It’s tough to have a fair trial when the jury pool is tainted.
Yet that’s exactly the allegation levied against key Democrats in the Senate who are expected to serve as jurors in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump — and one GOP senator has a clever plan to get them out.
Multiple U.S. senators have a glaring conflict of interest.
One senator is urging them to step aside and recuse themselves throughout the process.
Senator Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., warned that any senator running for president right now has an inherent conflict of interest that would prohibit them from being fair jurors in the case against Trump.
“Tomorrow, one hundred United States Senators will be sworn in to serve in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump,” she said in a statement. “Four of those senators must recuse themselves for their unparalleled political interest in seeing this president removed from office.”
Specifically, she called out senators Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. — as well as two others who many voters may have forgotten are running: Sens. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.
“To participate in this trial would be a failure of the oath they took to be an ‘impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws,’” noted Blackburn. “Their presidential ambitions prohibit their ability to view this trial through an objective lens.”
A spokesperson for Sanders dismissed the call for recusal, saying only that he would “carry out his constitutional duty.”
Bennet also dismissed the call for recusal and instead engaged in Washington’s time-tested practice of finger-pointing… in this case, pointing his own finger right back at her.
“If she wanted a fair trial, she would be for documents and witnesses,” he said, neglecting to mention that the documents and witnesses portion was supposed to take place during the House investigation.
He also didn’t directly address the campaign for president, which as Blackburn points out certainly could conflict with the oath every senator took to “do impartial justice” in the case against Trump.
Someone running against him wouldn’t be impartial. They would have a personal, political and – as far as campaign donations go – financial interest in extending the investigation, muddying to allegations and voting to remove Trump.
And his removal – unlikely as it is – would only work in their favor given that they’d rather run against just about anyone other than Trump, who retains a famously loyal base of voters.
Blackburn isn’t alone in her call for recusal.
Last month, Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., said Sanders and Warren should be disqualified from voting during impeachment not because they’re running for president… but because they’re so clearly biased against him.
“How can a Democratic presidential candidate like Sen. Elizabeth Warren be a fair juror when she’s called the president ‘a total disgrace’?” he wrote in a column for Fox News. “How can Sen. Bernie Sanders be a fair juror when he’s called President Trump ‘the most racist, sexist, homophobic, bigoted president in history’?”
Then, he called out the impeachment-hungry Democrats for failing to focus on what really matters to the American people.
“I look forward to arguing the facts of the case – not opinions from lawyers or hearsay from bureaucrats – in the Senate trial so this jury pool can get back to work on real issues like lowering prescription drug prices for seniors or fixing our crumbling roads and bridges,” he wrote.
Only time will tell if the left will ever allow that to happen.
— Walter W. Murray is a reporter for The Horn News. He is an outspoken conservative and a survival expert, and is the author of “America’s Final Warning.”