With 67 votes needed to convict the president and remove him from office, and the outcome of a Senate trial all but guaranteed, GOP senators are broadening their sights as they plot their strategy.
Senate Republicans think they’ll be able to pick up one or two Democrats on the final votes for each impeachment article. That would let them tout Trump’s acquittal as bipartisan — an angle they’ve already seized on when talking about the two House votes, in which a handful of Democrats crossed the aisle to join Republicans in opposing impeachment.
Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) declined to say who he thinks will flip, arguing he didn’t want to put pressure on them.
“I think we might have a couple,” Perdue said. “I don’t want to speculate on who — obviously that puts too much pressure on them — but I really think we have people on both sides that are trying to get to a reasonable, nonpartisan answer.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me if we got one or two Democrats. It looks to me over in the House, the Republicans seem to be solid and the Democrats seem to be divided,” McConnell said.
Manchin, who was once considered for a Cabinet position in the Trump administration, comes from a deeply red state where Trump won in 2016 by roughly 42 percentage points. According to polling data website FiveThirtyEight, Manchin votes with Trump 53.1 percent of the time — the most of any Democratic senator currently in office.
Manchin has described himself as “very much torn” on impeachment and stressed he won’t make a decision on whether to vote for conviction until he has “all of the facts.”
Jones, however, has taken a different tack than Manchin since joining the Senate, opposing Kavanaugh and voting with Trump 34.5 percent of the time, according to FiveThirtyEight. His first Senate speech in 2018 was on the need for tighter gun control — a headline-grabbing move given his state’s deep-red leanings.
Jones has urged his colleagues to be “impartial” and thrown his support behind getting documents and witnesses from those with firsthand knowledge of Trump’s actions toward Ukraine that were at the center of the House impeachment inquiry.
“As a juror sworn to do impartial justice, I believe I should reserve judgment and let the process unfold without political interference — and I strongly encourage my colleagues to do the same,” Jones said after the House passed the two articles of impeachment.
The House voted last week to make Trump only the third president in U.S. history to be impeached, passing two articles against him: one charging him with abuse of power in his dealings with Ukraine and the second with obstructing Congress during its investigation of those dealings.
“I think he will get every Republican’s vote for acquittal. And I think he will pick up some Democratic votes for acquittal,” he added in a separate Fox News interview.
In addition to Jones and Manchin, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) is considered another potential Democratic defector. The freshman senator has emerged as a member of the Senate’s dwindling coalition of moderates since joining in January. She has voted with Trump 52.9 percent of the time, second among sitting Democratic senators, according to FiveThirtyEight.
Sinema is known around the Capitol for being tight-lipped and does not do hallway interviews with reporters. But Sinema told KNXV, a TV station in Arizona, that she will go into the trial unbiased.
“As our juror it will be my constitutional duty to approach it with no bias,” she said. “And to listen to the arguments presented by both sides.”
The potential for Democrats to break on the trial votes comes as the caucus has largely been unified so far in the impeachment fight.
It’s similar to the play Schumer made during the ObamaCare fight in 2017, when Democrats remained united and were able to stop Republicans from nixing the law. Democrats also stuck together that year when the GOP tax bill passed Congress on party-line votes.
Jason Riley: GOP Sen. Murkowski using ‘Democratic talking points’ on Trump impeachment trial
Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski wrongly used “Democratic talking points” when she criticized Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s comments about how he would run President Trump’s pending impeachment trial, Fox News contributor Jason Riley said Thursday.
Murkowski took exception to comments McConnell, R-Ky., made during an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity earlier this month, in which he promised to be in “coordination” with the White House, should House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., submit the two articles of impeachment to the Senate.
“When I heard that, I was disturbed,” Murkowski told KTUU in an interview that aired Tuesday evening. “To me, it means that we have to take that step back from being hand in glove with the defense. And so, I heard what Leader McConnell had said, I happened to think that that has further confused the process.”
Riley, a Wall Street Journal editorial board member, said on “Special Report” that Murkowski indeed has been known for her “independent streak” as a more-moderate GOP senator.
“Murkowski is not up for reelection. She is quirky, she does have an independent streak. We saw that in the Brett Kavanaugh hearings, we saw that in the ObamaCare repeal vote,” he said. Murkowski bucked her party to oppose Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court last year.
Riley continued, “I do wish she would stop using Democratic talking points to make the argument that she is making. The fact of the matter here is that the House’s job is done and this idea that they should have any say in how the Senate conducts this trial just is not supported by what is written in black-and-white in the Constitution.”
Riley pointed to the fact that no House Republicans voted with Democrats to impeach Trump, not even retiring lawmakers such as Reps. Will Hurd, R-Texas, and James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., who he said had “nothing to lose” if they broke with their party.
“The idea that Mitch McConnell isn’t going to be bipartisan enough or objective enough, that is not his job. I expect him to be as bipartisan as Nancy Pelosi was and as Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler were,” he added, referring to the speaker and the two committee chairmen who presided over impeachment hearings in a manner widely criticized on the right.
In other remarks, Murkowski said she was “totally good” with being viewed as someone who wasn’t a Republican “rubber stamp.”
“For me to prejudge and say there’s nothing there or on the other hand, he should be impeached yesterday, that’s wrong, in my view, that’s wrong,” she said. “If it means that I am viewed as one who looks openly and critically at every issue in front of me, rather than acting as a rubber stamp for my party or my president, I’m totally good with that.”
However, Murkowski also criticized top Democrats for their rushed schedule, which she said appeared to be aimed at impeaching Trump before the holiday break. “Speaker Pelosi was very clear, very direct that her goal was to get this done before Christmas,” Murkowski said.
Ultimately, she added, “How we will deal with witnesses remains to be seen.”
On “Special Report,” Charlie Hurt also reacted, saying Murkowski’s comments wouldn’t mean much in the big picture, and that the Democrats will still target her seat during her presumptive reelection bid in 2022.
Hurt called the Alaska lawmaker a GOP “outlier” but predicted her state will vote resoundingly to reelect Trump in 2020.
Fox News’ Bret Baier and Ronn Blitzer contributed to this report.
Following a few quiet and calm hours early on Christmas Day, President Donald Trump erupted on Twitter Christmas night and early this morning, continuing to slam the “Do-Nothing Democrats” and the “bogus impeachment,” among other things.
“Look, the House is supposed to do all of this work on witnesses and documents BEFORE they send the articles over to the Senate, not to call in new witnesses, go through new documents – that work is supposed to be done in the House,” Trump wrote.
