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By John Wojcik
President Donald Trump’s acquittal was a certainty well before Sen. Lamar Alexander’s decision last night to hang tight with his long-time pal Mitch McConnell and oppose efforts by the Dems to call more witnesses and keep the trial going an extra week.
The 51-member GOP majority was never expected to put principle before party. Their concern for self-preservation was always expected to trump any concerns for justice. The 51 Republican senators represent a fifth of the country, the less-than-20 percent of the voters in states where Trump’s base is the strongest – and that is what determines the direction in which their loyalty lies.
They have always wanted the vote to deny witnesses as the sure and quick way to bring a quick end to a trial that threatened to expose too much for too many people about their own involvement in national scandal.
Imagine if Giuliani associate Lev Parnas were called to testify, for example. How embarrassing it would be for them to have Parnas, a pal of both Giuliani and Trump, sporting an ankle bracelet while he talked about the things Trump had said to him. Remember, Parnas is under indictment for illegally channeling laundered money from international gangsters into the coffers of GOP lawmakers who are numbered among those voting against holding Trump accountable for his crimes.
Then there are the so-called GOP “statesmen” – among them Lamar, Collins, Murkowski, and Romney. How much better are these people when it comes to the question of being counted upon to do the right thing? Like the entire GOP caucus in the Senate, they also aided and abetted McConnell’s disgraceful killing of President Obama’s Merrick Garland nomination to the Supreme Court. They all voted to stack the Federal courts across the nation with young right-wing ideologues....
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