Daines tries to change Senate impeachment procedures

Montana Republican U.S. Sen. Steve Daines has stepped into the contention over the impeachment proceedings for President Donald Trump, signing on to a resolution that would change the rules of the Senate and set a time limit on the House of Representatives submitting articles of impeachment.

A release from Daines said the resolution is in response to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., not sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate while the rules of the impeachment proceeding are negotiated.

“It’s time to put up or shut up, and stand up to Nancy Pelosi,” Daines said. “House Democrats have been obsessed with impeaching President Trump before he was even sworn into office. First, they rushed through a rigged process, now they have cold feet. Enough with the political games. It’s time to get back to work for Montana and the American people.”  

Daines and 10 other Senators introduced the resolution,

Trump is the third U.S. president to be impeached by the House, along with Democrat Bill Clinton and Andrew Johnson, a Democrat who ran as vice president on the National Union ticket with Abraham Lincoln and became president after Lincoln’s assassination.

Both Clinton and Johnson were acquitted by the Senate.

The House voted on almost exact party lines Dec. 18 to impeach Trump on charges that he enlisted a foreign government to investigate a political rival in the upcoming presidential election and that he obstructed Congress in its investigation.

All Republicans including Rep. Greg Gianforte, R-Mont., voted against the impeachment articles, although former Republican Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan, who became an independent over the summer and was an opponent of Trump policies, voted for them. Two Republicans missed the vote.

Two Democrats, including New Jersey Rep. Jeff Van Drew, who has since switched parties to Republican, and Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., voted against the articles of impeachment.

Democrat Jared Golden of Maine voted for the article about abuse of power but against the obstructing Congress article.

Gianforte bashed the impeachment proceedings the day of the vote.

“House Democrats’ hyper-partisan impeachment has been a sham since day one, driven by those whose bitter rage against President Trump has blinded their better judgement,” he said. “The fact is they resolved to overturn the results of the 2016 election the day President Trump won.”

Since then, the House and Senate have been battling over what rules the Senate trial will take, and Pelosi has not yet transmitted the articles.

The U.S. Constitution gives the House of Representatives the authority to impeach a sitting president on accusations of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. The Senate holds the trial on the articles of impeachment.

Since the vote, Democrats and Republicans — the House has a Democratic majority and the Senate a Republican majority — have been sparring over the rules of the Senate trial, mainly over whether new witnesses can be called.

Friday, Pelosi issued a statement calling on McConnell to hold a fair, impartial trial.

“For several months, the House has subpoenaed documents and witnesses which the president stonewalled,” she said in the release. “These cases are now in the courts. While the House nevertheless was able to obtain compelling evidence of impeachable conduct, Leader McConnell knows full well that the president’s obstruction of the House impeachment inquiry is unprecedented and in defiance of our system of checks and balances.  

“Today, Leader McConnell made clear that he will feebly comply with President Trump’s cover-up of his abuses of power and be an accomplice to that cover-up,” she added.  

“Leader McConnell is doubling down on his violation of his oath, even after the exposure of new, deeply incriminating documents this week which provide further evidence of what we know: President Trump abused the power of his office for personal, political gain,” Pelosi said. 

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has called for the same rules to be used as when President Bill Clinton was impeached in 1999.

McConnell said on the Senate floor Monday that the House “conducted the least thorough, most rushed, most unfair impeachment inquiry in history,” but now is delaying starting the trial in the Senate.

“My Democratic colleagues should not plow away American unity in some bizarre intramural competition to see who dislikes our president more,” McConnell said. “They should not disdain our Constitution by rushing through a purely partisan impeachment process and then toying around with it.

“Governing is serious business,” he said. “The American people deserve better than this.”

But Democrats have cited Trump forbidding members of his administration from testifying in the House hearings as reason to call more witnesses in the Senate trial.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., issued a release Monday saying former National Security Advisor John Bolton saying he would testify in the Senate if subpoenaed highlights the need for new rules.

If the Democrats vote as a block, they would need four Republicans to set rules calling for more witnesses.

“Momentum for uncovering the truth in a Senate trial continues,” Schumer said. “John Bolton correctly acknowledged that he needs to comply with a Senate subpoena to compel his testimony, if issued. It is now up to four Senate Republicans to support bringing in Mr. Bolton, and the other three witnesses, as well as the key documents we have requested to ensure all the evidence is presented at the onset of a Senate trial.

“Given that Mr. Bolton’s lawyers have stated he has new relevant information to share, if any Senate Republican opposes issuing subpoenas to the four witnesses and documents we have requested they would make absolutely clear they are participating in a cover up,” Schumer said.