Friday in an interview with CNN’s Alisyn Camerota, Senator Mazie Hirono (D-HI) accused President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell (R-KY), of “rigging the impeachment trial” that will take place in the Senate.
Hirono defended Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) after the House Speaker, on Thursday, insisted McConnell reveal the resolution that would set the terms for the trial before she would transmit the articles.
“[Pelosi] said that she wanted to see the rules of the road so that she could appoint appropriate managers to present the case to the Senate. She did not say, ‘Well, I’m holding on until Mitch McConnell agrees to witnesses'”, Senator Hirono told the CNN host.
However, Pelosi on Friday caved on sending the articles to the Senate. She later tweeted: “By joining a resolution to dismiss, Sen. McConnell showed his true colors. Americans have now seen what is at stake in a fair trial with witnesses & evidence, and new evidence has emerged. Every Senator will have to vote: is their loyalty is to the President or the Constitution?”
On Thursday she tweeted: “If Republican Senators move for a quick dismissal of the charges against the President, with no witnesses or documents, it will be because they are afraid of the truth. Dismissal = cover-up”.
Senator Hirono went on to claim: “Let’s get back to what we should be focusing on which is what kind of trial are we going to have in the Senate? Is it going to be a fair trial? Or is it going to be a rigged trial? Just as the president tried to rig his re-election by trying to get the Ukrainian president to go along with his political scheme, he’s trying to, with the help of Mitch McConnell, rig the Senate trial by not calling appropriate witnesses and producing documents.” (Continued Below)
“The president has been stonewalling this impeachment process the whole way. And now, he has an opportunity in the trial to present his case. And presenting his case means presenting facts and evidence, not saying this is a ‘witch hunt’. That’s not evidence. That’s just rhetorical nothing burgers,” Hirono told Alisyn Camerota.
On Thursday, House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said during a press briefing: “You sat through this impeachment. You watched the speaker of the House deny any rules to move forward in the House. You watched the Speaker of the House change every history we have when it comes it comes to impeachment. We had a history about how we dealt with Clinton and how we dealt with Nixon in a fair process.”
“She changed all that so it could not become fair. She took it out of Judiciary and put it in the Intel Committee, where they couldn’t focus on other things that are going on around the world– only focus on impeachment,” McCarthy noted. “She denied the own members the ability to ask questions that only for the first 45 minutes– that the chair and someone not even elected to Congress had the power to ask questions. She denied the minority to be able to have witnesses. She denied the accused, the president, to even have legal counsel.” (Continued Below)
House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) denied Republicans their list of witnesses during the hearings and House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler did not allow a Republican witness day.
Schiff also interjected House Intel Ranking Member (R-CA) during his line of questioning to Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman after the National Security Council official admitted that he gave out information about the call to people “outside of the White House.”
Schiff interrupted to say: “We don’t want to use these proceedings to… we need to protect the whistleblower. I want to make sure that there is no effort to out the whistleblower through these proceedings. If the witness has a good faith belief that this may reveal the identity of the whistleblower, that is not the purpose that we are here for. And I want to advise the witness accordingly.”
Related: Maxine Waters: GOP Senators Are ‘Not Gonna Have Rules That Are Gonna Be Fair’ With Impeachment)
The House Intel Chairman further would not allow the Republican’s “point of orders” during the hearing of former Ambassador of the United States to Ukraine, Marie Yovonivich. (Video Below)
Last month, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stated: “Before the articles even passed, the Senate Democratic Leader went on television to demand that this body re-do House Democrats’ homework for them–that the Senate should supplement Chairman Schiff’s sloppy work so it is more persuasive than Chairman Schiff himself bothered to make it. Of course, every such demand simply confirms that House Democrats have rushed forward with a case that is much too weak.”
“Back in June, Speaker Pelosi promised the House would, ‘build an ironclad case.’ Never mind that she was basically promising impeachment months before the Ukraine events, but that’s a separate matter. She promised ‘an ironclad case’, the Senate Majority leader said.
Senator Mazie Hirono’s official remarks:
"Just as the President tried to rig his reelection by trying to get the Ukrainian president to go along with his political scheme, he's trying to with the help of Mitch McConnell rig the Senate trial."pic.twitter.com/ZYBCnD2MMa
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) January 10, 2020
