Trump should be worried as GOP senators duck questions about impeachment: conservative columnist

In a column for the Washington Post, conservative -- and vocal "Never-Trumper" -- Jennifer Rubin pointed out that Donald Trump should take heed at how few GOP senators are rushing to his defense while Republican House members are making a great show of attacking Democrats for holding impeachment hearings.

According to Rubin, the silence of GOP senators should be raising red flags at the White House since the lawmakers hold the key to whether Trump remains in office should an impeachment trial be conducted on the Senate floor.

Pointing out that Trump's "allies in the Senate seem altogether unwilling to defend him on the merits," Rubin made her case.

"Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) pleads that he cannot comment on substance because he cannot separate that from the “unfairness" of the House process. (It’s fairly simple, honestly), she wrote. "Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.) claims he cannot comment on testimony he hasn’t seen that Trump used taxpayer money (in the form of foreign aid) to extort the Ukrainian government to interfere in our election."

"No senator is saying openly that the president’s conduct is not impeachable. No senator is saying the witnesses lack credibility. No senator is saying it is perfectly appropriate for the president to use his powers to aid his campaign effort. There is a reason for that stunning silence: There is every reason to view this conduct as unprecedented, impeachable and amply provable through multiple witnesses and documents," she added.

To further bolster her case, she also noted the reticence of stalwart Trump defenders such as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) when dealing with the  president's prospects.

"Even the unctuous Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) could not actually include a condemnation of the House in his worthless resolution. It was more like a request for the House to be more transparent. Apparently, anything stronger was not going to keep Republicans together," she explained before adding multiple GOP senators -- including Mitt Romney (R-UT), Susan Collins (R-ME), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Cory Gardner (R-CO), Lamar Alexander (R-TN.), Mike Enzi (R-WY.), Johnny Isakson (R-GA.), Dan Sullivan (R-AK) and Rob Portman (R-OH)-- refused to sign onto Graham's resolution.

"The Senate reaction speaks volumes about the body’s squeamishness about taking a vote in an impeachment trial on conduct so utterly unacceptable," she elaborated. "There is another takeaway from the senators’ stall tactics. The public is already moving with remarkable speed toward supporting impeachment and removal without seeing the witnesses, either. If the witnesses prove as stalwart and professional as they have apparently demonstrated behind closed doors, and/or the Republicans behave as ludicrously as they did during Wednesday’s mass violation of security rules by forcing themselves into a secure hearing room, who knows how high support for removal could go?"

She concluded, that to date, "It is simply cowardice and an utter lack of imagination that prevents them from seeing a better political landscape with Vice President Pence in the presidency and Trump back in New York."

You can read the whole piece here.