Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell argued on the Senate floor Thursday morning that the impeachment inquiry into President Trump is “the most rushed, least thorough, and most unfair” in modern history, CNN reports.
McConnell said what the House passed yesterday are “fundamentally unlike any articles that any prior House of Representatives has ever passed.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) suggested that House Democrats would be committing “constitutional extortion” if they did not allow the Senate to promptly act on approved articles of impeachment against President Trump, The Hill reports.
Michael Bloomberg suggested in a MSNBC interview that former Vice President Joe Biden doesn’t have the experience to be president.
Said Bloomberg: “He’s never been a manager of an organization. He’s never run a school system. His wife actually is an educator and has good experience there.”
He added: “But no, I don’t think any of them — you know, the presidency shouldn’t be a training job. You get in there; you’ve got to hit the ground running. We cannot wait, after what’s happened to our country and all the things that you described, of people not being comfortable.”
Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI), a member of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s leadership team, told the Associated Press impeachment articles are only being held until the Senate decides its own procedures for a trial because it will influence who the impeachment managers are.
Asked about never sending the articles over, Cicilline said: “I would not speculate that anyone’s even contemplating that.”
George Conway: “So common sense should tell senators that, even if Trump is acquitted in a short-circuited trial, that won’t prevent the evidence from revealing whether an acquittal was a just one. If Republican senators cut the trial short, they run the risk of being refuted and shamed on the pages of history by the very evidence they sought to suppress.”
“For the extraordinary evidence of the Ukraine scandal isn’t a one-off. Putting his interests above the nation’s is what Trump instinctively does.”
“Trump’s written tirade to Pelosi confirms the point: It shows that, even as he is being impeached, he still has no idea why — and thus no idea what his presidential duties require. He hasn’t learned his lesson, and never will.”
“And that is the ultimate point Republican senators who care about their legacies should consider: They run the risk of being refuted and shamed on the pages of history not just by the evidence — but by Trump himself.”
A Denver radio station has canceled a conservative talk show after one of its hosts wished for a “nice school shooting” to interrupt the media coverage surrounding the impeachment proceedings of President Trump, The Hill reports.
A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows Joe Biden leading the Democratic field nationally with 28%, followed by Bernie Sanders at 21%, Elizabeth Warren at 18%, Pete Buttigieg at 9%, Amy Klobuchar at 5% and Michael Bloomberg at 4%.
A new CNN poll finds Biden leading with 26%, followed by Sanders at 20%, Warren at 16%, Buttigieg at 8% and Bloomberg at 5%.
Russian President Vladimir Putin called the U.S. impeachment process “far-fetched” Thursday, making a seemingly obvious prediction that Donald Trump will be acquitted in the Senate, CBS News reports.
Said Putin: “The party that lost the election, the Democratic Party, is trying to achieve results by other means.”
Playbook: “The House is an institution that operates on precedent. And impeachment is so rare that there isn’t much precedent from which to judge how long Pelosi can hold onto the articles.”
“That said, it’s completely normal for Pelosi to hold the articles for a few weeks, considering today is the House’s last day in session for the year. The Senate will be out in the next 36 hours, too, so it’s not as if there’s a huge rush. But Pelosi can’t hold the articles ad infinitem, or else she’ll be blocking the results of impeachment, which is a constitutionally prescribed process.”
“Some Democrats have been advocating withholding the articles as a means of putting pressure on McConnell to negotiate over the parameters of a Senate trial. Yet it’s not clear why a delay in the trial would be enough to move McConnell, who is not easily moved by much.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will speak on the Senate floor at 9:30 a.m. this morning to continue to map out his views about his chamber’s impeachment process, and the one that just wrapped up in the House, Politico reports.
McConnell will call the House’s impeachment “the most rushed, least thorough, and most unfair impeachment inquiry in modern history.” He’ll say that the two articles that the House passed are “fundamentally unlike any articles that any prior House of Representatives has ever passed.”
And then there’s this: “The framers built the Senate to provide stability… To keep partisan passions from boiling over. Moments like this are why the United States Senate exists.”
Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC), one of President Trump’s leading congressional allies, says he won’t run for reelection, the Washington Post reports.
Playbook: “Meadows said he does not have a specific job with Trump locked down, but signaled he might try to work for his re-election campaign or in the administration.”
Asked if he would serve out the remainder of his term, Meadows said this: “At this point, I plan to serve the people of western North Carolina until it’s decided that I can best serve the president and the American people in a different capacity. And so while there’s no immediate plans, there’s certainly discussions that have occurred and potentially could occur in the future.”
Foreign Policy: “Three years into U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration, the Pentagon is bleeding senior policymakers faster than it can replace them, an exodus that many current and former defense officials largely blame on a toxic work environment created by John Rood, the Defense Department’s top policy official.”
Wall Street Journal: “Acting U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor was instructed by a top aide to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to hand over responsibilities for his post just days before Mr. Pompeo plans to visit the Ukrainian capital.”
“That timing countered earlier suggestions that Mr. Taylor’s precise departure date was predetermined, and will allow Mr. Pompeo to avoid meeting or being photographed with an ambassador who has drawn President Trump’s ire for his testimony in the congressional impeachment inquiry, according to this person and to Ukrainian officials.”
George Conway: “And so senators—especially the Republicans—will face a choice that they should understand goes far beyond politics. They must choose whether to follow the facts, or to follow their fears; to uphold propriety, or to perpetuate partisanship; to champion the truth, or to legitimate lies; to defend the interests of the nation and its Constitution, or the personal interests of one vainglorious man. In short, whether to comply with their solemn oaths, or not.”
“Should they choose to violate their oaths, history will long remember them for having done so—not simply because of the insurmountable evidence of what Trump has already done, but also because Trump, by his nature, will assuredly do it all again.”
Speaker Nancy Pelosi raised the possibility the House would not send the Senate articles on impeachment if Republicans could not guarantee a “fair trial,” ABC News reports.
Said Pelosi: “We have legislation approved… that will enable to decide how we send over the articles of impeachment.”
She added: “We cannot name managers until we see what the process is on the Senate side… so far we haven’t seen anything that looks fair to us.”
Politico: “Pelosi refused to commit to any timeline for sending the articles, which is required to begin the impeachment trial.”
Washington Post: “Tumbling toward impeachment, Richard Nixon recognized the reality of collapsing political support and became the only American president to quit the office. A generation later, when the House voted to impeach Bill Clinton, the president oscillated between apologies for his Oval Office behavior and fervent pleas for Americans to turn away from “the politics of personal destruction.”
“As the House voted Wednesday evening to impeach Donald Trump, the president was staging a defiant campaign rally in Michigan.”
“Facing a historic rebuke by the Democratic-controlled House, Trump has countered with an exaggerated version of his lifelong approach to conflict, aiming to win by dividing. He has slammed his opponents in lurid language. He has urged his supporters to wage battle against those who sneer and scoff at them and their beloved president. And he has expressed zero remorse.”
The House of Representatives voted to impeach President Donald J. Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
The two articles passed almost exclusively along party lines.
Trump becomes only the third president in U.S. history to be impeached.
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) writing in the New York Times:
“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.”
“Let’s be clear: Mr. McConnell doesn’t want a Senate trial. He wants a Senate cover-up.”
Taegan Goddard
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.
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