Four Senators Must Recuse Themselves From Impeachment Trial

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), who serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Armed Services Committee, Veterans’ Affairs Committee and the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, said on Wednesday the four Democrat senators running for president should recuse themselves from taking part in President Trump's impeachment trial.

In a statement Blackburn said, “Tomorrow, one hundred United States Senators will be sworn in to serve in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.  Four of those senators must recuse themselves for their unparalleled political interest in seeing this President removed from office.  Senators Bernie Sanders, Amy Klobuchar, Michael Bennet and Elizabeth cannot sit in judgment of the very President they seek to replace.”

Article II of the Constitution stipulates “no impeached President can be removed unless two-thirds of senators agree and when sitting for an impeachment trial they shall be on Oath or Affirmation.”

The oath is separate from the one they take when they are sworn into office.  The Rule XXV oath reads:  “I solemnly swear or affirm that in all things appertaining to the trial of the impeachment of President Donald John Trump, now pending, I will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws; So help me God.”

Every senator is required to commit to do impartial justice on pain of perjury.

Blackburn’s point should not be lost on anyone.

During yesterday’s Engrossment Ceremony, Nancy Pelosi said, “And so, with that, I will sign the Resolution transmitting the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate, which will be delivered by our Managers, of whom I’m very proud.  When they bring it over to set in motion a process on the Senate side—probably tomorrow, and I don’t know their schedule—but it may be as soon as tomorrow, and the Senators will take an oath of office.  They will take a special oath of office to do impartial justice according to the Constitution and the laws.  Let’s hope that they uphold that oath that they take tomorrow.”

Sen. Klobuchar has stated she’s likely to vote in favor of removing the President from office.  “I’ve said from the beginning, I see this as impeachable conduct.”

Sen. Sanders is perpetually bellicose with remarks like this one.  “And the truth is, Trump is not just a pathological liar, and it’s not just that he is running the most corrupt administration in the modern history of our country, or that he is a racist, sexist, a homophobe, a xenophobe and a religious bigot. But that’s only half the story. The other half of the story is that is that he is a total, 100 percent fraud.”  

Sen. Bennet, whose campaign is virtually non-existent and should drop out of the race, is quoted as saying, “Whatever our job is between now and next November, we have to do everything we can to defeat Donald Trump.”  Bennet has called the mounting evidence against the President “quite damning.”  “If the facts don’t change, I think that I’m likely to vote to convict.”

In a series of tweets, Sen. Warren opined, "After the Mueller report, Congress had a duty to begin impeachment. By failing to act, Congress is complicit in Trump's latest attempt to solicit foreign interference to aid him in US elections. Do your constitutional duty and impeach the president."

"A president is sitting in the Oval Office, right now, who continues to commit crimes.  He continues because he knows his Justice Department won't act and believes Congress won't either. Today's news confirmed he thinks he's above the law. If we do nothing, he'll be right."

Democrats are verklempt because Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stated he would not be an impartial juror.

"Do you think Chuck Schumer is impartial? Do you think Elizabeth Warren is impartial? Bernie Sanders is impartial? So let's quit the charade. This is a political exercise," McConnell said last month. "All I'm asking of Schumer is that we treat Trump the same way we treated [President] Clinton." 

Of course, he will take the same special oath required of the other ninety-nine senators.

UPDATE:  Welcome readers of Pirate’s Cove.  We thank the Admiral for the linky-love.

The Making of Pocahontas’ 2020 Stump Speech

It’s a neat trick Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s pulled off. She leveraged her fictional Native American heritage into a plum spot at Harvard Law School. She leveraged her Harvard job to fenagle a garbage scholarship on a gullible media. And now she has leveraged all of that into a plum Senate seat and transmuted herself into a fake heroine.

No one should be blinded by Warren’s deceit.

So, this morning she made a surprise appearance at the National Congress of American Indians.  Her plan, ostensibly, was to forcefully refute President Trump’s nickname for her and focus on the issue that will never go away─her fraudulent claim of being a Native American.

“I want to start by thanking Chairwoman Andrews-Maltais for that introduction. It has been an honor to work with, to learn from, and to represent the tribes in my home state of Massachusetts, the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head, the Aquinnah and the Mashpee Wampanoag.”

“I also want to thank President Jefferson Keel, and everyone at the National Congress of American Indians. For over 70 years, you’ve championed the rights and dignity of First Americans and I am honored to be here with you today.”

“I’ve noticed that every time my name comes up, President Trump likes to talk about Pocahontas. So, I figured, let’s talk about Pocahontas. Not Pocahontas, the fictional character most Americans know from the movies, but Pocahontas, the Native woman who really lived, and whose real story has been passed down to so many of you through the generations.”

[SKIP]

“But now we have a president who can’t make it through a ceremony honoring Native American war heroes without reducing Native history, Native culture, Native people to the butt of a joke.”

“The joke, I guess, is supposed to be on me.”

“I get why some people think there’s hay to be made here. You won’t find my family members on any rolls and I’m not enrolled in a tribe.”

“And I want to make something clear. I respect that distinction. I understand that tribal membership is determined by tribes and only by tribes. I never used my family tree to get a break or get ahead. I never used it to advance my career.” 

“But I want to make something else clear too: My parents were real people.”

[Here’s where you and I are supposed to believe that out of 330 million Americans, she and she alone, suffered unimaginable hardships.] 

“By all accounts, my mother was a beauty. She was born in Eastern Oklahoma, on this exact day—Valentine’s Day—February 14, 1912. She grew up in the little town of Wetumka, the kind of girl who would sit for hours by herself, playing the piano and singing. My daddy fell head over heels in love with her.”

“But my mother’s family was part Native American. And my daddy’s parents were bitterly opposed to their relationship. So, in 1932, when Mother was 19 and Daddy had just turned 20, they eloped.”

“Together, they survived the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. They saved up to buy a home. They raised my three older brothers, and they watched as each one headed off to serve in the military. After Daddy had a heart attack and was out of work, after we lost the family station wagon and it looked like we would lose our house, and everything would come crashing down, my mother put on her best dress and walked to the Sears and got a minimum-wage job. That minimum-wage job saved our house and saved our family.”

“My parents struggled. They sacrificed. They paid off medical debts for years. My daddy ended up as a janitor. They fought, and they drank, but more than anything, they hung together. 63 years—that’s how long they were married. When my mother died, a part of my daddy slipped away too.”

“Two years later, I held his hand while cancer took him. The last thing he said was, “It’s time for me to be with your mother.” And he smiled.”

“They’re gone, but the love they shared, the struggles they endured, the family they built, and the story they lived will always be a part of me. And no one—not even the president of the United States—will ever take that part of me away.” 

[SKIP]

“So, I’m here today to make a promise: Every time someone brings up my family’s story, I’m going to use it to lift up the story of your families and your communities.”

The 2020 GOP convention live from the Trump Hotel ballroom in Las Vegas. It's gonna be the Litpocalypse. https://t.co/gDGDee6wHB

— Comfortably Smug (@ComfortablySmug) February 14, 2018

Tomahawk chop is going to be the “lock her up” of the 2020 GOP convention

— Allahpundit (@allahpundit) February 14, 2018