Even though Sen. Doug Jones (D-AL) is one of a handful of potentially vulnerable red-state Democrats up for reelection in 2020, he is not shying away from his insistence of continuing the impeachment process of President Donald Trump in the U.S. Senate.
During an appearance on Huntsville, AL radio’s WVNN, Jones argued the American public deserved a full, fair and complete process that might include testimony from acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former National Security Advisor John Bolton.
“[I]’m expecting at a very minimum that the entire record from the House of Representatives will be a part of the record here in the Senate,” Jones said on “The Jeff Poor Show.” “We’ve been compiling that for six weeks or more, and I’ve been trying to keep up with it, and reading and doing all that I can. Most of the talk in the Senate right is just about process and what is the trial going to look like. I have maintained ever since it appeared articles of impeachment were going to come over here that we need to have a trial and procedures in place that are going to be full. They’re going to be fair. And they’re going to be complete. And that means a full, fair and complete trial for the president of the United States. He has voiced concerns about what happened in the House. But at the same time, he has said he expects the Senate to conduct a fair trial. And I agree with him. I want to do that.”
“But the trial has also got to be fair to the American people because so many people have made up their minds right now,” he continued. “You know what I’m talking about. It has become a really partisan talking point where people have gone to their corners. The fact of the matter is there is still evidence that is still out there. There’s still testimony that we should get that I believe is important for the American public to hear. I don’t know how it will shake out. I don’t know what people like Mick Mulvaney may say, or Mike Pompeo. I just know they need to testify because they were in the room. They have direct knowledge.”
The Alabama Democrat rejected the possibility of having to wait for a tell-all book written by one of the alleged participants within the White House staff to find out all of the facts.
“And I want to hear about this in the course of this trial and not learn about it later on because all of these facts will come out sooner or later,” Jones added. “Everybody knows that sooner or later, the facts will come out. John Bolton is writing a book. I don’t want to read about this, what he would say, in a book that comes out in a year where he has gotten a big fat check for something like that. So, we’re going to be spending a lot of time working on the record, looking at this, talking about the process. And you know, however it comes, we will be incredibly deliberative and take my oath of office seriously, and the oath that we will take as jurors to do fair and impartial justice. So many of my colleagues have announced that they are not [impartial], on both sides of the aisle, by the way. And that’s unfortunate. I don’t know what they’re going to do when they have to take an oath that they’re going to be fair and impartial when they’ve already said that they’re not.”
Jones also dismissed criticism from Republicans that the impeachment saga was a “partisan witch hunt.”
“I’ve said this, and I know there are people that think this is a partisan witch hunt,” Jones explained. “I’ve never believed that. This is really serious allegations where the allegations and the evidence would suggest the president of the United States used the power of his office and the authority of his office to withhold military aid, to withhold a state meeting with the head of the state of a country that is so dependent on the United States in order to help his campaign. People can agree or disagree at this point. But the fact of the matter is in the Clinton impeachment, in the Nixon impeachment, everyone heard from every witness. Everybody at least had a complete set of facts. We don’t have that here. We don’t have the people that have the direct knowledge. And I just think it’s important. I just think the American people are owed that now and not later because that will come out. Sooner or later, the evidence will come out, and I just don’t want people to say, ‘Well see, I told you so,’ or either, ‘Oh my God, I voted this way and look what we see now. That’s just not fair to the Senate. That’s just not fair to the American people.”
Jones will face one of several Republican hopefuls in the November 2020 election, which includes former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-AL), former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore and State Rep. Arnold Mooney (R).
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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