Republican Senate 'coverup' prompts backlash
Liberal groups target November elections for payback
Senators seek to explain votes with constitutional contortions
Liberal groups target November elections for payback
Senators seek to explain votes with constitutional contortions
Outraged by what they see as a coverup in the impeachment trial of Donald Trump, grassroots activists are planning a massive “payback project” designed to punish Republican senators at the ballot box.
Even as key Republican senators acknowledged Trump’s guilt on charges of abusing power and obstructing Congress, they defied public opinion on Friday by voting to block witnesses and documents, paving the way for the president to be acquitted and claim exoneration.
The Indivisible Project, a progressive group, announced it would target nine senators, among them the majority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Trump loyalist Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, in November’s elections.
Indivisible said it would next week call out one of the “nine Payback Project senators for their participating in a coverup by placing a full page newspaper ad in one of their biggest state papers”
Every impeachment trial in US history, including the two that featured presidents, allowed documents and witnesses. But only two Republicans voted in favour: Susan Collins of Maine and Mitt Romney of Utah.
Lisa Murkowski of Alaska: “Will I share it with you tonight? I’ve had so much drama today, I’m just going to chill. How’s that? Was that fair?”😣😱😡🤔
Trump’s takeover of the Republican party appears complete. Leading dissenters have died, retired or been drummed out.
Democrats will seek to make Republicans pay in November, as they did in the 2018 midterms when a sweeping victory in the House made impeachment possible.
“How impeachment could flip the Senate”, Rahm Emanuel, a former White House chief of staff, wrote in the Washington Post that “impeachment is likely to have an outsize impact” and every Republican senator will “own Trump’s emboldened rhetoric of being exonerated”.
Far from vindication, even some who oppose his removal, acknowledge his guilt. And the conspicuous avoidance of material witnesses like Bolton casts an inescapable shadow.”
