McGrath says she would have voted to remove Trump as Senate, McConnell vote to acquit
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Amy McGrath said Wednesday that she would have voted to impeach and convict President Donald Trump on both counts had she been in the Senate, taking a firm stance on impeachment after months of cautiously endorsing the impeachment inquiry.
“It was clear from the overwhelming evidence provided by the House, and the refusal of the White House to provide the witnesses and documents requested, that the president withheld vital national security assistance to Ukraine in order to pressure them to investigate a political opponent,” McGrath wrote in a statement. “Our national security is not a bargaining chip. For this reason alone, I would have voted to impeach and convict on both counts.”
The Senate voted 52-48 to acquit Trump Wednesday on the first count, with U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah being the lone Republican to find Trump guilty. They voted 53-47 on the second count on a party line vote.
McGrath was critical of the process her potential opponent, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, oversaw in the impeachment trial — they voted against allowing new witnesses and relied on the record of the House impeachment inquiry and arguments made by Democratic House managers and Trump’s defense team — saying it “pushed aside fairness and the rule of law.”
She was also critical of the Republican Party, saying they could have forced Trump to “tell the American people the truth.”
“Even supporters of the president must realize that the conduct of Republican senators during this process was not an act of bravery, but simply a falling in line so that they wouldn’t be challenged in their own primary if they dug too deep,” McGrath wrote. “They are now a party drifting about with no moral compass, lost at sea, and unable to recognize right from wrong.”
Nowhere in her statement did McGrath mention McConnell, the man who constructed the rules of the Senate trial.
McConnell has been staunch in his opposition to Trump’s impeachment, saying it had been a plan in the works for Democrats since former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lost to Trump in 2016.
“We should all agree this is precisely the kind of recklessness the senate was created to stop,” McConnell said before the vote to acquit Trump Wednesday. “The response to losing one election can not be to attack the office of the presidency... we simply cannot let factional fever break our institutions.”
McGrath had issued several milquetoast statements about the impeachment process leading up to Wednesday, while her two most prominent opponents in the Democratic primary, State Rep. Charles Booker, D-Louisville, and former Marine Lt. Col. Mike Broihier, had called for Trump to be impeached and removed from office.
At first, McGrath said she supported the impeachment inquiry. After the House voted to impeach, she issued a statement saying she would watch the Senate trial closely before saying in an email to donors that the House had “rightly passed the articles of impeachment.”
While she’s raised millions in her effort to unseat McConnell, who has served as a top political opponent for Democrats for years, McGrath has been cautious when talking about Trump, who remains popular in Kentucky. Her caution has drawn criticism from progressive Democrats in Kentucky who feel like she hasn’t been firm in her convictions while running against McConnell.
McConnell’s campaign manager said in a news release that McGrath’s position on impeachment indicates that she stands with out-of-state progressives rather than with Kentuckians.
“McGrath’s desire to remove President Trump from office is nothing more than a shameful attempt to silence the voices of the Kentuckians who overwhelmingly voted to elect him; of the Kentuckians who overwhelmingly oppose impeachment by a 2-to-1 margin,” Kevin Golden wrote.
This story was originally published February 5, 2020 at 4:42 PM.
