Tag: Trump impeachment

Alan Dershowitz for the Defense: L’État, C’est Trump

At the Senate impeachment trial on Wednesday, Donald Trump’s lawyer said that the President can do just about anything he wants.

An hour into the Senate trial of Donald John Trump on Wednesday, the emeritus Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz came to the floor to answer a question from a former Harvard law student, Senator Ted Cruz, of Texas. In theory, it was a question that went to the heart of the impeachment case against Trump, about the President’s imposition of a quid pro quo on military aid to Ukraine and whether his motivations mattered. Dershowitz had something larger and more profound to say, however: Donald Trump has the power to do just about anything he wants to do, and there’s nothing that the U.S. Senate can or should do about it. Continue reading “Alan Dershowitz for the Defense: L’État, C’est Trump”

For Senate GOP, impeachment impedes legislative agenda — that may not exist

Senate likely returns to judicial nominations after impeachment trial

It’s been a constant refrain from Republican senators over the last two weeks: The impeachment trial is blocking us from addressing our legislative agenda.

“While this case is pending, we can’t do anything else,” Texas Republican John Cornyn complained earlier this week, postulating that paralyzing the Senate with impeachment proceedings was part of House Democrats’ strategy.

Sen. Rick Scott of Florida has released more than a half-dozen videos over the last two weeks as part of what he’s calling a “Let’s Get Back to Work” series. Continue reading.

Trump’s lawyers gave thousands to Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz before the impeachment trial began

AlterNet logoPresident Trump’s legal team made numerous campaign contributions to Republican senators overseeing the impeachment trial.

Former independent counsels Ken Starr and Robert Ray, who both investigated former President Bill Clinton ahead of his impeachment, contributed thousands of dollars to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell last year before they joined the president’s team, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics (CFPR).

Starr, who lamented that “we are living in … the age of impeachment” during the trial on Monday and accused Democrats of waging a “domestic war,” gave $2,800 to McConnell in July 2019, according to CFPR. Continue reading.

In The Senate, An Explosion Of Phony Indignation

Rep. Adam Schiff, lead House manager of the impeachment case against President Donald Trump, delivered a tour de force last week, painfully, crushingly detailing the president’s obvious guilt and decimating his defenses. It’s fair to say, however, that this did not go over all that agreeably with Senate Republicans who, determined to sidestep the evidence of Trump’s abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, opted for phony professions of outrage at being called to account.

Leading the charge was Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), whose depressing forfeiture of a once-meaningful reputation for independence has led former admirers to shake their heads at what fear of a Republican primary can do to a person’s conscience. Collins claimed to be appalled at Congressman Jerry Nadler’s use of the phrase “cover-up” to describe conduct by Senate Republicans that can’t easily be described otherwise. Trump’s “defense” of the mountain of evidence against him is the patently false assertion that none of it is “first-hand.” But Republicans have not merely looked the other way at Trump’s blanket order that the documents reflecting his conduct be withheld and the aides to whom he gave orders be gagged; presented with a simple request that the documents be turned over and the aides be required to tell the truth, they made the request impossible. For his part, the president does not hide the fact that he is hiding the facts. “We’re doing very well,” Trump boasted about the impeachment proceedings last week. “(H)onestly, we have all the material. They don’t have the material.”

Collins is upset about the phrase “cover-up.” Too bad. That is precisely what it is, and her objection to a phrase that fits the GOP’s conduct like a glove makes her look ridiculous. Evidently, in the United States Senate, which Collins claims to revere, it is now permissible to block the truth and impermissible to speak it. Continue reading.

GOP’s Doug Collins reveals Trump’s last line of defense: ‘No matter what happened the president did nothing wrong!’

AlterNet logoRep. Doug Collins (R-GA) on Wednesday admitted that literally nothing President Donald Trump may have done would justify removing him from office.

During an interview on “Fox & Friends,” Collins said that Republican senators should reject hearing from witnesses in the president’s impeachment trial because nothing those witnesses could say would change the fact that Trump shouldn’t be impeached.