“The Radical Left, Do Nothing Democrats said they wanted to RUSH everything through to the Senate because “President Trump is a threat to National Security” (they are vicious, will say anything!), but now they don’t want to go fast anymore, they want to go very slowly. Liars!, he wrote.
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Trump then quoted Fox news contributor Brad Blakeman, a former member of President George W. Bush’s senior staff, and a principal at The 1600 group consultants.
“Brad Blakeman “I happen to believe as a lawyer that the charges are defective, they don’t meet the Constitutional standard of high crimes and misdemeanors, so I would like to see a Motion to Dismiss. At least 51 Republican Senators would agree with that-there should be no trial,” Trump tweeted.
Trump also railed on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s district in California.
“Nancy Pelosi’s District in California has rapidly become one of the worst anywhere in the U.S. when it come to the homeless & crime. It has gotten so bad, so fast – she has lost total control and, along with her equally incompetent governor, Gavin Newsom, it is a very sad sight!,” he wrote.
“Nancy Pelosi has no leverage over the Senate. Mitch McConnell did not nose his way into the impeachment process in the House, and she has no standing in the Senate.” Brad Blakeman. Crazy Nancy should clean up her filthy dirty District & help the homeless there. A primary for N?” Trump continued.
Dahaam Shabib walked around his house one last time. He glanced at his vegetable patch, with the shoots of mint, spring onion and garlic peeking out of the brown earth. He looked at the walls; it had cost him 15 years of savings and his wife’s jewelry to afford the two-story home in the village of Tal Mardikh, where he had lived for a decade.
But this week, it was time to leave.
For days, the thumps of artillery had been coming ever closer, the roar of warplanes more frequent; harbingers of a no-holds-barred offensive launched by the Syrian government and its Russian allies in northwest Syria’s Idlib province, the rebels’ last major bulwark against forces loyal to President Bashar Assad.
By Sunday, government troops had reached to within 10 miles of Tal Mardikh. The next day, the civilian laborer and 11 relatives sardined themselves into his road-worn four-door Hyundai. They headed north toward the Turkish border, joining a chaotic mass exodus — more than 180,000 people strong, aid groups estimate — of Syrians escaping the intensifying barrage.
“Farewell my home. Farewell to my life’s hard work,” Shabib said in a video he posted to social media on Sunday, minutes before he drove away. He intoned a prayer that he would return, his voice cracking before he broke down sobbing.
Before night fell, Shabib reached the Syrian town of Sarmada, four miles from the sealed Turkish border. He crammed his family and what little they had been able to salvage into a friend’s two-room apartment and thought about the home he had left behind.
“A house is like a child. You nurture it … and I built it stone by stone, block by block,” Shabib said in a phone interview Wednesday. “How do you want someone not to be sad about leaving his house and become a refugee?”
For months, the Syrian government and its Russian allies have pecked at Idlib, which Assad has vowed to take back from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a rebel group affiliated with Al Qaeda.
A cease-fire brokered in September by Russia and Iran, both of them allies of Assad, and Turkey, the rebels’ top patron, had temporarily stayed the offensive. But it fell apart amid accusations by the Syrian government that Turkey had failed to fulfill its obligations and filter out Hayat Tahrir al-Sham from among the opposition’s ranks.
Since Dec. 19, when the onslaught began anew, the rebels had begun a tortuous retreat, with the government’s advance into villages and towns spurring fresh waves of displaced people, many of them residents previously uprooted from other rebel-held territories since taken back by Assad with the help of his Russian allies.
Shabib was one of the luckier of the estimated 3 million residents of Idlib province.
One of his neighbors, Amjad Shamaali, had been stranded for hours in Tal Mardikh, desperately seeking a driver willing to brave the airstrikes on the road from the village to the north. He finally found transportation, but wasn’t allowed to take anything other than the clothes he was wearing.
After he and his family escaped, they reached a makeshift camp settlement in the orchards west of the town of Saraqeb, a city some seven miles north of Tal Mardikh, but found no proper shelter.
“No housing, no tents, no assistance … nothing,” Shamaali said in an interview Thursday, adding that he had finally put up his family in the skeleton of a partially constructed building while he went searching for shelter to house them. Two days later, he was still unable to find anything he could afford, even as temperatures fell to the low 40s amid torrential rain over Syria’s north.
The escalation in the fighting appears to be focused on Maaret al-Numan, a town on the M5, a vital highway linking the Syrian capital Damascus to the country’s northern regions. Assad’s forces have long sought to secure the roadway to help implement their goal of taking back “every inch of the country.”
“I can’t specify any goal for these operations other than liberation; every inch we liberate is a return to the Syrian nation,” said Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem in an interview with the Arabic arm of the Russia Today news channel on Tuesday.
The operations have continued despite widespread condemnation by world leaders, including President Trump, who warned in a tweet on Thursday that “Russia, Syria, and Iran are killing, or on their way to killing, thousands of innocent civilians in Idlib province.”
“Don’t do it!” Trump tweeted. He added Turkey was “working hard to stop this carnage.”
Russia, Syria, and Iran are killing, or on their way to killing, thousands of innocent civilians in Idlib Province. Don’t do it! Turkey is working hard to stop this carnage.
Turkey is the rebels’ top patron and it is in its interest to have a cease-fire in place to forestall a wave of displaced Syrians crossing its border.
Yet there was little hint of any lull in the violence Thursday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a pro-opposition activist network that monitors the fighting in Syria, said Assad’s forces had advanced into three villages that day alone and had begun intensive shelling of villages around Maaret al-Numan. Since mid-December, nearly 80 civilians have been killed, including children, the Observatory said.
Meanwhile, the mass evacuations have left behind a landscape of ghost towns, even as aid groups struggle to handle the numbers of people in need.
“These displacements are adding pressure on generous host communities and on overcrowded camps,” said Ted Chaiban, regional director with UNICEF, the U.N. children’s agency, in a statement on Tuesday. “Many families still have no shelter at all and are sleeping out in the open.”
Ever since Colorado and Washington became the first two states to approve marijuana legalization initiatives in 2012, additional states have joined them in each biennial election that has followed. And 2020 could be a banner year for cannabis on the ballot.
There are at least 16 states where advocates believe marijuana measures could go before voters next year—some considering full-scale recreational legalization while others would focus on medical cannabis.
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Some of these would be citizen-led voter initiatives where activists collect signatures to qualify a measure for the ballot, while others would be referendums that lawmakers place before voters.
