MURKOWSKI just did lengthy hallway scrum with reporters talking impeachment, censure, vote against witnesses...
Murkowski on Senate floor called Trump's actions "shameful and wrong" but also attacked Republican and Democratic Senate partisans for hypocrisy, lawmakers for ceding too much power to the executive (!), the House for not pursuing censure etc first, and the media.
Murkowski said "a careless media cheerfully tried to put out the fires with gasoline."
Murkowski complained about the focus on whether to call witnesses.
"We debated witnesses instead of the case before the Senate," she lamented.
(She cast a critical 51st vote to block witnesses and other evidence.)
"We debated witnesses instead of the case before the Senate," she lamented.
(She cast a critical 51st vote to block witnesses and other evidence.)
Given Republicans voted to block additional evidence, I asked Murkowski about the knowledge that more will keep coming out, including Bolton's book in a month.
"The voters will have to decide," she said.
"The voters will have to decide," she said.
Murkowski said that Elizabeth Warren's question about Roberts weighing in on witnesses is what spurred her concern about partisanship infecting the judiciary and wanting to avoid a tie vote.
"The political fireworks in my head went off," she said.
"The political fireworks in my head went off," she said.
"For gosh sakes, we want to make sure that there's at least one branch of government that hasn't been drug into the political mud. And that's where we were going," Murkowski said.
Murkowski has talked to Manchin but said she doesn't know enough about it to say whether it's a well-though-out idea.
Murkowski, a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, also launched into a general lament of Congress ceding too much power to the president, including lack of earmarks.
"We have to stand up for ourselves," she said.
"We have to stand up for ourselves," she said.
Murkowski talks to reporters after calling Trump’s behavior “shameful and wrong” on the Senate floor but declaring she will not vote to convict and remove: 
To recap, Murkowski angry at:
*Trump
*Democrats
*Republicans
*House
*Congress
*Media
*Excessive focus on witnesses at trial
*Trump
*Democrats
*Republicans
*House
*Congress
*Media
*Excessive focus on witnesses at trial
