Damning public testimony in the impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump has failed to-date in convincing Republicans to break with the controversial president.
"After two weeks of extraordinary open hearings that Democrats envisioned as their best opportunity to shape public opinion on impeachment, President Trump claims to be impervious to the cascade of damaging revelations because of hardening Republican opposition to his removal from office," The Washington Post reported Saturday.
"This phase of the inquiry was particularly damning for Trump, simply because of the fact pattern that emerged. A series of government witnesses, testifying under oath and at risk of perjury, implicated the president in a scheme to pressure Ukraine to influence the 2020 election," the newspaper noted.
"Many Democrats had counted on this phase of the inquiry to change the political contours of impeachment, hoping that hearing powerful accounts from government witnesses could galvanize public support for removing Trump and therefore pressure some GOP senators to abandon the president," The Post explained. "Although House Democrats say the evidence that Trump abused his office and orchestrated a bribery scheme is unambiguous, the hearings appear to have changed the minds of few, if any, Republican lawmakers. This is a reflection of Trump’s supremacy within his party."
Prominent GOP strategist John Weaver said that the reaction by Republican lawmakers was evidence the party had become a cult.
"Trump has control of the 202 branch of the party and he has control of what remains of the party nationally,” Weaver said. “It’s not a party anymore in the traditional sense; it’s a cult."
"So he’ll be successful in averting conviction in the Senate and removal from office because the party is completely subjugated to him," he added.