“Since the first adult-use legalization ballot initiative victory in 2012, the marijuana reform movement has successfully maintained its momentum,” Matthew Schweich, deputy director of the Marijuana Policy Project, said. “For four elections in a row there has been a legalization victory at the ballot box, and the upcoming election could deliver more victories in one day than ever before.”
Of course, not every initiated effort will end up securing enough funding, or formulating solid enough campaign plans, to collect sufficient signatures to qualify their measures for voters’ consideration on Election Day—but these are all states where activists or lawmakers have talked seriously about putting cannabis questions on ballots.
It’s not feasible to list every measure that activists took the modest trouble to initially file, and this overview looks primarily at efforts that seem most poised to advance. This post also doesn’t include the long list of states that might legalize marijuana through actions by lawmakers, as opposed to citizens via the ballot—which will be the focus of a separate piece.
In alphabetical order, here’s a comprehensive overview of the states where marijuana could be on the ballot in 2020.
Arizona
Voters in Arizona narrowly rejected a marijuana legalization measure in 2016, thanks in part to sizable campaign contributions from the pharmaceutical industry. In 2020, though, the state’s medical cannabis companies will be working to pass an initiative making marijuana legal for adults.
The effort, known as Smart & Safe Arizona, would allow people 21 and older to possess, consume, cultivate and purchase cannabis from licensed retailers. It would also create a pathway for individuals with prior convictions to have their records expunged, and it proposes using some tax revenue from legal sales to invest in communities disproportionately impacted by prohibition.
Dispensary chains MedMen, Harvest Health and Recreation and Curaleaf Holdings are helping to fund the campaign. Advocates must collect 237,645 valid signatures from voters by July 2 in order to put the measure on the ballot.
Arkansas
In 2016, Arkansas voters approved a constitutional amendment allowing patients to have legal access to medical cannabis. Now, activists are floating separate measures to more broadly end marijuana prohibition and expunge past records.
In order to place the measures on the ballot, Arkansans for Cannabis Reform must gather 89,151 signatures by July 3, including required minimums in at least 15 counties.
Under the legalization proposal, adults over 21 would be allowed to to possess up to four ounces of marijuana, two ounces of cannabis concentrate and edible products containing cannabis with THC content of 200 mg or less. They could also cultivate up to six cannabis seedlings and six cannabis flowering plants for personal use.
A system of legal and regulated sales would be created, with tax revenue funding the program’s implementation, public pre-kindergarten and after school programs as well as the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.
Under the separate expungements measure, people with certain prior marijuana convictions would be able to petition courts for relief, including release from incarceration, reduction of remaining sentences and restoration of voting rights.
But while Connecticut doesn’t have the initiative process where activists can collect signatures to place a question on the ballot, some elected officials have floated the idea of advancing a referendum that would let voters weigh in on ending prohibition.
Most activists would prefer that lawmakers go ahead and just pass a legalization bill—because running a public education campaign to ensure a ballot measure passes would be expensive at a time when resources are needed in other states. A general referendum question would also require subsequent implementation legislation, and even putting it on the ballot in time for 2020 would take a supermajority of 75 percent of legislators.
Florida
Florida voters approved a constitutional amendment to legalize medical cannabis in 2016. Now, a group called Make It Legal Florida is working to place a full-scale marijuana legalization measure on the key swing state’s 2020 presidential ballot.
The proposed amendment to the state constitution would allow adults 21 and over to possess up to 2.5 ounces of cannabis. Existing medical marijuana dispensaries would be permitted to sell marijuana to adults. While the measure doesn’t mention a licensing system to establish separate recreational shops, lawmakers will likely enact detailed regulations should it pass, as they did with the prior medical cannabis measure.
The campaign is being backed by cannabis companies such as MedMen and Parallel (formerly known as Surterra Wellness).
A separate group, Regulate Florida, recently acknowledged that its lesser-funded effort wouldn’t be be able to successfully collect enough signatures to qualify for the ballot.
Idaho
Idaho is one of only a handful of states in the U.S. that doesn’t even allow patients to access CBD medications with low-THC content. That could change, however, under a proposed medical marijuana ballot measure for which activists are currently collecting signatures.
The Idaho Cannabis Coalition’s proposal would let approved patients and their caregivers possess up to four ounces of marijuana. A system of licensed and regulated growers, processors, testers and retail dispensaries would be established.
Patients would not be allowed to grow their own medicine unless they qualify for a hardship exemption for those who have have a physical, financial or distance difficulty in acquiring marijuana at a dispensary. Those patients could grow up to six plants.
Organizers need to collect 55,057 valid signatures from voters in order to qualify the measure for the ballot.
If the initiative is approved, patients with any of 22 conditions—including cancer, chronic pain and post-traumatic stress disorder—be allowed to possess up to 2.5 ounces of cannabis per 14-day period.
The secretary of state is expected to announce whether organizers collected a sufficient number of signatures for ballot access early in 2020.
Now, activists are looking to expand on that with a broader marijuana legalization. Several different proposed measures to end cannabis prohibition have been filed with the secretary of state, but the campaigns at this point seem to be operating largely under the radar, so it remains to be seen whether any group will have the funding needed to mount a successful signature gathering drive.
Last year three separate medical cannabis measures ended up qualifying for the ballot, but two were rejected by voters.
Montana
Montana already has a medical cannabis program, and activists are looking to expand that to include legal adult use of marijuana in 2020.
The group New Approach Montana is currently in the process of drafting two separate legalization measures—one constitutional and one statutory.
The details of the proposals aren’t yet publicly available, but the statutory proposal will need roughly 25,500 valid voters signatures to qualify for ballot access, while the constitutional amendment would require nearly 51,000 signatures.
The national groups Marijuana Policy Project and New Approach PAC are backing the effort.
A separate group, MontanaCan, has already filed its own legalization proposal.
Under the referendum adopted by the Senate and Assembly, the November 2020 ballot will contain a question that reads, “Do you approve amending the Constitution to legalize a controlled form of marijuana called cannabis?”
If the proposed constitutional amendment is approved, lawmakers would then get to work adopting regulations for the legal cannabis industry.
New York
Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) put marijuana legalization language in his budget submission earlier this year but, despite support for the idea from leading lawmakers, disagreement over particulars such as how to spend tax revenue meant that the proposal didn’t get over the finish line.
“The opposition Senate position is there is no state that has passed it without a referendum. It’s never been done just by the legislature,” he said in a radio interview this year. “I believe Jersey may be moving to a referendum also, but Massachusetts, et cetera, the legislature acted after a referendum. So that’s what the senators who oppose it say—they think it’s an overreach by the legislature.”
