Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Tim Kaine (D-VA) are working behind the scenes to convince their colleagues that they should censure former President Donald Trump, Axios reported.
When former President Bill Clinton was impeached for lying under oath about a sexual relationship, the Senate refused to vote for removal and instead voted for censure in 1998. Now Kaine and Collins are trying to convince their colleagues that attempting to overthrow the 2020 election and leading a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol is worthy of the same censure that Clinton got.
The Senate voted Tuesday whether to accept the argument that impeaching Donald Trump was unconstitutional, and 45 Republicans agreed to throw out the impeachment case. Two-thirds of the Senate is needed to convict Trump, which is 17 Republicans that would have to join with all Democrats.
"I think it's pretty obvious from the vote today, that it is extraordinarily unlikely that the president will be convicted. Just do the math," Collins said to reporters after the vote.
Kaine, by contrast, said that he wants to remove the focus from Trump and instead put it on the issues of President Joe Biden's agenda.
The majority of Americans support the second impeachment of Trump (56 percent) and believe that he should be convicted and barred from running for office again (57 percent), a Monmouth University poll said this week. These are the base numbers that appear prior to the public trial of Trump that will show videos and audio of the former president's supporters saying that they went to the Capitol on his instruction.
In a column for the conservative Bulwark, historians Thomas Lecaque and J.L. Tomlin claim that conservative gadfly Steve Bannon is busily and unabashedly setting the stage for a second insurrection at the same time he is facing a criminal referral for refusing to testify before Congress on the Jan 6th attack.
Late Tuesday, the bipartisan House riot committee is expected to vote on citing the former Donald Trump White House official for criminal contempt of Congress which will then be referred to the Justice Department.
At that point, according to Jonathan David Shaub, a former attorney for the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, the Biden White House would have to provide the DOJ with a waiver to go ahead with the prosecution of Bannon.
While the investigators' pursuit of Bannon plays out in Congress and likely the courts, the Bulwark report notes that Bannon has been keeping himself busy by continuing pushing Trump's big lie that the election was stolen, while at the same time encouraging crowds to get ready to take to the streets and not give up.
Writing, "... it is worth noting that Bannon's troubling activities did not stop after January 6. Far from it. He is still out in the streets, at rallies, on conference calls, and on his podcast trumpeting it to the heavens: The insurrection isn't over, it's only just begun," the two historians added, "Bannon is neither hiding nor defensively trying to justify his past actions. Rather, he is continuing to push the Big Lie and all of its permutations, tying together a web of far-right ideas and allies. Like most good propagandists, he knows that the veil between fact and belief is very thin in a highly partisan political environment."
Case in point , they note, are three recent appearances Bannon has made to fire up Trump partisans.
According to the Bulwark column, Bannon appeared at the Capitol Hill Club on September 29 to launch the Association of Republican Presidential Appointees, where he rallied the troops and claimed they needed to prepare for taking over the government again with "shock troops" needed.
"We control the country. We've got to start acting like it. And one way we're going to act like it, we're not going to have 4,000 [shock troops] ready to go, we're going to have 20,000 ready to go," he exhorted the crowd.
One week later Bannon attended the Rod of Iron Freedom Festival, an annual event that brings together conservatives with evangelical Christians where they plot to work on common goals.
As the historians wrote, "Bannon's address to the group contained all of the half-truths, gross exaggerations, invented evidence, and irrational interpretations endemic to today's MAGA-populist GOP. What is new is his insistence, based on an existing conflation between revolutionary clergy and modern Christian conservatives, that religious leaders should advocate the rejection of President Biden and his 2020 election victory as an act of piety among their followers."
They added, "... it is hard to think of a time—other than during the Civil War—when clergy have been so publicly advised by a national political actor to advocate open insurrectionism against the U.S. government and our system of elections, " adding, "At best, their beliefs are being exploited by cynical men like Bannon and Trump, who want to use them as a voting bloc. At worst, these groups' beliefs could be manipulated by leaders they respect and by genuine fears they harbor to provoke otherwise law-abiding American citizens into acts of violence and treason."
Lastly, they note, Bannon headlined the Take Back Virginia Rally on October 13 where, they report, "...there was Bannon, who said that "we're putting together a coalition that's going to govern for 100 years" while selling the Big Lie. All of this at a rally where the host, Martha Boneta, had the crowd recite the Pledge of Allegiance to a flag supposedly waved in Washington during the events of January 6."
"On his podcast, in his speeches, and in his interviews, Steve Bannon combines anti-democratic claims: the election was stolen, the insurrection was peaceful, we will build a centennial dynasty that cannot be shaken," Lecaque and Tomlin wite, before warning, "If the 2020 election and the January 6th insurrection are becoming the "New Lost Cause" of the GOP, Bannon wants to organize its new fascist apparatus. The charge of contempt of Congress is a good start. But will it be enough?"
You can read more here.
On Tuesday, a full day after the news of former Secretary of State Colin Powell's death from COVID-19 complications, former President Donald Trump released a short statement commenting on his passing.
The statement, posted to Twitter by spokesperson Liz Harrington, was riddled with insults against Powell, who twice endorsed his Democratic opponents for president. Trump called him a "classic RINO [Republican in name only]" who "made big mistakes on Iraq" and was always "first to attack other Republicans."
He also took a jab at the media for not covering him as glowingly as Powell, a decorated Vietnam veteran who served in various diplomatic, military, and national security roles under four presidents, remarking that Powell was "treated in death so beautifully by the Fake News Media" and that he hopes "that happens to me someday."
"Given the chance to be gracious about someone's death, or say nothing at all, Trump takes a decidedly different route," said New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman in response to the statement. "And of course it's larded in envy about coverage."
Read the full statement below:
"He was a classic RINO, if even that, always being the first to attack other Republicans. He made plenty of mistake… https://t.co/nE3KRKHoAx— Liz Harrington (@Liz Harrington) 1634650489.0
Embattled Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE) expects to be indicted but denies that he lied to the FBI about illegal campaign contributions from a Nigerian-Lebanese billionaire.
The nine-term Republican was among four GOP lawmakers accused of taking contributions funneled from foreign billionaire Gilbert Chagoury through a group of Californians between 2012 and 2016, and he faces potential prosecution for allegedly misleading statements to investigators, reported the Omaha World-Herald.
"We will fight these charges, I did not lie to them," Fortenberry said in a videotaped statement, which was recorded in a vintage pickup truck and posted on YouTube. "This is wrong on so many levels."
Fortenberry allegedly received $30,200 through the scheme, although his campaign has said he was unaware the money came from Chagoury and he said he willingly cooperated with investigators.
"I feel so personally betrayed," the congressman said. "I thought we were trying to help."
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