McConnell draws ire from GOP Senator.
WASHINGTON >> Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, expressed unease in an interview broadcast Tuesday with the Senate majority leader’s vow of “total coordination” with the White House on impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump, a potentially significant crack in Republican unity.
Murkowski, a moderate with an independent streak, told Anchorage’s NBC affiliate KTUU she opposed “being hand in glove with the defense” and voiced other concerns as the Senate prepares to hold a trial over the two articles of impeachment that the House approved earlier this month.
Murkowski’s views could prove important. She rarely speaks publicly against Republican leadership, but when she does, she tends to stick with her positions, as when she opposed the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh and helped torpedo a repeal of the Affordable Care Act. She also tends to bring Sen. Susan Collins, RMaine, a fellow moderate, with her, and only a handful of defections would force the majority leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to switch course on the upcoming impeachment trial.
In the interview, Murkowski said she was “disturbed” by comments by McConnell that indicated he intends to work in concert with the White House counsel in planning the impeachment trial.
“In fairness, when I heard that I was disturbed,” Murkowski said. “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.”
Murkowski said she felt that House Democrats had made a mistake in forging ahead with impeachment so quickly without potentially valuable testimony from top White House officials such as former national security adviser John Bolton, and Mick Mulvaney, the acting chief of staff.
“If the House truly believed that they had information that was going to be important, they subpoena them, and if they ignore the subpoena as they did, at the direction of the White House, then that next step is to go to the courts,” she said.
Senate Democrats are pressing to include testimony at the trial from Bolton and Mulvaney, and support from Murkowski would be critical.
Democrats argue that Bolton and Mulvaney have firsthand knowledge of the president’s efforts to force Ukraine’s president to help his reelection by publicly announcing an investigation of Trump’s Democratic rivals.