Tag: Trump impeachment

Ten senators to watch on Trump impeachment trial

The Hill logoAs the impeachment spotlight shifts to the Senate, several senators are emerging as early pivotal players as Washington gears up for President Trump’s trial. 

The rules, where a simple majority can make or break decisions, could throw a curveball into the looming procedural fights that will determine what the trial looks like. Democrats will need four GOP senators to successfully call a witness or request documents, and only three GOP senators to block a Republican motion.

A handful of senators in both parties will be under the microscope during the proceeding as the press — and leadership — look for areas where members might break ranks. Continue reading

The Senate and the public need to hear from Mulvaney and Bolton

Washington Post logoHouse Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is withholding two articles of impeachment from the Senate, pending assurance that the Republican leader of that body, Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.), will agree to a full and fair trial of the House’s charges against President Trump. Whatever else may be said about the speaker’s move, and however long her holdout lasts, it has certainly taken advantage of some inevitable holiday-season downtime to focus attention on the Senate’s role in the process. So far, that has meant much-needed discussion of Mr. McConnell’s obvious — and obviously political — intention to go through the motions of a trial on the way to an acquittal.

Now fresh reporting from the New York Times has emerged to strengthen the Democrats’ minimum condition of a real trial: The Senate must seek witness testimony from key players in Mr. Trump’s attempt to strong-arm Ukraine into announcing an investigation of his political rival, former vice president Joe Biden, using congressionally appropriated military aid and promises of a White House visit as leverage. The Times reports, based in part on previously undisclosed emails, that acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney tried to freeze the military aid on Mr. Trump’s behalf as early as June, prompting puzzlement and backlash within the administration — to the extent that Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and then-national security adviser John Bolton convened a White House meeting with Mr. Trump to urge release of the aid. Mr. Trump, apparently fixated on the idea that Ukraine had tried to defeat him in 2016, balked, asserting, contrary to Defense Department certifications, that Ukraine was hopelessly corrupt. Continue reading

WATCH: Rudy Giuliani loses it at Mar-A-Lago over impeachment question

AlterNet logoRudy Giuliani wants to turn President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial into a prosecution case against Joe Biden.

The president’s personal attorney told reporters at a New Year’s Eve party at Mar-A-Lago that he would like to do far more than simply testify at the Senate impeachment trial.

“I would testify, I would do demonstrations,” Giuliani said. “I’d give lectures, I’d give summations. Or, I’d do what I do best, I’d try the case. I’d love to try the case.” Continue reading

Impeachment Trial Looming, Chief Justice Reflects on Judicial Independence

New York Times logoChief Justice John Roberts’s year-end report on the judiciary praised civics education, but it was not hard to detect a timely subtext that appeared to be addressed to President Trump.

WASHINGTON — As Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. prepares to preside over the impeachment trial of President Trump, he issued pointed remarks on Tuesday in his year-end report on the state of the federal judiciary that seemed to be addressed, at least in part, to the president himself.

The two men have a history of friction, and Chief Justice Roberts used the normally mild report to denounce false information spread on social media and to warn against mob rule. Some passages could be read as a mission statement for the chief justice’s plans for the impeachment trial itself.

“We should reflect on our duty to judge without fear or favor, deciding each matter with humility, integrity and dispatch,” he wrote in the report. “As the new year begins, and we turn to the tasks before us, we should each resolve to do our best to maintain the public’s trust that we are faithfully discharging our solemn obligation to equal justice under law.” Continue reading

What’s Mitch McConnell’s endgame in shaping the Senate impeachment trial to benefit Trump?

Washington Post logoSenate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said he will run the Senate impeachment trial “in total coordination” with the White House, which means he’ll probably frame it in a way that benefits President Trump. When asked why, he says the answer is obvious: because everyone knows Trump’s going to be acquitted anyway by the Republican-controlled Senate, so why bother?

“We all know how this is going to end,” McConnell said on “Fox and Friends” last week.

