What a shame. What a sham.
What a sham. What a shame. Win McNamee / Getty Images

It's not like I've been hopeful. It's not like I've been holding my breath. It's not like I didn't see the writing on the wall way back when Mitch McConnell screwed over Merrick Garland and, by extension, Barack Obama, and thus the Constitution, and American democracy itself, by not even meeting with that Supreme Court nominee, much less holding confirmation hearings, and then there were no consequences. No consequences except electoral success for Republicans. That was the first time we saw that the rules don't apply to Republicans, and it was a chilling moment, but in retrospect it was a tiny drop of water in the hurricane of hoaxes and corruption to come.

The decisions from Lamar Alexander (far left) and Lisa Murkowski (on the right)—made last night and this morning, respectively—that they are not even in favor of witnesses and documents in the Senate trial, not even in favor of facts, turns my stomach. It fills me with rage. It is so wrong.

I know it's not very sophisticated, in a world full of unfairnesses, to complain about unfairness, but it's just jaw-dropping the lows to which we've sunk. These senators are willing to coddle an apparent criminal mastermind in the White House, just because... what? They're scared? They want more tax cuts for the rich? They don't want people in MAGA hats to dislike them? They want to help Putin?

The revelation that Devin Nunes was himself meeting with Ukranians about Joe Biden—i.e. meeting with a foreign government to undermine US elections, i.e. allegedly committing a crime himself—was an "Aha!" moment for me. "Maybe the whole Republican party is in on this Russia scheme, not just Trump," I thought to myself. "Maybe they're all on Putin's payroll, as Kevin McCarthy once suggested Trump was."

When Rudy Giuliani's associate in Ukraine Lev Parnas was asked recently about Lindsey Graham, asked specifically why someone like Graham, who voiced so much opposition to Trump during the 2016 Republican primaries, was now so fully on board with Trump that he was saying he thought this whole Ukraine thing was a hoax and a sham, Parnas revealed: "It was surreal... to watch Lindsey Graham up there... he's out there talking about all this stuff, that this is a sham, this should go away, when at the end of the day, he was in the loop just like everyone else."

Wait, what? Anderson Cooper pressed Parnas on that point, asking: "So you're saying Sen. Lindsey Graham knew about you and Mr. Giuliani's efforts in Ukraine?"

Parnas replied, "Absolutely... First of all, Sen. Graham was involved before even I got involved with Mayor Giuliani. So he had to have been in the loop, and he had to have known what was going on."

Wow. Graham was involved in the whole scheme before even Parnas was! That's according to Parnas, who is now charged with illegally funneling foreign money to American politicians.

A vote for witnesses would mean we might get to hear from Parnas under oath; maybe we could hear more about how many American politicians have been receiving illegally funneled money from overseas. It would mean we might get to hear from John Bolton under oath; maybe we could hear more about the allegation in his forthcoming book that Trump made clear to him he was freezing aid to Ukraine back in May of 2019, earlier than previously known. At the very least maybe we'd get to see the documents the White House has been stonewalling from this process all along, emails that would show who knew what when, etc.

But nope.

Lamar Alexander is said to be very close with Mitch McConnell, so his decision last night makes sense along personal lines, although in another sense it makes no sense at all: He's retiring, so he has no worries about being primaried by a Trump-rabid Republican base, and he has no need for money for his reelection coffers from American citizens (or from illegal foreign sources!), and therefore throwing his lot in with the people who want facts and witnesses would cost him nothing. Plus, he has voted against Trump before.

Bizarrely, his statement about his decision says that he knows what the president did was wrong and that he doesn't want to hear any more about it. Usually if you know what someone did was wrong, you do want to learn more, but Alexander has decided that what Trump did is not impeachable conduct even before finding out what all Trump did.

Here's how Alexander put it:

There is no need for more evidence to prove that the president asked Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter; he said this on television on October 3, 2019, and during his July 25, 2019, telephone call with the president of Ukraine. There is no need for more evidence to conclude that the president withheld United States aid, at least in part, to pressure Ukraine to investigate the Bidens; the House managers have proved this with what they call a ‘mountain of overwhelming evidence.’ There is no need to consider further the frivolous second article of impeachment that would remove the president for asserting his constitutional prerogative to protect confidential conversations with his close advisers.

It was inappropriate for the president to ask a foreign leader to investigate his political opponent and to withhold United States aid to encourage that investigation. When elected officials inappropriately interfere with such investigations, it undermines the principle of equal justice under the law. But the Constitution does not give the Senate the power to remove the president from office and ban him from this year’s ballot simply for actions that are inappropriate.

The question then is not whether the president did it, but whether the United States Senate or the American people should decide what to do about what he did. I believe that the Constitution provides that the people should make that decision in the presidential election that begins in Iowa on Monday.

Shorter version: The people are going to have to vote Trump out because I am too scared to vote for anything like that myself. Terrifying. This is pure fear. This is how democracies become dictatorships. Even someone who has no reelection on the horizon is fully in fear of the party leader. Or else he is in fear of revelations that may hurt others who have helped protect the party leader.

As for Murkowski, the senator from Alaska, she is not known for being afraid of Trump—her vote to protect Obamacare got her rounds of applause in airports back when John McCain was still alive—but she tweeted this morning:

Given the partisan nature of this impeachment from the very beginning and throughout, I have come to the conclusion that there will be no fair trial in the Senate.

That's some wild intellectual whiplash right there: I have come to the conclusion the Senate trial will be unfair, therefore I'm voting to make sure it's unfair.

Huh!? Murkowski is in on this too? Loop-de-loops of logic to prevent facts and witnesses that could give a clearer sense of how far this goes, how deep this is? Devin Nunes and Lindsey Graham being in on it, part of the scheme to protect Trump and Putin by spreading Russian propaganda about Ukraine (as Fiona Hill excoriated Republicans for) is one thing. But Murkowski either turning a blind eye or being in on it herself is not something I saw coming. She says this whole thing is "partisan" without acknowledging that she herself is part of the reason for that. If this were a Democratic president scheming illegally in other countries to undermine our democracy, would she really be against witnesses and documents? The pretense that she would is insulting to everyone's intelligence.

"It is sad for me to admit that, as an institution, the Congress has failed," Murkowski also tweeted today, as if oblivious to the fact that she is a member of Congress!

I disagree with people (like my colleague Katie Herzog) who say that that this whole impeachment thing was a mistake because it has a chance of backfiring at the polls. Breaking the law can't just be okay now because we're afraid of what will happen if Trump faces a consequence. But I do agree that there is a risk Trump can now say that he was exonerated by the Senate.

Trump is going to call this an "exoneration" and a "hoax." So what are we going to call this? "The most shameful sham ever to shimmy into American history"? "The biggest pile of poo-poo ever to coat the American electorate"? "The biggest coverup in American history"?

Haven't fully decided, but "the biggest cover-up in American history" sounds about right. I'm calling it that over and over and over again as many times as possible between now and November. It is a big cover-up—we don't know how far it goes or why (I understand Nunes, Graham, and Moscow Mitch are in on it, but has every Republican been duped or bribed into helping out, including Murkowski? Are they all on Putin's payroll??). And it is a cover-up; there's no other word for preventing facts, witnesses, and documents from seeing the light of day.

It's time for lunch, but it is impossible to imagine eating during a time like this. All I want to do is throw up.

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