Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) was a prosecutor before she was a Senator, and you can see flashes of why she was a successful one in this exchange with George Stephanopoulos about today's talking point o' the day on the Sunday shows: Censure as substitute for removal. Apparently this is what the Sunday show hosts got together and discussed over the weekend, because this question has been asked on every Sunday show today, as if Trump would somehow be punished by the Senate saying "Bad boy!" before they recommenced approving all of his judges and set about the work of cutting Social Security.
Nevertheless, GSteph persisted. "You just heard Senator Lankford back up the president's contention that he'd done absolutely nothing wrong," he said. "It does seem that foreign interference in elections happens all the time, which gets to the question, it still appears that the president's heading towards an acquittal."
Wait, WHAT? It does seem that foreign interference in elections happens all the time? Since when? The first I heard about it was when Russia hacked the DNC server and turned over a trove of emails to Wikileaks. There are other interventions? Really? WTF.
"Should the Senate move to censure or at least try and censure President Trump if he is indeed acquitted?" asked Stephanopoulos.
Klobuchar rebuked him.
"We are not at that point, George," she reminded him. "Right now, what I want my colleagues to do is join us in getting the witnesses. I literally don't know how you can sit over there and listen, even when you hear the president's lawyers, they raise fact questions. They say, 'Well, the facts aren't there.' I want to hear from the men -- to quote the founding fathers musical -- to hear from the men in the room where it happened. That is people like Mr. Bolton and Mick Mulvaney."
But she wasn't done. She was just warming up, and she was pretty straight about how ridiculous this whole thing is.
"All of these signs point to things and discussions that they had with the president of the United States," she explained. "And all we are asking for right now is four witnesses."
She argued, "Zero witnesses plus zero evidence equals zero justice. You can't have a trial without the witnesses. However they vote, whatever they choose to do when the evidence comes in, they cannot go down in history as the people that blocked the truth from coming forward, because eventually it will come forward."
Yes. Quit talking about censure, Beltway press, and start talking about how trials have witnesses and evidence for jurors to consider. We all know why Republicans don't want to actually hold a real trial. The evidence would be overwhelming for Trump's guilt, just like it is already.
