‘I don’t know McConnell has a lot of power,’ says GOP senator



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Republican Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota told CNBC “The News with Shepard Smith” that he didn’t know many “wimps” in the United States Senate who would follow Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in what concerns the impeachment of President Donald Trump.

“Mitch McConnell has a lot of influence, I don’t know if he has a lot of power,” Cramer said in an interview Wednesday night. “He has a lot of power over the timing, obviously, and the process, but I don’t know a lot of weaklings in the United States Senate who are going to vote one way or another just because Mitch McConnell does. “

McConnell already said an impeachment trial would not take place until President-elect Biden is inaugurated. McConnell also said he remains undecided on how he will vote.

The House of Representatives voted 232-197 to impeach President Donald Trump with 10 Republicans voting to impeach Trump. The House voted to impeach Trump for “inciting insurgency” after a crowd of his supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan.6 and left five people dead, including a police officer. The unprecedented charge was laid just seven days before his term ended, and now Trump stands alone in the United States’ 244-year history as the only president to be impeached twice.

Cramer said he believed the House “rushed to judgment” and called it “a much more political body than the Senate”. When host Shepard Smith asked Cramer if he would vote to condemn Trump, Cramer argued for due process.

“I have read my Constitution several times, and in the country you have due process, I guess unless you are Donald Trump, and so I am not guilty by default, because that goes to the against everything the Constitution stands for and due process, ”Cramer said.

In a Wednesday night interview on “The News with Shepard Smith,” Ohio State University law professor Edward Foley explained when due process would occur during the impeachment process.

“What happened today in the House serves what is, in essence, an indictment, and the trial is in the Senate, so that’s where due process will take place, in stride, and it looks like the Senate is going to move swiftly to ensure this is a fair trial. ”

The impeachment article said, in part, that Trump “threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power and endangered an equal branch of government.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said impeachment and sentencing was the “constitutional remedy” for Trump’s actions “that will ensure the republic is safe from this man who is so determined to bring things down that matter to us and that hold us together. ”

Cramer, however, told Smith that it was not clear to him that Trump’s rhetoric prompted the violent crowd on Capitol Hill.

“The president’s rhetoric, while reckless, could be accused on some level of incitement to anger and incitement to bad behavior, but it’s also clear that the exact words he used do not constitute , in my mind anyway, a criminal level of incitement like we would have to consider, in my opinion, in this process, even as political as it is, ”Cramer said.

At the Save America rally on January 6, Trump told thousands of onlookers on Capitol Hill that “we will never concede” and promoted a show of force from his supporters.

“We are going to walk to Capitol Hill, and we are going to cheer on our brave senators, our members of Congress and our women,” Trump told a crowd near the White House. “We’re probably not going to applaud too much for some of them because you will never take our country back with weakness. You have to be strong and you have to be strong.”

Minutes later, a crowd of his supporters stormed Congress and terrorized. Trump has since taken no responsibility for the deadly riot and has defended his speech.



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