If lawmakers can’t agree on the details of legalization again this year, Cuomo may call skittish legislators’ bluff and seek to advance a cannabis referendum to fulfill what he has said is one of his top agenda items.
North Dakota
North Dakota voters approved a medical cannabis ballot measure in 2016 and two years later swiftly defeated a proposal to more broadly legalize marijuana.
But advocates may have another chance in 2020. While the unsuccessful 2018 measure contained no limits on the amount of cannabis people could possess or grow, the new initiative, written by the same group of activists, has robust regulations—including a ban on home cultivation.
Legalization supporters hope more voters will agree to the narrower proposal this time around.
There is also another proposed legalization measure vying to collect the 13,452 valid signatures needed for ballot access.
Ohio
In 2015, Ohio voters overwhelmingly rejected a marijuana legalization measure that even many longtime activists opposed due its proposed regulatory structure that would have granted control over cannabis cultivation to the very same group of wealthy individuals who paid to put it on the ballot.
Advocates have cited the Buckeye State as a potential target for another try in 2020, though no proposals have yet been filed.
Voters in number of communities throughout the state have in recent years approved measures to decriminalize marijuana possession on a local basis, indicating that there is public support for cannabis reform if placed on the state ballot again next year.
That said, Ohio is a large state, and qualifying initiatives there is very expensive, so any successful effort will likely need to have industry support.
Backed by the national New Approach PAC, the new effort will have to collect 178,000 valid signatures from registered voters to qualify for ballot access.
Under the measure as initially filed, adults 21 and older would be allowed to possess, cultivate and purchase cannabis from licensed retailers. There would be a 15 percent excise tax on marijuana sales, revenue from which would cover implementation costs and fund schools, drug treatment programs and other public service programs.
Personal possession would be capped at one ounce and individuals could grow up to six plants. The proposal would also provide expungements for those with prior marijuana convictions.
Backers recently withdrew the initial measure, but plan to redraft it with feedback from the medical cannabis community, with a new version expected to be filed soon.
Rhode Island
Lawmakers in Rhode Island have filed marijuana legalization bills for the last several sessions but they have never been brought to a vote. In 2019, Gov. Gina Raimondo (D) went so far as to put legalization language in her budget proposal, but it was removed by legislative leaders.
The governor has indicated she will make another attempt in 2020, but if that doesn’t pan out, lawmakers may consider putting the question to voters via a referendum.
In 2016, Raimondo said she is “open to” giving voters a chance to decide on legalization via a ballot question. And House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello (D), said that he was “considering the possibility of placing a non-binding referendum question on the ballot regarding the use of recreational marijuana.”
A bill for a marijuana referendum that was filed in 2018 never received a vote, but it’s an avenue the legislature might consider pursuing next year as legalization comes online in more nearby states.
Nebraska
Lawmakers in Nebraska have repeatedly rejected medical cannabis legislation. Frustrated with their colleagues’ unwillingness to change the law to let patient legally medicate, two senators in the state’s unicameral legislature are partnering with local and national advocacy groups to put the question directly to voters through a ballot initiative.
Under the proposed constitutional amendment, physicians or nurse practitioners would be able to issue recommendations to patients, who would then be allowed to “use, possess, access, and safely and discreetly produce an adequate supply of cannabis, cannabis preparations, products and materials, and cannabis-related equipment to alleviate diagnosed serious medical conditions without facing arrest, prosecution, or civil or criminal penalties.”
The measure would also provide for a system of legal and regulated cannabis distribution through dispensaries.
Organizers must collect valid signatures from roughly 122,000 voters in order to make the ballot.
South Dakota
The South Dakota secretary of state’s office certified this month that activists collected more than enough signatures to qualify a medical cannabis measure for the November 2020 ballot.
If approved, patients suffering from debilitating medical conditions would be allowed to possess and purchase up to three ounces of marijuana from a licensed dispensary with approval from their doctors. They could also grow at least three plants, or more if authorized by a physician.
That measure would allow adults 21 and older to possess and distribute up to one ounce of marijuana and cultivate up to three cannabis plants. The state Department of Revenue would issue licenses for manufacturers, testing facilities and retailers.
South Dakota voters rejected medical cannabis ballot measures in 2006 and 2010, but advocates hope that the changing national and regional climate on marijuana reform means that voters will be more supportive this time around.
Non-Marijuana Initiatives On State Ballots
Activists in a few states are taking steps to bring broader drug policy reform questions to voters’ ballots in 2020.
A group called Decriminalize California is preparing to soon begin collecting signatures in support of a measure to legalize psilocybin mushrooms.
Separate from the huge number of states where cannabis and drug policy reform questions could appear before voters on ballots, lawmakers in many states are expected to consider bills to legalize marijuana.
And with presidential candidates increasingly embracing cannabis legalization and other far-reaching reforms, 2020 is poised to be the biggest year for marijuana yet.
“In 2020, hundreds of thousands of Americans will turn out to vote not for the top of the ticket, but for the rights of cannabis consumers in upwards of a dozen states,” said NORML Political Director Justin Strekal. “As we have seen in previous elections, marijuana initiatives increase voter turnout in nearly every demographic. With public support growing by the day, 2020 will be the biggest year yet for expanding the freedoms and liberties of cannabis consumers.”
With the help of Senate Republicans, Donald Trump spent the first three years of his presidency remaking the federal judiciary in his own image. The president has appointed 133 district court judges, 50 appeals court judges, and two Supreme Court justices—meaning about one-fifth of the nation’s federal trial judges, and one-fourth of its federal appellate judges, are Trump appointees. These jurists are leading a conservative revolution that will upend decades of precedent and enshrine reactionary policies into the law. The transformation has only just begun. But for a glimpse of where the judiciary is heading if Trump wins a second term, Americans can look to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. A traditionally conservative bench, the court has been newly reshaped by Trump—and quickly got to work translating right-wing priorities into legal doctrine that will govern generations.
The 5th Circuit’s descent into lawlessness did not happen by accident. Senate Republicans would not let President Barack Obama fill several seats on the court, allowing Trump to reshape it after taking office. He appointed five of the court’s seventeen active judges, who immediately allied with the court’s existing far-right bloc, which includes extremists like Judges Jerry Smith and Edith Jones (appointed by Ronald Reagan) and Jennifer Walker Elrod (appointed by George W. Bush). There are now 11 GOP nominees on the court and just five Democratic nominees. (There’s also one vacancy, because some Republican senators deem Trump’s choice for the seat insufficiently militant.)
