Tag: Trump impeachment

‘A permanent asterisk’: Acquittal at hand, Democrats sow doubt about Trump trial

Washington Post logoWere it up to Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), historians would mention President Trump’s all-but-certain impeachment acquittal much the same way baseball fans mention Barry Bonds’s career home-run record — an achievement destined to be obscured by an eternal cloud.

While Trump, unlike Bonds, does not stand accused of benefiting from performance-enhancing drugs, Democrats started this week to make an aggressive case that the Republican-led Senate’s decision Friday to end Trump’s trial without summoning witnesses or documents should cast grave doubt on its outcome.

The charge has been led by the most senior Democratic officials as it grew increasingly clear this week that Republican senators would vote to reject additional evidence and pave the way for a largely partisan verdict.

Republicans Are Twisting Themselves Into Knots Trying To Justify Acquitting Trump

They’ve offered tortured explanations for why no witnesses are needed in his Senate trial and why he shouldn’t be removed from office.

WASHINGTON ― Republican senators are providing incredulous explanations of their views on President Donald Trump’s pressure campaign toward Ukraine and what sort of punishment he deserves over it ― if any ― as a final vote on whether to remove him from office looms in the Republican-controlled Senate.

The swift acquittal promised by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) at the trial’s outset became all but certain Thursday night when Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), a key swing vote, indicated he’d vote against calling witnesses in a vote on Friday. On Friday, the Senate followed through and voted to block witnesses from appearing ― a first in the history of presidential impeachment trials.

Alexander, in a statement explaining his decision, said he saw “no need for more evidence to prove something that has already been proven” ― i.e., that Trump pressured Ukraine to open investigations into a chief political rival, former vice president Joe Biden. The position contradicted Trump’s denial of that charge ― the crux of the impeachment case against him ― and the embrace of that denial by many other Republicans for months. Continue reading.

Final impeachment vote postponed to Wednesday amid internal GOP spat

The Hill logoSenate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has postponed a final vote on articles of impeachment against President Trump until Wednesday in the face of opposition from Senate GOP moderates to his plan to wrap up the trial Friday or Saturday without deliberations.

Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.), emerging from a Senate GOP conference meeting, said senators now will return to the impeachment trial at 11 a.m. Monday to deliberate with a final vote on convicting or acquitting Trump set for Wednesday.

“There was some feverish discussion,” Braun said. Continue reading.

Senate rejects motion for witnesses at Trump impeachment trial

Trial now moves toward acquittal, but schedule far from certain

The Senate on Friday rejected a motion to hear from additional witnesses or to see new documents in its impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, ending weeks of speculation over whether Republicans would break with their party to extend the trial.

Republican senators largely stuck together in Friday’s pivotal 49-51 vote that would have allowed the body to subpoena new information before voting on whether to remove Trump from office on the two articles of impeachment presented by House impeachment managers.

The Senate adjourned, subject to the call of the chair, immediately after the vote as both parties huddled to determine next steps. The White House and Republicans leaders in the Senate had hoped to hold the vote to acquit Trump Friday night, but that may not happen. Continue reading.

Dershowitz: Trump trial is my ‘worst controversy’

The Hill logoCelebrity attorney Alan Dershowitz has become the lightning rod of the Senate impeachment trial. 

Dershowitz, 81, insists he isn’t a political supporter of President Trump and that he backed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.

Yet the Harvard Law professor emeritus, who has repeatedly offered a public defense for Trump since his election, is now taking a star turn on the president’s legal impeachment team, delivering passionate and controversial statements extolling a broad notion of executive power.

And he’s doing so as he takes a 180 on arguments he made in 1998, when he argued against President Bill Clinton’s impeachment. Continue reading.

Limiting Senate inquiry ignores Founders’ intent for impeachment

Senators will soon decide whether to dismiss the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump without hearing any witnesses. In making this decision, I believe they should consider words spoken at the Constitutional Convention, when the Founders decided that an impeachment process was needed to provide a “regular examination,” to quote Benjamin Franklin.

