South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson (R) headed up a group of 21 states’ attorneys general. The wrote a letter to the Senate regarding the impeachment trial of Donald Trump. It claimed that this was setting “a dangerous partisan precedent.” They indicated this trial might hurt future presidents. They wrote that the Democrats’ impeachment articles were “fundamentally flawed.”
The attorneys general sent this letter to the U.S. senators saying it was the first “friend of the Senate..”
The letter comes as Trump faces a trial in the Senate after the House voted to impeach the president, according to the Greenville News:
‘If impeachment isn’t repudiated by the Senate, it threatens to ruin the separation of powers designed as part of the Constitution.’
This letter quoted the minority House Judiciary Committee Democrats’ rejoinder during the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton:
‘Impeachment is like a wall around the fort of the separation of powers. The crack we put in the wall today becomes the fissure tomorrow, which ultimately destroys the wall entirely.’ We agree.’
The lengthy 14-page letter claimed the current impeachment trial was based upon politics and “negated the votes of millions of Americans:”
‘[T]hat should only be initiated in exceedingly rare circumstances and should never be used for partisan purposes.’
The Courthouse News reporter Adam Klasfeild asked them:
‘You’ve all prosecuted a lot of cases. Have you ever prosecuted a case without witness testimony or discovery of evidence?’
The AG’s pulled a deer-in-the-headlights and froze. Finally one called the Democrats’ work as “a fishing expedition.” Yet, he did not answer the central question:
‘Why there should be testimony in the Senate trial, regardless of what the House did. Of course.’
Then. the letter carried the signatures of 21 out of the 26 Republican AGs. It cames on the day the House Intelligence Chairman Chair Adam Schiff, gave his opening statement in the Senate trial. It addressed the possibility of Trump not being convicted by the Senate. The letter suggested that should Trump not be removed from office, the 2020 elections would end with foreign interference. Schiff said:
“For precisely this reason, the president’s misconduct cannot be decided at the ballot box, for we cannot be assured that the vote will be fairly won. The president has shown that he believes that he is above the law and scornful of constraint.”
The Republican attorneys general indicated that the Democrats’ first article of impeachment for “abuse of power” was flawed. They said it did not indicate a specific crime. POTUS’ interaction with the new Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was merely a “political thought crime.”
Then, they regarded the second article of impeachment “obstruction of Congress.” The AGs said it boiled down to impeaching a president for invoking executive privilege. That would have made the executive privilege virtually useless.
AG Alan Wilson (R-SC) read his prepared statement during a press release:
‘The two Articles of Impeachment sent over from the House are fundamentally flawed, politically motivated, and fail to identify any high crimes or misdemeanors. Republican Attorneys General are asking the Senate to reject the manufactured theories upon which the impeachment articles are based. This impeachment proceeding threatens all future elections and establishes a dangerous precedent. That precedent will erode the separation of powers shared by the executive and legislative branches by subjugating future Presidents to the whims of the majority opposition party in the House of Representatives.’
Those Republicans who signed the AG’s letter were:
‘Alan Wilson (SC), Jeff Landry (LA), Sean Reyes (UT), Steve Marshall (AL), Kevin Clarkson (AK), Leslie Rutledge (AR), Ashley Moody (FL), Chris Carr (GA), Curtis Hill (IN), Derek Schmidt (KS), Daniel Cameron (KY), Lynn Fitch (MS), Eric Schmitt (MO), Tim Fox (MT), Doug Peterson (NE), Dave Yost (OH), Mike Hunter (OK), Jason Ravnsborg (SD), Herbert Slatery (TN), Ken Paxton (TX), Patrick Morrisey (WV). ‘
The letter can be viewed in its entirety at republicanags.com.
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