Trump didn’t flip the court—it already had a majority of GOP appointees—but he neutralized the influence of moderate conservatives. Judge Catharina Haynes, for instance, was appointed by George W. Bush but sat near the ideological center of the court. A trio of Reagan appointees—Judges E. Grady Jolly, Patrick Higginbotham, and W. Eugene Davis—leaned right but supported judicial restraint and adherence to precedent. Trump’s five appointees joined the axis of extremists like Smith, Jones, and Elrod in 2018. This year, we witnessed the results.
Like all federal appeals courts, the 5th Circuit first hears cases as a three-judge panel whose members are randomly selected; a majority of the court can then choose to rehear the case “en banc,” with every active judge sitting. Today, extremists are more likely to constitute a majority on three-judge panels, and they have an insurmountable majority when the court sits en banc.
In 2019, the conservative majority went on a rampage. In December, the court ruled that Obamacare’s individual mandate had become unconstitutional in an overtly partisan decision, and suggested that the rest of the law may have to fall, as well. Another appalling December ruling provides a good example of the 5th Circuit’s cruelty. The court granted immunity from civil suit to prison guards who locked an inmate in two filthy cells for six days. These cells, including the floor and the faucet, were covered in “massive amounts” of feces. The inmate, who was completely naked, was forced to sleep in feces and could not eat or drink because excrement contaminated everything. He sued the guards, who laughed and taunted him as he suffered, for subjecting him to cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment.
The 5th Circuit granted the guards immunity. In Smith’s opinion, the court held that an inmate’s right not to be locked in a feces-covered cell for six days was not “clearly established,” so the guards could not have known they were violating the Constitution. Smith added that, while future guards must avoid this precise form of torture, “we do not suggest” that “prison officials cannot require inmates to sleep naked on the floor. There can be any number of perfectly valid reasons for doing so.”
To be fair, the 5th Circuit issued a few decent decisions that did not shield law enforcement officers from lawsuits brought by victims who alleged unconstitutional conduct. (This shield is called “qualified immunity.”) But these modest decisions—which merely allowed victims to make their case to a jury rather than nixing their lawsuits altogether—provoked the ire of the court’s far-right flank.
James Ho, a Trump judge whose opinions resemble Rush Limbaugh’s most incoherent rants, accused the majority of enabling mass shootings when it withheld qualified immunity from cops who apparently shot an innocent man to death. (Three bomb-throwing colleagues joined his opinion.) The facts were horrific: Officers shot the victim from 100 yards away because he was holding a toy cap gun and allegedly looked like a suspect in pursuit (probably because they were both black.) When the victim didn’t die immediately, the officers electrocuted him with a stun gun until he expired. According to Ho, the victim’s family should not be allowed to sue the officers. In fact, Ho has suggested—joined by two colleagues—that no one should be able to sue officers for constitutional violations when they engage in illegal violence.
It should not be surprising that this court cut back on protections against double jeopardy, permitting prosecutors to retry a defendant on an issue of fact that a jury has already decided in his favor. Or that the court curbed Americans’ right to protest in a decision involving DeRay Mckesson, a Black Lives Matter activist. During one demonstration that Mckesson helped lead against police brutality, a protester threw a hard object at an officer that hit him. The officer then sued Mckesson, even though he’d done nothing to incite violence. In shocking ruling, the 5th Circuit approved the lawsuit, holding Mckesson was liable for any violence committed by any protester at his demonstration. This decision is a frontal attack on the First Amendment, subjecting activists to crippling damages by making them liable for the conduct of people they can’t actually control. It radically alters free speech law, suppressing dissent and threatening to bankrupt civil rights groups.
The 5th Circuit is also finding new and creative ways to trample LGBTQ rights. The court held that the Eighth Amendment does not require prisons to provide sex reassignment surgery to transgender inmates, even those who threaten suicide. Ho’s opinion for the court willfully misgendered the trans plaintiff. The court also held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act does not bar discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. In a long-winded concurrence to his own majority opinion, Ho then lobbied SCOTUS to rule against LGBTQ equality, writing that a decision for LGBTQ rights would delegitimize the court.
There was one bright spot in the 5th Circuit’s jurisprudence in 2019, but it is an aberration that may soon be undone. A three-judge panel refused to halt a district court’s decision invalidating Mississippi’s Senate District 22 as an illicit racial gerrymander under the Voting Rights Act. The panel’s ruling infuriated Judge Edith Brown Clement, an arch-conservative George W. Bush appointee, who complained, in partisan terms, that the case hadn’t come before three Republican judges.
Later, a different panel upheld the district court’s ruling in full. In response, Judge Don Willett, a Trump appointee, suggested that the Voting Rights Act’s bar on the dilution of minority votes is unconstitutional. It appears that Clement and Willett will ultimately win out: In September, the court decided to take the case en banc, a sign that it may uphold racial gerrymandering and perhaps further hobble the Voting Rights Act.
Trump’s judicial nominees are not selected because they are unbiased or nonpartisan or fair-minded. They are chosen largely because of their loyalty to the Federalist Society, a network of conservative attorneys led by Leonard Leo, who advises Trump on judges. Leo has spent decades—and millions in dark money—grooming and vetting lawyers who impose their hard-right views from the bench. He views moderate judges like Haynes as mistakes. The influx of Trump judges, who had to pass an ideological purity test to win Leo’s approval, will not drift to the left.
The Federalist Society’s influence is derived from conservatives’ single-minded focus on overturning Roe v. Wade. This year, the 5th Circuit has gotten Republicans closer than ever to achieving that goal. The court has begun openly flouting Supreme Court precedent preserving the right to choose. They kicked off the year by declining to disturb an outrageous decision by a three-judge panel upholding Louisiana’s unconstitutional abortion law. The Louisiana restriction, which forces abortion providers to get admitting privileges at a nearby hospital, is virtually identical to a Texas statute that the Supreme Court struck down in 2016.
Yet in an opinion by Smith, the panel defied SCOTUS and upheld Louisiana’s law in June Medical Services v. Gee. Then, in January, the court’s conservative judges refused to reconsider Smith’s egregious decision. Their decision so brazenly rejected binding Supreme Court precedent that Chief Justice John Roberts, no friend of reproductive rights, stepped in to keep the measure on hold. (SCOTUS will hear the case in March.) In October, a three-judge panel intervened in a different case challenging a separate set of Louisiana abortion limitations. The panel declared that abortion providers lacked standing to challenge much or all of the state’s abortion regime, a ploy that can insulate anti-abortion laws from judicial review altogether.
