Tag: Trump impeachment

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.

Manchin calls for bipartisan censure of Trump

The Hill logoCentrist Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) on Monday urged the Senate to censure President Trump for holding up military aid to Ukraine in order to spur an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden, predicting a formal reprimand could pick up bipartisan support.

“I do believe a bipartisan majority of this body would vote to censure President Trump for his actions in this matter. Censure would allow this body to unite across party lines, and as an equal branch of government to formally denounce the president’s actions and hold him accountable,” Manchin said in a speech on the Senate floor.

Manchin’s proposal has received little traction among Senate Republicans who control the schedule, but it could gain the support of a handful of Republicans who have expressed concern over Trump’s actions, including Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Mitt Romney (Utah) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska). Continue reading.

 

‘A massive historical story’: Trump’s impending acquittal could have profound ramifications for future presidents

Washington Post logoThe evidence of President Trump’s actions to pressure Ukraine was never in serious dispute. After a systematic presentation of the facts of the case, even some Senate Republicans concluded that what he did was wrong.

But neither was the verdict of Trump’s impeachment trial ever in doubt. The Senate’s jurors are scheduled to etch an almost-certain acquittal into the historical record on Wednesday.

The impending judgment that the president’s actions do not warrant his removal from office serves as a testament to Washington’s extraordinary partisan divide and to Trump’s uncontested hold on the Republican base. The expected acquittal also has profound and long-term ramifications for America’s institutions and the balance of power between the executive and legislative branches, according to numerous historians and legal experts. Continue reading.

Schiff: Senators who fail to convict Trump will not be ‘off the hook’

“I still think it’s enormously important that the president was impeached.”

House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff said on Sunday senators voting to keep President Donald Trump in office will not be “off the hook,” as Democrats look ahead to the president’s likely acquittal in the impeachment trial.

“I’m not letting the senators off the hook. We’re still going to go into to the Senate this week and make the case why this president needs to be removed,” Schiff said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “It will be up to the senators to make that final judgment, and the senators will be held accountable for it.”

Although the president will most likely remain in office, the lead House impeachment manager said, “I still think it’s enormously important that the president was impeached.” Continue reading.

Pelosi says it was ‘sad’ to see McConnell ‘humiliate’ Chief Justice Roberts while presiding over witness vote

The Hill logoHouse Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said it was “sad” to see Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) “humiliate” Chief Justice John Roberts in President Trump’s impeachment trial by voting against any additional witness testimony.

“It is a sad day for America to see Senator McConnell humiliate the Chief Justice of the United States into presiding over a vote which rejected our nation’s judicial norms, precedents and institutions which uphold the Constitution and the rule of law,” Pelosi tweeted Saturday.

Senate Republicans on Friday voted 51-49 against a resolution that would have allowed witnesses to testify and additional documents to be introduced in the trial. Continue reading.

 

Fox News judge comes out swinging against Senators who vote to block evidence in Trump’s trial

AlterNet logoJudge Andrew Napolitano, a Fox News contributor and frequent critic of President Donald Trump, wrote an editorial Thursday, which asked Republican senators who refuse to call witnesses for Trump’s impeachment trial the following: “How can the Senate be faithful to the Constitution if it suppresses the truth?”

After reviewing the history of the separation of powers established in the U.S. Constitution, Napolitano wrote that “in the case of impeachment of the president, the Constitution gives ‘sole power’ to the House of Representatives. In the case of an impeachment trial, the Constitution gives exclusivity to the Senate. There is no place for presidential resistance or judicial interference, so long as the House and Senate arguably follow the Constitution.”

The president was impeached by the House of Representatives for valid reasons, in the view of the Fox News judge. Continue reading.