Tag: Trump impeachment

Kamala Harris: Will McConnell Let the Senate Hold a Fair Impeachment Trial?

New York Times logoEvery one of my colleagues has an obligation to pursue the truth, regardless of the politics.

On Wednesday, the House of Representatives voted to impeach President Trump. That means that sometime early in the new year, I will take an oath on the Senate floor to uphold the Constitution, review evidence and follow the facts wherever they lead, regardless of party or ideology. Every one of my colleagues will be required to do the same.

As a former prosecutor, I understand the importance of holding powerful people accountable. I know that every trial requires fairness and truth. Having worked my whole life serving the people, I know that any trial that abandons the pursuit of truth cannot be considered fair or just.

But the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, appears more interested in covering up the president’s misconduct than in pursuing truth and fairness. He is already trying to limit the impeachment trial by preventing witnesses from testifying, and he has all but announced a verdict. In doing so, he showed the American people that he has no intention of honoring his oath. Continue reading

However historic, impeachment is but a way station in the struggle over Trump’s presidency

Washington Post logoThe impeachment of a president is a rare moment in the history of the country, and so Wednesday’s vote in the House puts President Trump into the annals of the nation in the most ignominious of ways. The stain of the House action on his biography and legacy, whatever the final resolution in the Senate, is now part of his permanent record.

But in the annals of Trump’s presidency, Wednesday’s deliberations in the House reflected nothing particularly extraordinary. Split sharply along party lines, with only the barest of defections among the Democrats and none among Republicans, the people’s House became the nation in miniature, a people torn over the conduct of a president who has defied political odds and broken the rules of politics — and who is braced for more to come.

The word “history” can be an overused term about matters of the day, tossed around casually and often without good reason. That cannot be said about impeachment, which was included in the Constitution by the framers as an ultimate remedy for the legislative branch to check the power of the president. Trump became only the fourth president to face articles of impeachment and the third to see the House approve those articles. It is a club no president would seek to join. Continue reading

What’s behind Rep. Dean Phillips’ push to get Rep. Justin Amash on the impeachment team

Should Rep. Justin Amash, the Republican-turned-Independent from Michigan, help make the case for impeaching the President? Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnetonka said that when the idea struck him on Friday evening, he reached out to his close confidants first, and then asked more of his colleagues.

As first reported by the Washington Post on Sunday, Phillips said he’s gathered a group of around 33 Democrats to sign on to the idea that Amash help make the case for impeachment. “He would be a terrific member of the management team if indeed articles are forwarded to the Senate for a trial,” Phillips told MinnPost.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will select members to represent House’s case for impeachment during the Senate trial, called impeachment managers, that will serve as a sort of team of prosecutors. Reps. Adam Schiff of California and Jared Nadler of New York, the two committee chairs running impeachment so far, are almost certain to be chosen. But the other three slots committee could be competitive, as several members are asking for a slot, including Rep. Stacey Plaskett, a delegate to Congress representing the U.S. Virgin Islands. 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

Trump seethes over impending impeachment

The Hill logoPresident Trump is facing down a historic impeachment vote Wednesday that will give him the dubious distinction of being one of just three U.S. presidents to be impeached by the House.

The president seethed Tuesday during an Oval Office meeting and sent a blistering six-page letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), calling for an end to the “impeachment fantasy” and accusing Democrats of “subverting America’s democracy.”

Trump has been defiant throughout the months-long impeachment process, refusing to cooperate with House Democrats or accept a shred of culpability for landing in his current predicament.

Impeachment and the Crack Up of the Conservative Mind

The Trump years have knocked conservatives off a high horse they’d been riding since the Reagan era.

On this day of righteous fury — the nation’s second presidential impeachment in 21 years — I have a special request.