Republican appointees to the 5th Circuit make little effort to conceal their disgust with abortion. Ho accused women who terminate their pregnancies of furthering eugenics in a December concurrence. (His slander of these women is not only offensive but factually inaccurate.) Ho also praised the “the millions of Americans who believe in the sanctity of life,” insisting that Roe has no “basis in constitutional text or original meaning.” He even urged courts to hold hearings on “fetal pain,” writing: “If courts grant convicted murderers the right to discovery to mitigate pain from executions, there’s no reason they shouldn’t be even more solicitous of innocent babies.”
The 5th Circuit today is a sneak peek of what more courts will look like once they have been fully captured by judges both Trump-appointed and Trump-aligned. The president has already flipped the 2nd, 3rd, and 11th Circuits, creating a majority of Republican appointees. As the president solidifies his grasp on these courts, we can expect them to issuemore extreme decisions that drag the law to the right. Although the Supreme Court is fiercely conservative, the chief justice has stopped it short of going full partisan in occasional high-profile cases. If Trump gets one more Supreme Court appointment, however, SCOTUS may join the 5th Circuit in abandoning any pretense of impartiality and simply embracing the Republican Party platform.
The 5th Circuit is a largely successful experiment for the jurisprudence of Trumpism. And in the hands of the nation’s most radically conservative judges, it has become the court where justice goes to die.
Update, December 26, 2019: This post was updated to include the 5th Circuit’s December ruling on the Affordable Care Act.
The unidentified 14-year-old — who spent more than two weeks on the lam — was exclusively photographed by The Post while leaving his defense lawyers’ offices in Harlem around 4:45 p.m.
Neither the boy nor two apparent family members — a woman and an older teen — would answer questions, although the woman angrily slapped a recording device out of a reporter’s hand while crossing 125th Street.
“Go ahead! You’d better go ahead! Move! F–-k!” she shouted.
A man in a suit who emerged from the building that houses the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem to escort the group to a waiting SUV also refused to answer questions.
Detectives apprehended the teen before 8 a.m. in the Bronx and took him to the 26th Precinct station house in Harlem, where they executed a search warrant and swabbed a DNA sample from the inside of his cheek, sources familiar with the investigation said.
Cops hope to match the teen’s DNA to blood found at the scene of the crime or to genetic material recovered from Majors’ teeth after she bit one of her assailants, a source familiar with the case said.
DNA tests usually take three to four weeks, but can be done in as few as three days if the lab is “up and running” at full speed, sources said.
The teen’s test will be expedited, sources said, but it’s unclear whether the Christmas and New Year’s holidays will prevent it from being finished as quickly as otherwise possible.
The teen allegedly has been identified as Majors’ killer by 13-year-old Zyairr Davis, who’s charged with second-degree murder as an accomplice in the high-profile slaying of the Barnard College freshman.
Davis’ account of the teen’s role in Majors’ slaying provides enough probable cause to arrest the teen, a law enforcement source said, but a single accomplice’s testimony isn’t sufficient to secure a conviction under state law.
As a result, he could only be held for five days before he would be able to win his release from custody.
Neither the NYPD nor the Manhattan DA would say who made the decision to release him.
NYPD Chief of Detectives Rodney Harrison said the teen was released without charges following what he described only as an “investigative process” for which his lawyers were present.
“This was a significant development in the investigative process,” Harrison said.
“Although he has since been released to the custody of his attorneys, the investigation remains very active.
“Our detectives are the best at what they do and are committed to finding justice for all parties involved,” Harrison added.
But the teen’s revolving-door treatment left some cops fuming.
Tessa MajorsInstagram
“Of course I’m outraged, and I feel sorry for Tessa’s family because after losing such a beautiful person, they have to now watch New York City politics victimize her a second time,” one Manhattan cop said.
“This is what the de Blasios, Cuomos, AOCs, all these politicians want — nobody to go to jail,” he said referring to US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
A high-ranking NYPD official advised people to “move out of the city.”
“We’re in bad shape. Lucky it ain’t my daughter,” the source said.
Majors, an 18-year-old from Charlottesville, Virginia, was repeatedly knifed when she resisted a robbery around 5:30 p.m. on Dec. 11 in Morningside Park, on the western edge of the campus that the all-women’s Barnard school shares with Columbia University.
Davis allegedly confessed that he saw “feathers come out of her jacket” during the vicious attack, a detective who took part in the boy’s questioning testified in Family Court following his Dec. 13 arrest.
Davis also allegedly admitted that he and two pals from nearby MS 180 went to the park to rob someone, Detective Vincent Signoretti testified.
Another 14-year-old was also taken into custody Dec. 13, but was released for lack of evidence when he demanded a lawyer and refused to answer questions, sources have said.
The teen who was nabbed on Thursday was the subject of a Dec. 16 manhunt in Harlem sparked by his mother’s claim that he jumped out of a car while heading to the 26th Precinct with an unidentified adult to discuss the case, according to sources.
Subsequent investigation led authorities to suspect the teen was hiding out with relatives “down South,” and the New York-New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force was enlisted to try to track him down, sources said earlier this week.
Investigators now suspect the mother’s account of him bolting from the car was a ruse to give her son time to go into hiding, sources said Thursday.
Additional reporting by Rebecca Rosenberg and Bruce Golding
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump warned Russia and Iran on Thursday not to kill “innocent civilians” in a Syrian conflict that has forced an exodus of residents from Idlib province to unstable areas near the Turkish border.
Trump tweeted the warning from his resort in Palm Beach, Florida.
“Russia, Syria, and Iran are killing, or on their way to killing, thousands of innocent civilians in Idlib Province. Don’t do it! Turkey is working hard to stop this carnage,” the president wrote Thursday.
Syrian forces have bombarded southern and eastern Idlib province, the last rebel stronghold in the war-torn country, since late November. A ground offensive that began last week displaced more people, and government forces captured more than 40 villages and hamlets, according to the Syrian army and opposition activists.
The Syrian Response Coordination Group, a relief group in northwestern Syria, said 216,632 people have fled their homes. Many of them are probably headed to the Turkey-Syria border. Turkey remains a close U.S. ally despite bipartisan concerns about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s invasion of Syria this year.
Trump faced a backlash in October for withdrawing U.S. troops from northern Syria, clearing the way for Turkey’s invasion days later. The president reasserted his relationship with Erdogan during a White House visit last month, saying he is a “big fan” of his Turkish counterpart.
The president is staying at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida for the holidays. He spent much of the morning after Christmas slamming House Democrats amid deliberations over a Senate trial to consider two articles of impeachment approved last week. He directed most of his ire at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and said the impeachment made it harder for him to deal with foreign leaders.