“I think at the end of the day, when they look at the total case, they look at how it was presented, and how badly it was done in the House, and how poorly these articles were drafted… witnesses are not going to help this!” he said. “No matter what happened, the president did nothing wrong!” Continue reading.

Angry Republicans Fear Bolton ‘Domino Effect’ In Trial

It isn’t hard to understand why so many of President Donald Trump’s defenders are hoping and praying that former National Security Advisor John Bolton will not testify during his impeachment trial. Bolton, according to the New York Times, alleges in his book, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir that Trump and his colleagues did have a “quid pro quo” with the Ukrainian government — Ukraine would receive military aid from the U.S., but only if it investigated former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.

Axios reporter Alayna Treene examines the fallout from the Bolton bombshell in two separate articles published on Tuesday morning: one on the “domino effect” that Republicans fear if Bolton testifies, the other on the sense of urgency that Bolton is creating among Trump’s impeachment defense team.

Bolton’s book isn’t actually due out until March 17. But a manuscript of the book, Maggie Haberman and Michael S. Schmidt reported in the Times over the weekend, was leaked — and in that manuscript, Bolton alleges that Trump linked military aid to Ukraine with an investigation of the Bidens. That “quid pro quo,” House Democrats have been asserting, is an impeachable offense. Continue reading.

The gaping hole in Trump’s impeachment defense

Washington Post logoHis legal team spent very little time actually vouching for his Ukraine conspiracy theories. Instead, they watered them down

President Trump’s defense team ended an extended opening argument Tuesday in which it laid out that Trump had legitimate reasons to ask Ukraine for specific investigations.

But it spent almost no time vouching for the actual investigations he wanted.

To the extent that Trump’s team tried to argue that the investigations were legitimate, it focused mostly on the idea that Hunter Biden’s employment at a Ukrainian gas company was problematic. It spent considerably less time arguing for the theory that Trump actually raised with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on their July 25 phone call: that then-Vice President Joe Biden sought to help his son by pushing out Ukraine’s top prosecutor. Continue reading.

GOP Senators Propose ‘Classified’ Look At Bolton Book

As pressure mounts to have former national security adviser John Bolton testify in Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, a pair of Republican senators is proposing an idea to stall and possibly block Bolton from speaking publicly about his knowledge of the Ukraine scandal.

In The Room Where It Happened, his forthcoming memoir about his time in the Trump White House, Bolton says Trump told him that he was withholding congressionally appropriated military aid to Ukraine until the country’s leadership announced an investigation into his political rivals. That is exactly what Democrats charge Trump with doing, calling that quid pro quo an abuse of power.

Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and James Lankford (R-OK) suggested a deal that would allow senators to review Bolton’s book in a classified setting before deciding on whether to have him testify. Continue reading.

Impeachment trial, like much of Trump’s presidency, is unprecedented

Outcome could set new standards for presidential behavior and congressional oversight

President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, like many of his administration’s actions before it, has ventured into uncharted legal territory.

The trial lacks definitive answers on key issues, either from federal courts or the Senate itself, which has fed an undercurrent of uncertainty about what happens next in an institution usually steeped in precedents and traditions.

How the Senate tackles these issues over the coming days — from the bar for removing a president to how witnesses testify at an impeachment trial — likely will set standards for presidential behavior and congressional oversight efforts long after Trump leaves office. Adding to the uncertainty were reports late Tuesday that there were now enough votes to call witnesses, but how many and the manner in which they would be examined or deposed was unknown. Continue reading.

Republicans signal renewed confidence they’ll avoid witness fight

The Hill logoSenate Republicans emerged from a closed-door caucus meeting on Tuesday voicing renewed confidence that they will bypass a nasty witness fight in the impeachment trial.

“The consensus is that we’ve heard enough and it’s time to go to a final judgement,” Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) told reporters.

Asked if the trial proceedings should go past Friday, Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), another member of Senate GOP leadership, said it “shouldn’t.” Continue reading.