Like Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) will not co-sponsor Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) resolution to condemn the House impeachment investigation.
In an emailed statement sent to TPM on Tuesday, Murkowski said that House Democrats have “handled this impeachment inquiry poorly,” but echoed almost word-for-word Collins’ skepticism of the Senate getting involved in House proceedings.
“As awful as their process is, the formal impeachment inquiry lies in the House, and it’s not the Senate’s role to dictate to the House how to determine their own rules,” said the Alaska Republican.
Collins gave a similar reason for not signing the resolution.
“Just as I don’t like it when House members try to tell us to abolish the filibuster, I’m not sure it’s productive for the Senate to try to dictate to the House how to conduct the inquiry,” Collins told Politico on Monday.
The two senators are part of the small faction of Republicans who have spoken out against Trump administration’s push to get foreign governments to damage President Donald Trump’s political rivals — an effort that prompted the House’s impeachment inquiry into the President.
However, neither Murkowski nor Collins have said how they intend to vote should Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) bring Graham’s resolution to the floor.
This is exactly the correct response to this garbage resolution. Lindsay Graham is simply trying to muddy the waters in a vain attempt to distract from the almost inevitable impeachment of Donald Trump. I’m bringing extra popcorn.
Translation: “blah blah mandatory Republican boilerplate language Lindsay is an idiot”
Slightly different person, same script. Probably see a few more of these.
I wonder what will happen if the evidence against Trump becomes public and overwhelming enough that the people turn against him and strongly want him impeached…if we really get to that point, Republicans will either have to choose to exonerate Trump despite popular understanding of his crimes, or twist themselves around to explain how the “awful process” resulted in catching Trump doing bad things. I don’t see how they can do both honestly, but honesty doesn’t seem to be a Republican issue now, and that’s not just because of Trump.