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Lazy, bored Republicans make mockery of Senate trial by leaving and falling asleep

Lazy, bored Republicans make mockery of Senate trial by leaving and falling asleep

Republicans aren’t even trying to hide the fact that they intend to let Donald Trump off the hook for impeachment regardless of guilt. They have been stonewalling Democrats on admitting new witnesses and documents regarding Trump’s corrupt Ukraine scheme and can’t seem to muster even a superficial interest in uncovering the truth.  Partisanship reigns supreme in the GOP and patriotism is nowhere to be seen.

The Republican apathy has apparently gotten so bad that GOP senators are now violating trial rules by simply getting up and leaving the impeachment chamber to congregate in the cloakroom. As journalist David Shuster pointed out, jurors (which is what senators serve as during an impeachment trial) are forbidden from leaving during court proceedings. This holds true at a state, local, and federal level and is especially crucial during the trial of the President of the United States.

Add your name to tell McConnell to allow impeachment witnesses. We demand Trump get a fair trial!

It could not be made any clearer how little Republicans care about upholding their oaths to the Constitution. They can’t even be bothered to do the very bare minimum for their jobs: actually showing up and staying. They know that Senate Majority Mitch McConnell, whose only interest is shielding Trump and maintaining a GOP stranglehold over the Oval Office, won’t bother to hold them accountable in any sense. As long as they show up at the end of it and vote along the party line to acquit Trump, McConnell will be happy.

New York Daily News’s Michael McAuliff counted 21 empty Republican seats and only 2 missing Democrats. He added that some of the seats were empty because the senators in question were “stretching their legs” but most had left the chamber.

Perhaps worse still, some Republicans stayed but failed to stay awake. NBC News’s Leigh Ann Caldwell reports that Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) fell asleep barely thirty minutes into today’s sessions. Senator Todd Young (R-IN) “subtly nudged” him which managed to wake Inhofe up. Quite frankly, you can’t make this stuff up.

Republicans are rubbing their gross apathy in the faces of the American public at every turn. They’re sleepwalking (and sleeping) their way through this impeachment because they never intended to take it seriously. They’ll all fall in line behind Trump and a message will be sent to this and future generations that the president can hold himself above the law. The only solution left for our Republic is to vote in a wave of Democrats in November.

To see what a public servant actually doing their job looks like, watch some of the remarks made by impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff’s (D-CA) today.

 

Staff Report
This is a staff report from former Occupy Democrats Editor in Chief Colin Taylor or contributor Rob Haffney.

© 2022 Occupy Democrats. All Rights Reserved.

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