“Russia, Syria, and Iran are killing, or on their way to killing, thousands of innocent civilians in Idlib Province,” Trump, who is currently at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla., tweeted. “Don’t do it! Turkey is working hard to stop this carnage.”
Russia, Syria, and Iran are killing, or on their way to killing, thousands of innocent civilians in Idlib Province. Don’t do it! Turkey is working hard to stop this carnage.
In recent weeks, Syrian and Russian forces have stepped up air strikes against targets in Idlib province, the last major rebel-held area in the region.
A Syrian relief group called the Syrian Response Coordination Group said this week that over 200,000 civilians had fled their homes in northwest Syria amid a bombardment from Syrian government forces there, according to The Associated Press, with many of them fleeing to the Turkish border.
The group said that more than 250 civilians have been killed as a result of the air and ground operations conducted by Syria and its Russian and Iranian allies.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan warned earlier this week that Turkey could not handle the new wave of refugees coming from Syria.
“If the violence towards the people of Idlib does not stop, this number will increase even more. In that case, Turkey will not carry such a migrant burden on its own,” Erdoğan said.
Trump sent the tweet Thursday morning amid complaints about his impeachment; shortly later, he departed for Trump International Golf Club.
While anger spread in Congress and other parts of the government, Mr. Trump continued to support the kingdom as an important Arab ally and a reliable buyer of American arms. But as a presidential election looms, the Saudis realize that Mr. Trump could find that position to be a liability with voters, and a new president could take an entirely different approach.
“It is a hard ask, even for Trump, to defend Saudi Arabia at every turn during a campaign,” said Emile Hokayem, a Middle East analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “So I think the Saudis are smart enough to tone it down for a time.”
Daylight also broke between Saudi Arabia and its closest regional ally, the United Arab Emirates. In June, the Emirates began withdrawing its troops from Yemen, leaving the Saudis with the burden of an ugly war that few believe they can win. In July, the Emirates hosted rare talks with Iran about maritime security, an effort to calm tensions in the Persian Gulf and safeguard the country’s reputation as a safe business hub.
Saudi officials did not respond to a request for comment on the recent diplomacy.
While those overtures have yet to yield official agreements, they have eased pressures in the region.
In Yemen, both sides have released more than 100 prisoners to show good will, and cross-border attacks by the Houthis have grown less frequent. Last month the United Nations envoy to Yemen, Martin Griffiths, reported an 80 percent reduction in airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition over the previous two weeks.
Since then, no Yemeni civilians have been killed in airstrikes, said Radhya Almutawakel, the chairwoman of Mwatana, a Yemeni human rights group.
Authorities in Boston have identified a mother and two children who died in a suspected murder-suicide after their bodies were found outside a parking garage on Christmas Day.
Erin Pascal, 40, and her two children — Allison, 4, and Andrew, 16 months — were identified in a Thursday news release from Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins.
“Our investigation is showing the two children fell first, and then the parent after,” Rollins told WBUR radio on Thursday. The deaths occurred between 1:25 p.m. and 1:35 p.m. on Christmas and are believed to be a double murder-suicide.
The Renaissance parking garage, which is owned by Northeastern University, has been the site of two other suicides this year, Rollins’ release said.
News footage showed police on Wednesday looking at an SUV parked on top of the garage, with several doors open. Boston Police Commissioner William Gross said there were two child car seats in the vehicle.
“This Christmas Day tragedy demonstrates the urgency of addressing mental health, suicide and homicide,” Rollins said in the release. “We have to do more to address these significant public health issues that impact all of us in Suffolk County,”
If you or someone you know may be struggling with suicidal thoughts, you can call the U.S. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255) any time of day or night or chat online.
Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7, confidential support via text message to people in crisis when they dial 741741.
Beau Belson’s body was found at about noon under ice in a pond close to the house he disappeared from near Six Lakes, according to Michigan State Police. His body was recovered by the Michigan State Police Marine Services Team.
The boy, who could communicate, was last seen playing in his grandmother’s backyard with his family Wednesday afternoon, according to the Montcalm County Central Dispatch center. When the family went inside, they realized the boy was gone, NBC affiliate WOOD reported.
More than 1,000 volunteers scoured the area surrounding the home on Christmas Day, and professional search crews searched overnight with helicopters and a drone. Hundreds of volunteers were back out at daybreak Thursday.
Michigan State Police Lt. David Cope said the boy’s death was under investigation, but there was not an immediate indication that anything suspicious had happened.
Former Bush adviser Brad Blakeman makes the case for a dismissed trial against President Trump.
Nancy Pelosi‘s move to withhold from the Senate articles of impeachment against President Trump is stunning because the House speaker “has no leverage,” said Brad Blakeman, who served as deputy assistant to President George W. Bush.
Blakeman, an adviser in the Bush-Cheney 2000 Presidential campaign, made the comment on “Fox & Friends” Thursday morning.
“[Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell did not nose his way into the impeachment process in the House and she has no standing to do that in the Senate,” he said.
The president tore into House Democrats overnight and into the morning over their handling of the impeachment process, calling them “hypocrites” and “liars” for allegedly seeking concessions in the Senate that Republicans were not afforded in the House — and for hitting pause on impeachment after stressing the national security urgency of it all.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., in his committee’s impeachment report, stated the president “will remain a threat to national security and the Constitution” if he remains in office – an argument generally used to bolster Democrats’ case for a swift impeachment process.
Despite this assessment, the impeachment process has stalled after Pelosi abruptly opted not to deliver articles of impeachment to the Senate, after the House adopted two articles alleging abuse of power and obstruction of Congress for Trump’s actions involving Ukraine.
“I think the longer she delays, the worse it gets for them [Democrats] because remember their argument was, this president is such a danger he must be removed for the good of the republic,” Blakeman said on Thursday morning. “If she [Pelosi] doesn’t want to bring the charges to the Senate, then, in fact, he hasn’t been impeached, because the impeachment process means that once the vote is taken in the House it must be filed in the Senate in order for the Senate to take up their responsibility.”
“So, if they don’t consummate their vote by the filing of charges against the president in the Senate, then, in fact, I believe, as many scholars do, that the man has not been impeached,” he continued.
Pelosi, D-Calif., said she will not appoint impeachment managers who will represent the House during a Senate trial until the Senate determines the trial’s process. McConnell, R-Ky., has publicly rejected a demand from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to subpoena additional documents and witnesses, claiming these fact-finding efforts were the House’s job. McConnell has also claimed that he cannot do anything until Pelosi sends over the impeachment articles, leaving the two chambers at an “impasse.”