A critical debate took place on July 20, 1787, which resulted in adding the impeachment clause to the U.S. Constitution. Franklin, the oldest and probably wisest delegate at the Constitutional Convention, said that when the president falls under suspicion, a “regular and peaceable inquiry” is needed.

In my work as a law professor studying original texts about the U.S. Constitution, I’ve read statements made at the Constitutional Convention that demonstrate the Founders viewed impeachment as a regular practice, with three purposes:

  • To provide a fair and reliable method to resolve suspicions about misconduct;
  • To remind both the country and the president that he is not above the law;
  • To deter abuses of power. Continue reading.

The impeachment trial hurtles toward its worst-case conclusion

Washington Post logoAs President Trump’s impeachment trial speeds to a close, perhaps as soon as Friday, likely without any witnesses, the result looks to be a worst-case scenario.

In the beginning, the president’s lawyers made a relatively benign argument: He didn’t do it. No quid pro quo.

But House managers tried their case too well. Evidence piled up on the Senate floor over the past 10 days that the president withheld military aid to force Ukraine to announce probes of his political foes. And former national security adviser John Bolton’s firsthand account leaked about the quid pro quo. Continue reading.

George Conway: Don’t let the defense fool you. This impeachment is all about corruption.

Washington Post logoThe president’s lawyers this week floated their catch-all impeachment defense, one tailor-made for President Trump. It is, in essence, that a narcissistic president can do no wrong.

Like most of the president’s arguments, it’s erroneous. But no argument could have presented the issue more starkly to Republican senators: Will they follow their oaths to defend the Constitution and to do impartial justice? Or will they once again show fealty to Trump personally, thereby accepting his conflation of his personal interests with those of the nation?

The Trump lawyers’ challenge to the Senate began with their answer to the very first question from senators. Republican Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Mitt Romney (Utah) asked: What if the president had a mixed motive — if he thought he was acting both “in pursuit of a personal political advantage” and in “promotion of national interests”? Deputy White House Counsel Patrick Philbin responded without caveat. That “cannot possibly be the basis for an impeachable offense,” he said. Continue reading the commentary by George Conway.

GOP whitewash nearly complete: Will they pay in November?

AlterNet logoMitch McConnell’s cover-up of Donald Trump’s corruption looks like it will soon be complete — but not before a betrayal so big it could blow the GOP’s chances of holding the Senate in November.

After 10 days of arguing over whether to allow evidence in Trump’s impeachment trial, the Senate is expected to vote Friday on whether to allow witnesses, a vote Majority Leader Mitch McConnell now believes he will win. Republicans are determined to fast-track the end of a trial where the defendant has offered no real denial of what he’s accused, has refused to provide any material evidence and has already paid off the jury.

Such a lazy defense is precisely why McConnell wanted to avoid an impeachment process altogether. Public opinion had decidedly turned against Trump and the GOP Senate since the trial began. Hundreds took to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to call for witnesses, as 75% of voters in a new Monmouth University poll say witnesses should be allowed to testify. A straw poll on witnesses among GOP senators earlier this week was tighter than McConnell expected after it was revealed that former White House national security adviser John Bolton has a forthcoming tell-all which reportedly lays bare Trump’s plan to pressure Ukraine into investigating Joe Biden. Continue reading.

4 takeaways from the final day of questions in Trump’s impeachment trial

Washington Post logoSenators spent Thursday asking questions in President Trump’s impeachment trial, and that was apparently enough for two key Republican senators to come down on how they’ll vote Friday on whether to extend the trial by calling witnesses including former national security adviser John Bolton.

Below are the takeaways from the day.

1. Democrats almost certainly aren’t getting the four Republicans they need to call witnesses

The biggest news of the day came at the end of the trial’s question-and-answer session, at nearly 11 p.m. There are only four potential swing votes, and one of them, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), said he won’t vote to call witnesses.