I want to hear from someone, anyone, who meets two standards. One, this person is a supporter of Donald Trump and his Republican backers in Congress who believes the impeachment proceeding is illegitimate and unfair. Two, this person is ready in good faith to convince me that he or she would also oppose impeachment and believe the whole matter to be terribly unfair if the facts in the Ukraine matter were exactly the same in every respect but these: That Hillary Clinton was in the White House and she had asked a foreign leader to investigate her potential GOP opponent in the 2020 reelection.

Does such a person exist? I have my doubts, but my standards for the search are lenient. You do not need to convince me of the merits of your position as a matter of politics or law or constitutional theory. You only need to convince me that you genuinely believe what you are saying and can credibly defend it. It will help, for instance, if you can point to previous examples when you took positions on matters of principle that happened to conflict with your own partisan preferences. Continue reading

DFL Statement on the Impeachment of President Donald Trump

SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA – Yesterday, the United States House of Representatives voted to approve articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump. Ken Martin, Chairman of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party released the following statement in response:

“The impeachment of any sitting president is a deeply tragic event for our nation. However, through his own actions, President Donald Trump left the House of Representatives with no possible alternative.

“Donald Trump violated his oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States when he withheld military aid from an ally to force their government into interfering in a United States election by attacking one of the President’s political rivals.

“If any president is allowed to wield the power of the United States government to secure his own re-election, our nation will have taken its first major steps away from democracy and towards autocracy. It is imperative that we hold Donald Trump accountable for his brazenly unconstitutional and undemocratic actions, lest we risk normalizing such behavior.

“I applaud the United States House of Representatives for taking decisive action to stand up for the rule of law and defend our Constitution. The impeachment of President Trump brings me no joy, but it was necessary to ensure we remain a democracy where nobody is above the law.”

 

White House working to feature Trump’s House allies in impeachment trial

One idea is to allow a collection of Republicans to present a minority report and make their case on the Senate floor.

The White House is actively exploring a way to give President Donald Trump’s staunchest House allies a public role in the upcoming Senate impeachment trial, according to five sources familiar with the matter, as the president looks to mount an aggressive defense in the upper chamber.

One idea under consideration is to allow a collection of House Republicans — who would be fresh off defending Trump in the House — to present a minority report on the Ukraine affair and make their case on the Senate floor, similar to the role Democratic impeachment managers are expected to play in the trial. The idea has been under discussion for several weeks, according to one GOP member familiar with the talks.

Some of the names in the mix include Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Mark Meadows of North Carolina, two of Trump‘s closest allies, as well as Rep. John Ratcliffe of Texas, a former prosecutor who sits on both the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees.

Fact-checking President Trump’s impeachment letter to Pelosi

Washington Post logoReading President Trump’s impeachment-eve letter to the House speaker seemed very familiar to The Fact Checker. It’s like a written version of his campaign rallies, replete with false claims we have fact-checked many times before either in individual fact checks or in our database of false or misleading Trump claims.

This letter will add a couple dozen new entries to our database, but here are some of the lowlights.

“The Articles of Impeachment introduced by the House Judiciary Committee are not recognizable under any standard of Constitutional theory, interpretation, or jurisprudence. They include no crimes, no misdemeanors, and no offenses whatsoever. You have cheapened the importance of the very ugly word, impeachment!”

There’s nothing in the Constitution that says an impeachment needs to be a specific crime. Continue reading

Republicans Attack House Democrats on Impeachment, and Democrats Change the Subject

New York Times logoOne party is running ads about what’s happening in Congress. The other is happy to stick to health care.

For the past two months, television ads across central Virginia have sounded a lot like President Trump’s Twitter feed.

“A rigged process. A sham impeachment. No quid pro quo. But Pelosi’s witch hunt continues,” an ad from the Republican nonprofit group America First Policies cried, as images of Abigail Spanberger, who represents the region in Congress, flickered onscreen.

Like many of her fellow freshmen Democratic colleagues, Ms. Spanberger has faced a barrage of attack ads from the Republican National Committee, nonprofit groups and super PACs aligned with President Trump. Continue reading