At Least One Senate Republican Is Rightfully “Disturbed” by Mitch McConnell’s Approach to Impeachment

Alaskan Senator Lisa Murkowski has officially become the one Republican willing to state what should be obvious and uncontroversial: that the way Mitch McConnell talks about impeachment is completely f***ed up.

The House impeachment vote made it clear that there’s a strong party line bias when it comes to impeachment. Every Republican voted against it, and all but a small handful of Democrats voted in favor. So with things moving to the Senate, no one actually expects McConnell (or many other Republicans) to even consider the possibility of voting for impeachment. Their minds are made up. But in recent weeks, Senate Majority Leader McConnell has been downright boasting about not just voting against impeachment, but rigging the entire trial.

McConnell has said that he absolutely will not be impartial (despite taking an oath to do so) and that he’s “coordinating with White House Counsel.” And now Murkowski is speaking out against that disgraceful and unconstitutional approach.

“And in fairness, when I heard that I was disturbed,” Murkowski told Alaskan NBC affiliate KTUU, speaking about McConnell’s determination to coordinate with the White House.

“To me, it means that we have to take that step back from being hand in glove with the defense, and so I heard what leader McConnell had said, I happened to think that that has further confused the process,” she said.

The Senator (who also opposed Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court, though she ultimately voted “present” to offset the missing vote of one of her absent colleagues) doesn’t exactly have a favorable view of Nancy Pelosi, either. “Speaker Pelosi was very clear, very direct that her goal was to get this done before Christmas,” she said, criticizing the House Speaker for rushing the process. Murkowski acknowledged that the White House was wrong in blocking certain subpoenas but thought Pelosi should then have gone through the courts to get those witnesses and documents to the House.

Whether or not you agree that Pelosi sped through the impeachment process, everything Murkowski is saying is totally reasonable and honestly really mild, even by Republican standards. She’s not saying she’s in favor of impeachment, she’s just raising sensible questions. Yes, Donald Trump will probably tweet something mean about her but it shouldn’t be that rare–and it’s really not that difficult–to call out Mitch McConnell for so gleefully violating his oath of office.

I’m not holding my breath or anything but I sure hope more Republicans will follow her example and at least ask a few questions.

(via Washington Post, image: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
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Vivian Kane

Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.

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