The limited history of Senate impeachment trials — there has been only one in the modern era — doesn’t give us much insight into whether this is normal. Continue reading

Figures to watch as White House mounts impeachment defense

The Hill logoSpeculation is increasing about the defense team being assembled by the White House as President Trump stares down an impeachment trial in the GOP-controlled Senate. 

While Speaker Nancy Pelosi‘s (D-Calif.) decision to delay transmitting the articles of impeachment has created uncertainty around the contours and timing of the trial, it’s still widely expected the Senate will begin the proceedings in January.

The Trump administration has disclosed very little about its forthcoming defense apart from signaling that White House counsel Pat Cipollone will play a significant role, but the president is considering tapping others to play a part in the trial. Continue reading

Figures to watch as White House mounts impeachment defense

The Hill logoSpeculation is increasing about the defense team being assembled by the White House as President Trump stares down an impeachment trial in the GOP-controlled Senate. 

While Speaker Nancy Pelosi‘s (D-Calif.) decision to delay transmitting the articles of impeachment has created uncertainty around the contours and timing of the trial, it’s still widely expected the Senate will begin the proceedings in January.

The Trump administration has disclosed very little about its forthcoming defense apart from signaling that White House counsel Pat Cipollone will play a significant role, but the president is considering tapping others to play a part in the trial. Continue reading

Trump retweets a post naming the alleged whistleblower

Washington Post logoPresident Trump retweeted a post naming the alleged whistleblower who filed the complaint that became the catalyst for the congressional inquiry that resulted in his impeachment by the House of Representatives.

On Friday night, Trump shared a Twitter post from @surfermom77, who describes herself as “100% Trump supporter,” with his 68 million followers. That tweet prominently named the alleged whistleblower and suggested that he had committed perjury.

By Saturday morning, the post did not appear on Trump’s timeline, though it was visible to certain users and via direct link. On Saturday evening, Twitter acknowledged that a technical glitch made Trump’s retweet appear visible to some users but not others. Continue reading

Solid majority thinks Trump abused his power and should have complied with impeachment inquiry

AlterNet logoDemocrats landed on drafting just two articles of impeachment narrowly focused on Donald Trump’s Ukraine scandal for multiple reasons. But one of those factors is surely that American voters largely support the premise of both articles—abuse of power and obstruction of Congress—even if they still don’t support removing Trump from office over it.

To determine whether voters think Trump abused his powers, FiveThirtyEight went back and averaged eight high-quality polls from late September to late November testing the abuse of power question.

We found that 54 percent of Americans believe Trump either abused his power or acted in his own self-interest, while 39 percent said he had not. That’s basically in line with the share of Americans who believe Trump committed an impeachable offense, according to our own polling with Ipsos.

Continue reading

Law professor and former federal prosecutor explains why a ‘fundamentally deficient’ Senate trial will acquit Trump — but not exonerate him

AlterNet logoIn a tweet posted on December 19, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi explained why she was holding onto the two articles of impeachment that President Donald Trump has been indicted on: she was concerned that a “rogue leader of the Senate,” Mitch McConnell, had no intention of honestly evaluating the evidence against a “rogue president.” It remains to be seen how much longer Pelosi will hold onto the two articles before sending them to the U.S. Senate for a trial, but legal expert and former federal prosecutor Joyce White Vance — in a December 26 article for Time Magazine — explains why an acquittal of Trump in the Senate wouldn’t be the same as an exoneration.

“So far,” Vance writes, “Senate Majority Leader McConnell hasn’t agreed to let House Democrats put on any witnesses, and there’s no word on what, if any, other evidence will be permitted. Yes, the chief justice of the Supreme Court oversees the proceedings, but precedent in this area — most recently from the (Bill) Clinton impeachment — suggests he’ll play a very limited role, more of a custodian than a judge of the law. In any event, his decisions can be overruled by a vote of 51 Senators. The Republicans hold 53 seats in the Senate.”

McConnell has asserted that he will be coordinating with Trump during a Senate trial and that he doesn’t consider himself an “impartial juror” by any means. And Vance, who was a U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama and is now a law professor at the University of Alabama as well as a legal analyst for MSNBC and NBC News, likens this to a defendant coordinating with the foreman of a jury. Continue reading