After 3 days of putting up with Schiff and Nadler’s antics, 45 Republican senators are ready to vote to dismiss the impeachment charges against President Trump, according to Rand Paul.
“There are 45, with about five to eight wanting to hear a little more. I still would like to dismiss it, but there aren’t the votes to do it just yet,” Paul told The Washington Post, adding,
“I will push it at some point. The more Adam Schiff speaks, the more we become unified.”
Here's more on what Sen. Paul had to tell The Washington Post:
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a leading ally of Trump, said Wednesday that 45 Republicans are ready to dismiss the charges against the president and he would keep pushing to rally a majority of GOP senators to end the impeachment trial.
“There are 45, with about five to eight wanting to hear a little more,” Paul said in an interview with The Washington Post. “I still would like to dismiss it, but there aren’t the votes to do it just yet.”
With support from other Trump allies, Paul said he would continue to pressure his colleagues in the coming days to move on from the trial and listening to the House’s Democratic managers, including Schiff.
Breitbartadded more details:
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said on Wednesday that 45 GOP senators are prepared to dismiss the charges against President Trump and effectively end the Senate impeachment trial.
The Kentucky senator told the Washington Post on day two of the Senate impeachment trial that 45 Republicans are ready to dismiss the charges against Trump. (Republicans hold a 53-47 majority in the upper chamber.) He estimated that “five to eight” want to “hear a little more.”
“There are 45, with about five to eight wanting to hear a little more,” Paul told the Post. “I still would like to dismiss it, but there aren’t the votes to do it just yet.”
However, Paul said he is not pushing the point just yet.
“I will push it at some point,” he told the paper, adding, “The more Adam Schiff speaks, the more we become unified.”
Paul has openly rejected the Democrats’ calls for additional witnesses and has issued a political threat to his GOP colleagues, in the event they side with Democrats.
“If you vote against Hunter Biden, you’re voting to lose your election, basically. Seriously. That’s what it is,” Paul said, according to Politico. He continued:
If you don’t want to vote and you think you’re going to have to vote against Hunter Biden, you should just vote against witnesses, period. My first preference would be to be done with it as soon as possible and not to have any witnesses.
Although Paul did not name names as to who the 5-8 Republicans are who are not ready yet to dismiss the impeachment charges, many are speculating that includes Susan Collins (who voted with Dems on one of Schumer's amendments), Elizabeth Murkowski (who has voted against Trump in the past on issues like the repeal of Obamacare and confirming Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court), and of course, Mitt Romney.
However, as Rand Paul rightfully said, the more Schiff speaks, the more united Republicans are becoming.
According to USA Today, Sen. Murkowski was put off by Nadler attacking Trump's defense team during the impeachment trial today:
Senators in both parties voiced concern over the fiery rhetoric used by both house prosecutors and the president's counsel and the possibility that the remarks had turned off key moderate Republicans who will decide whether new witnesses are heard from during President Donald Trump's impeachment trial.
One of those key moderate senators, Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, told reporters she was "offended" by Rep. Jerry Nadler's remarks Tuesday evening after he accused the president's defense team was lying and said senators would be complicit in a coverup if they shot down calls to hear from John Bolton, Trump's former national security advisor. The president's defense team shot back, demanding that Nadler apologize and that he should be "embarrassed."
"I took it as very offensive," Murkowski told CNN. "As one who is listening attentively and working hard to get to a fair process, I was offended."
Sen. Collins too was offended, so much so that she took to writing Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to accuse Nadler of violating trial rules.
Politico said:
Sen. Susan Collins was “stunned” by Rep. Jerry Nadler’s late-night diatribe this week against what he deemed a “cover-up” by Senate Republicans for President Donald Trump — so much so that she wrote a note to Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. But the Maine Republican said it will not affect her votes during the Senate’s impeachment trial.
In an interview on Thursday, Collins confirmed that she had jotted down a note that eventually made its way to Roberts via Secretary for the Majority Laura Dove. Collins said she believed the back and forth between House Judiciary Chairman Nadler (D-N.Y.) and White House Counsel Pat Cipollone violated Senate rules and felt compelled to point that out, even though senators are required to stay at their desks and not speak during the trial.
“It reminded me that if we were in a normal debate in the Senate, that the rule would be invoked to strike the words of the senator for impugning another senator. So I did write a note raising the issue of whether there’d been a violation of the rules,” Collins said. “I gave that note to Laura Dove and shortly thereafter the chief justice did admonish both sides. And I was glad that he did.”
So, if Democrats keep up their act, Republicans may very shortly have the votes needed to dismiss impeachment entirely!
Wouldn't that be a slap in the face to Schiff and his croonies?
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