![]() Fred Upton (R-Mich.) of Michigan, one of the 10 GOP impeachers, told her that only Herrera Beutler had heard McCarthy’s tale, though the GOP leader had indeed conveyed the account to multiple people. And DeGette’s efforts to find other Republicans aware of the McCarthy-Trump conversation had also come up short. DeGette had sent a text asking to talk, but the Washington Republican still hadn’t responded. Herrera Beutler’s cell had gone straight to voicemail. And Raskin and his team would learn to their dismay that their own party could prove equally obstructionist when it suited their political purposes.Ībout an hour later, DeGette poked her head back in the room with a double whammy of bad news. 6 would hide in fear of political retaliation rather than help the managers in their effort to convict the former president. Republicans who had stuck their necks out to impeach Trump after Jan. But more than 250 interviews with key players in both parties would reveal that the same political calculations made on both sides of the aisle that ended up hobbling the first impeachment would also cripple the second. In the end, that first failed effort boosted the president’s popularity, emboldening rather than constraining him. House Democrats had chosen to avoid pursuing witnesses to get the politically fraught effort over with as soon as possible, but that had cost them support among several moderate House and Senate Republicans who privately had been open to conviction. The absence of key firsthand accounts had created a major roadblock to conviction in Trump’s first impeachment. In the year-and-a-half-long saga of the two impeachments of Donald Trump, few moments better exemplify the susceptibility of impeachment to the political whims of Congress as the last, frantic 24 hours of Trump’s second trial. How could they refuse to have her explain her bombshell story? But Herrera Beutler’s account was making him rethink his decision. When none of their leads volunteered to come forward, Raskin had shrugged it off, projecting confidence that witnesses weren’t necessary to win. YED TALK ANGER WOMEN TRIALHis team had even privately sparred with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s team about leaving open the possibility of calling for new testimony - a move that ran counter to the New York Democrat’s eagerness for a quick trial so the party could move on to confirming President Joe Biden’s nominees. “I’ll be in touch.”įor weeks, Raskin had engaged in a top secret search for a firsthand witness from the president’s inner circle who could add something valuable to the narrative. “We aren’t going to talk about witnesses now,” he said. But it was too massive a change in strategy to make a hasty decision. “Shouldn’t we be calling for witnesses now?” Swalwell asked. The report, he argued, was an opportunity to give them answers in real time. “Hasn’t this CNN story changed things?” the California Democrat asked, pointing out that in much of that afternoon’s Q&A session, GOP senators had asked what Trump knew and didn’t know about the violence. But as the managers started collecting their belongings, one of them, Eric Swalwell, posed a question to the room. Raskin instructed anyone who wasn’t responsible for delivering final arguments to go home and get some rest. Even before the CNN story landed, they were staring down another all-nighter in a week where they had barely slept. The managers hadn’t expected to give their closing statements until Sunday or Monday and hadn’t yet written a word of them. When Trump’s lawyers had rested their case after just a couple of hours, setting up closing arguments for Saturday morning. The managers had been caught flat-footed. Herrera Beutler’s revelations complicated an already frenzied Friday night. “Try her and see if other House Republicans know about this call too,” Raskin instructed. “I know Jaime really well,” Diana DeGette of Colorado piped up, offering to be the go-between. “We should try to reach out to this Jaime Herrera Beutler and get her notes,” Raskin told the managers in their prep room. It was a flimsy conjecture that everyone knew was a lie - and here was the proof. Pence and everybody else that was over here,” he had said. Trump very much is concerned and was concerned for the safety and well-being of Mr. Just a few hours earlier, the president’s counsel Michael van der Veen had argued - weakly - that Trump tried to protect his vice president from the hordes of rioters calling for his head. The story was dynamite, Raskin thought, and could blow up the last of the Trump team’s slipshod defense. ![]()
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