial, in 5 minutes

Washington Post logoThis week, the impeachment trial of President Trump ends — probably in his acquittal by the Senate on Wednesday.

That means Trump will be just the third president in American history to be impeached by the House of Representatives, but he can still go on being president and running for reelection.

It’s tough to tell how having the asterisk of impeachment will affect his reelection bid because Democratic voters largely support his impeachment, while Republicans largely oppose it, and independents are split. In other words, something as remarkable as impeaching a president in an election year polls predictably for the partisan era we’re in. Continue reading.