The U.S. Senate voted 51 to 49 to reject calling new witnesses in President Trump’s impeachment trial.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said the decision makes this a “sham trial.”
The U.S. Senate voted 51 to 49 to reject calling new witnesses in President Trump’s impeachment trial.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said the decision makes this a “sham trial.”
“Many of the most endangered Republicans have concluded that fully embracing President Trump is their only credible path to victory in November, rallying to his side in the final days of the Senate impeachment fight and indulging his most controversial actions and statements,” the Washington Post reports.
“At-risk Republicans — including those in battlegrounds such as Arizona, Colorado and Georgia — are calculating that a strong economy and an energized pro-Trump base will be enough to carry the party as it works to retain the White House and its Senate majority in 2020, according to interviews and private discussions with more than a dozen Republican senators, Senate aides and veteran strategists and officials.”
“Marie Yovanovitch, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine until last spring when she was ousted following a disinformation campaign by the president’s private lawyer, is retiring — not resigning,” NPR reports.
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“Michael Bloomberg put about $200 million of his own money into his presidential campaign in its first five weeks, roughly the same amount as the rest of the Democratic field had spent in the third quarter,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said the United States will deny entry into the country to any foreign national who poses a risk of transmitting the coronavirus, Axios reports.
New York Times: “The action will restrict all foreign nationals who have been to China — other than immediate family of American citizens and permanent residents — from entering the United States.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declined to directly dispute allegations reportedly contained in an unpublished manuscript of former national security adviser John Bolton’s forthcoming book, telling ABC News that he would not comment on press reports “off in the lands of the hypothetical.”
“As the Senate marched toward the final phase of President Trump’s impeachment trial, a handful of Republicans coalesced around a common position: Mr. Trump did what he was accused of — pressuring Ukraine to investigate his political rival — but should not be removed for it,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Trump has repeatedly insisted that he did nothing wrong with regard to Ukraine, calling his telephone call with the country’s president ‘perfect’ and insisting that the impeachment inquiry was a ‘hoax.'”
“But even as they were poised to acquit him, several Republican senators were rejecting that assertion, saying his actions were wrong and inappropriate — just not grounds for the Senate to oust him.”
Wall Street Journal: “Citizens from Nigeria, Eritrea, Myanmar and Kyrgyzstan won’t be allowed to apply for visas to immigrate to the U.S. under the policy, which the Trump administration said was designed to tighten security for countries that don’t comply with the U.S. minimum security standards or cooperate to prevent illegal immigration.”
“The DNC is drastically revising its criteria to participate in primary debates after New Hampshire, doubling the polling threshold and eliminating the individual donor requirement, which could pave the way for Mike Bloomberg to make the stage beginning in mid-February,” Politico reports.
Associated Press: “Under the DNC rules, candidates have multiple paths to the stage: reach 10% support in some combination of four national polls or early state polls from Nevada or South Carolina; reach 12% support in two polls from Nevada or South Carolina or both; or bank a convention delegate in Iowa or New Hampshire, which host the first two nominating votes in early February.”
Former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly again weighed in on the impeachment proceedings, telling NJ Advance Media that a trial without witnesses should be considered “half a trial.”
Said Kelly: “In my view, they kind of leave themselves open to a lot of criticism. It seems it was half a trial.”
Congressional officials told NBC News that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have agreed to a proposal that would wrap up the impeachment trial on Wednesday.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) says she will oppose new witnesses in President Trump’s impeachment trial, all but assuring the president’s acquittal.
Said Murkowski in a statement: “I don’t believe the continuation of this process will change anything. It is sad for me to admit that, as an institution, the Congress has failed.”
House impeachment manager Jerry Nadler announced he will not be present for today’s proceedings because he has returned to New York as his wife battles pancreatic cancer.
Said Nadler: “I am sorry to not be able to stay in Washington for the conclusion of the Senate impeachment trial but I need to be home with my wife at this time. We have many decisions to make as a family. I have every faith in my colleagues and hope the Senate will do what is right.”
“I think he’s making some of it up. He’s sure making up — I wouldn’t call it making it up, but he’s acting like a real scumbag by never telling me that he objected once, & then saying I was a time bomb, or a firecracker or something.”
— Rudy Giuliani, quoted by the New York Times, on John Bolton’s claim that President Trump ordered him to help the president’s Ukraine pressure campaign.
“Over the course of 2019, the Trump campaign spent nearly $20m on more than 218,000 different Facebook ads, a new Guardian analysis shows. Among the ads were some of the images and videos that made front-page news for their xenophobic, fear-mongering, vitriolic and outright false rhetoric.”
“But the campaign also ran a decidedly mundane social media campaign featuring classic marketing ploys designed to harvest user data. Considering the fact that the campaign has run these ads – which are largely substance-free and appear designed to maximize engagement with simple requests – over and over again, they were probably very effective.”
“The Supreme Court will hear arguments in the landmark separation of powers fight over access to President Trump’s financial records on March 31,” The Hill reports.
“A blockbuster ruling on the extent of presidential immunity in the face of congressional oversight and state prosecutorial power is expected by late June, just months ahead of Election Day.”
“More than two months before he asked Ukraine’s president to investigate his political opponents, President Trump directed John Bolton, then his national security adviser, to help with his pressure campaign to extract damaging information on Democrats from Ukrainian officials,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Trump gave the instruction, Mr. Bolton wrote, during an Oval Office conversation in early May that included the acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, the president’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and the White House counsel, Pat Cipollone, who is now leading the president’s impeachment defense.”
“The previously undisclosed directive that Mr. Bolton describes would be the earliest known instance of Mr. Trump seeking to harness the power of the United States government to advance his pressure campaign against Ukraine.”
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) suggested President Trump’s impeachment trial may extend beyond tonight, even if the vote on witnesses fails, Fox News reports.
Said Cornyn: “My guess is it probably is going to carry over to the first part of next week.”
A Trump administration official echoed that prediction to the Washington Post raising the possibility that the Senate “could take up a new procedural resolution laying out rules for the trial’s endgame — which could include time for closing arguments, private deliberations and public speeches by senators.”
“The Senate passed such a supplemental resolution in the middle of the 1999 impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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