John,

Today, Senate Republicans put their seal of approval on a lawless presidency and a coordinated cover-up. Only two Senate Republicans were willing to put truth and the country above partisanship and vote to hear from relevant witnesses. The rest disgraced themselves and their office by willfully burying evidence from the American people and preventing us from hearing the full truth from people with direct knowledge of the plot.

The President’s acquittal was pre-determined by the President himself, enforced by a Senate Majority Leader terrified of losing his grip on power, and executed by 50 other Senators concerned only with maintaining their power. Almost 250 years ago, courageous patriots signed their name on a Declaration of Independence that could’ve cost them their lives. Today, 51 Senators, fearing for their careers, signed their names to a cover-up that flies in the face of the Founders’ vision.

With the Senate’s rubber stamp of Trump’s latest foreign election interference scheme, they’ve paved the way for more and worse plots against our free and independent elections. While some Senators wagged their fingers or meekly disagreed with the President’s behavior, their refusal to hear from witnesses, even as new information broke in the news, proved that any future effort by the president to wield official power for his own gain will ultimately be permitted by Congress.

The Senate’s great folly must not be America’s folly. If the Republican Senate is unwilling to do it’s duty, the American people must do ours. That means putting aside partisanship and political self-interest, coming together in a cross partisan coalition that rejects foreign election interference, the politics of division, and the politicians who capitalize on them.

We must stand up now, and stand strong throughout 2020, to do the work that 51 cowardly Senators obstinately refused to do: pursue the truth, hold the powerful to account and defend our right of self-governance.

– Stand Up Republic