Blakeman noted that he thinks the Senate has many options once the impeachment articles are sent over.
“The first option would be, that after the charges are read in the Senate against the president, his side can make a motion to dismiss, which is a procedural vote that only requires a simple majority of 51 votes and there is no need for a trial because the charges don’t hold up to the constitutional standard,” Blakeman said.
“They can have an abbreviated trial. When they’ve heard enough, they can vote or they can have a full trial with many witnesses and prolonged.”
He continued, “I don’t think the Democrats want that because six of the jurors, senators, are running against the president themselves, hardly impartial.”
Blakeman then went on to explain what he thinks is the fourth possibility, which he refers to as “the nuclear option.”
“They can delay the trial until November 4, the day after the election, and let the American people decide who our next president will be,” Blakeman explained.
Fox News’ Ronn Blitzer contributed to this report.
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) – A winter storm will move across the Plains and Upper Midwest this weekend, bringing snow and rain to the region.
Most of the accumulating snow will fall from Colorado through central Nebraska into the Dakotas, then through northern parts of Minnesota and Wisconsin. Some areas north of Sioux Falls, South Dakota to Minneapolis, Minnesota may see over six inches of snow Saturday into Sunday.
Farther south, including over Iowa, most of the precipitation will fall as rain. A half-inch to an inch of rainfall is possible Saturday into Saturday night. Any snow later Sunday into Monday looks light with minor, if any, accumulation here.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said in a television interview that she is “disturbed” by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s coordination with President Trump and his staff on an impending impeachment trial.
Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images
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Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said in a television interview that she is “disturbed” by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s coordination with President Trump and his staff on an impending impeachment trial.
Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images
Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski told a local television affiliate that she’s “disturbed” by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s plans to use “total coordination” with the White House to set out President Trump’s impeachment trial.
Murkowski, who remains a wild card in a potential Senate trial, has been tight-lipped on the effort. However, she shared her concerns with McConnell’s recent comments in an interview with KTUU in Anchorage, Alaska.
“We’ll be working through this process, hopefully in a fairly short period of time, in total coordination with the White House counsel’s office and the people who are representing the president in the well of the Senate,” McConnell said.
McConnell also slammed the impeachment case, calling it “weak” and saying “there will be no difference between the president’s position and our position as to how to handle this.”
“We have to take that step back from being hand in glove with the defense,” Murkowski told KTUU. “And so [when] I … heard what Leader McConnell had said, I happened to think that that has further confused the process.”
House lawmakers impeached Trump for two articles — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress — on Dec. 18, shortly before lawmakers returned home for a holiday recess. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has yet to transmit the articles to the Senate, putting a trial in limbo until lawmakers for the lower chamber return Jan. 7.
Trump, White House officials and their Republican Senate allies have said they want to see a robust defense of the president in the trial. But Murkowski says she’s maintaining impartiality for her role as a juror.
“For me to prejudge and say ‘there’s nothing there,’ or on the other hand, ‘he should be impeached yesterday,’ that’s wrong, in my view, that’s wrong,” she said.
Murkowski also raised concern that the House rushed the impeachment process, as some members called for its completion before the holiday recess.
Murkowski isn’t the only Republican wild card in a potential Senate trial. Sens. Mitt Romney of Utah and Susan Collins of Maine have also held back their plans for how they may vote in an impeachment trial.
Murkowski lauded the approach.
“If it means that I am viewed as one who looks openly and critically at every issue in front of me, rather than acting as a rubber stamp for my party or my president, I’m totally good with that,” she said.
Murkowski’s office didn’t immediately respond to NPR’s request for comment.
President Donald Trump fired off a stream of post-Christmas tweets Thursday blasting Democrats, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and her San Francisco congressional district amid the impeachment impasse.
“The Radical Left, Do Nothing Democrats said they wanted to RUSH everything through to the Senate because ‘President Trump is a threat to National Security’ (they are vicious, will say anything!), but now they don’t want to go fast anymore, they want to go very slowly,” Trump tweeted. “Liars!”
The president attacked Pelosi’s congressional district as “filthy dirty” and “one of the worst anywhere in the U.S.” Calling Pelosi “crazy,” Trump also suggested she should face a 2020 primary challenge.
The president then lamented how “much more difficult” it is “to deal with foreign leaders (and others)” amid impeachment.
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Trump’s tweets come after Pelosi has said she would wait until Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., announces the process by which the chamber will conduct Trump’s trial before transmitting the articles of impeachment the House passed last week.
As it stands, McConnell has said he wants the Senate to conform to the precedent set in 1999, during then-President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial, which included a two-resolution process: first, an initial agreement to first hear the case and then a later vote on whether to call witnesses.
McConnell’s counterpart, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has pushed for a single resolution that would set parameters for presenting the case and allow for the calling of witnesses. Schumer has said he wants the Senate to call four witnesses, including former national security adviser John Bolton and acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, to testify about Trump’s conduct toward Ukraine.
Speaking with “Fox and Friends” on Monday, McConnell said “we’re at an impasse” and “we can’t do anything until the speaker sends the papers over, so everybody enjoy the holidays.”
The first House-passed article of impeachment charged Trump with abusing his power by pushing Ukraine to probe former Vice President Joe Biden, his son Hunter and Democrats while withholding nearly $400 million in military aid to the country, as well as an official White House visit for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. The second article charged Trump with obstructing Congress’ investigation into those efforts.
Six Lakes — The body of a 5-year-old boy was discovered in a rural pond Thursday, a day after he was reported missing while playing outdoors on Christmas, authorities said.
State and local officers, as well as a swarm of volunteers, had been searching for Beau Belson, who was autistic. He was last seen playing with others Wednesday afternoon in the Six Lakes area, 56 miles northeast of Grand Rapids.
“Unfortunately, he was found in a pond, and he’s no longer with us,” state police First Lt. Kevin Sweeney told an anxious crowd of people. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family.”
The pond was near the home of Beau’s grandmother in Montcalm County. The manner of death wasn’t considered suspicious. The boy was wearing a jacket, boots and dinosaur pajamas when he was last seen.
Authorities earlier had expressed hope that mild daytime weather might work in Beau’s favor. The community response was extraordinary: Hundreds of people on Christmas turned out to look for the boy or offer any assistance.
“Of course, temperatures did dip down close to freezing last night,” state police Lt. David Cope said.
“Any person, regardless of age, you don’t want them being alone in the wilderness for several hours at a time, especially in the 30-degree weather range.”
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