McConnell: In 'total coordination' with White House for impeachment trial

[riversedge]

Source: USA Today



WASHINGTON- Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Thursday that he will be in "total coordination with the White House counsel" as the impeachment into President Donald Trump presses forward.

During an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News, the Majority Leader said that "everything" he does "during this, I'm coordinating with the White House counsel. There will be no difference between the president's position and our position as to how to handle this, to the extent that we can."

More:Gaetz brought up Hunter Biden's substance abuse issues at impeachment but it backfired

"We don't have the kind of ball control on this that a typical issue, for example, comes over from the House, if I don't like it, we don't take it up," McConnell stated about an impeachment trial. "We have no choice but to take it up, but we'll be working through this process, hopefully in a fairly short period of time, in total coordination with White House counsel's office and the people who are representing the President in the well of the Senate."

Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/12/12/mcconnell-total-coordination-white-house-impeachment-trial/4416518002/

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On impeachment, McConnell vows ‘total coordination’ with Team Trump


http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/impeachment-mcconnell-vows-total-coordination-team-trump
12/13/19 08:00 AM—Updated 12/13/19 08:30 AM
By Steve Benen

In late September, as Donald Trump’s Ukraine scandal started to come into focus, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) demurred in response to reporters’ questions, explaining that she’d likely be “a juror” in the president’s impeachment trial. To draw conclusions about Trump’s guilt or the merits of the allegations, the senator said, might suggest she was “prejudging” the accused.

There are, of course, key qualitative differences between an actual trial in an American courtroom and a presidential impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate, but in a broad sense, senators do serve as jurors. In theory, they have a responsibility to weigh the seriousness of the allegations, consider the evidence, and decide the fate of the accused.

But as Trump’s impeachment process advances, some Republicans are comfortable abandoning the pretense of independence and impartiality. USA Today reported overnight:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Thursday that he will be in “total coordination with the White House counsel” as the impeachment into President Donald Trump presses forward.

During an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News, the Majority Leader said that “everything” he does “during this, I’m coordinating with the White House counsel. There will be no difference between the president’s position and our position as to how to handle this, to the extent that we can.”

Oh. So despite weeks of GOP senators occasionally sidestepping questions about the White House scandal, claiming that they’re jurors who want to maintain the appearance of neutrality, Mitch McConnell – in effect, the jury foreman – is coordinating with the defendant’s lawyers............................

[Firestorm49]

1. So just to get this straight......

Those running an “impartial” trial are in full lockstep with the defendant - getting their wording and defense coordinated with the defendant. Someone please inform me about how this is standard procedure. Is a congressional trial run on a different platform than a civil trial? Was this done for Nixon( resigned before the trial) and Clinton?

Regardless, we all know what the outcome will be. Morning Joe, for as much as he blabbers on endlessly, spoke my thoughts this morning when he said that each and every offense committed by the Traitor in Chief should have been included in the articles of impeachment. I couldn’t agree more. We know the Senate will acquit Trump. For the sake of the short memory span in this country, America needs it engrained in their minds from now and until Election Day just what a crook this guy is. Only a landslide can overcome attempts to rig the next election.

Bring up Felix Sater, Oleg Deripaska, Italian organized crime, Russian organized crime, fraud after fraud. If the Republicans want evidence, for Christ sake, bring it on!

I’m proud of the job that’s been done, but would have liked to see a lot more wood thrown on the fire.

[Nitram]

12. Yup, that's how I read it. Un-fucking-believeable.

[Pacifist Patriot]

2. Your interpretation is absolutely correct.

The jury foreman is taking instructions from the defendant.

[Firestorm49]

5. Much abliged.

[GeorgeGist]

3. NO SHAME

[ancianita]

4. Only The People can get rid of these goons. May they be disbarred for breaches of oaths of office.

[Firestorm49]

7. Let's start with Barr.

[ancianita]

10. My Rep, Bobby Rush, the only person to beat Barack Obama, is ON that, as we speak.

[flor-de-jasmim]

6. And so the separation of powers go up in flames.

When all is said and done, there IS a difference between the behind the scenes subversion of the Constitution and the flagrant abandonment of all pretense.

[Firestorm49]

8. What's happening is mind-boggling.

The very people who claim to be the “patriots” in America, the very same ones who have a huge American flag in their front yard, a closet full of AR15s, and claim to be the ones who own the flag (of which I take high offense) are in the process of reducing America to a dictatorship while we watch it happen.

History in the making. God help us all.

[CrispyQ]

9. 40% of our fellow citizens are fine with this as long as it's their team "winning."

Fintan O’Toole: Trial runs for fascism are in full flow
Babies in cages were no ‘mistake’ by Trump but test-marketing for barbarism

Tue, Jun 26, 2018, 05:00
by Fintan O’Toole

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fintan-o-toole-trial-runs-for-fascism-are-in-full-flow-1.3543375

Fascism doesn’t arise suddenly in an existing democracy. It is not easy to get people to give up their ideas of freedom and civility. You have to do trial runs that, if they are done well, serve two purposes. They get people used to something they may initially recoil from; and they allow you to refine and calibrate. This is what is happening now and we would be fools not to see it.

One of the basic tools of fascism is the rigging of elections – we’ve seen that trialled in the election of Trump, in the Brexit referendum and (less successfully) in the French presidential elections. Another is the generation of tribal identities, the division of society into mutually exclusive polarities. Fascism does not need a majority – it typically comes to power with about 40 per cent support and then uses control and intimidation to consolidate that power. So it doesn’t matter if most people hate you, as long as your 40 per cent is fanatically committed. That’s been tested out too. And fascism of course needs a propaganda machine so effective that it creates for its followers a universe of “alternative facts” impervious to unwanted realities. Again, the testing for this is very far advanced.

Forty percent. If you look at the Con's numbers, he hovers right at 40%, regardless of what happens domestically or internationally. No other modern president has had that kind of consistency. Scroll down to view chart.

https://news.gallup.com/interactives/185273/presidential-job-approval-center.aspx

2020 is critical for this country.

[not fooled]

14. I remember that article

Spot on and eerily prescient for unfolding events in this country that continue the march to fascism.

[JudyM]

11. This should be a centerpiece in a huge public shaming campaign

to call out repub senators to be actual Constitutional patriots instead of McConnell’s swamp lackeys.

[Perseus]

13. Isn't that illegal? That is treason anywhere you place it

There should be a campaign calling it treason, these MFs are all traitors.

[Rizen]

15. Proving again Trump's a symptom of the disease...

not the cause of it.

[DeminPennswoods]

16. You know the saying about the best laid plans of

mice and men sometimes going awry.

[bluestarone]

17. OK surely the SC justices read newspapers and other news sources

So i wonder what their their thoughts are? ( we will never know i'm sure)

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

18. From here on out

A don't want to hear any Republican preach the rule of law.