Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) claimed Friday he has shared discussions with Republican senators who would consider voting to remove President Donald Trump from office if the House moves to impeach.
Asked by MSNBC Morning Joe host Willie Geist if he’s talked to any Republican colleagues about whether they would support the president’s ouster, Murphy replied “Yes,” before conceding “It’s a small list.” The Connect Democrat did not provide the names of Republicans he has spoken about the subject.
"Have you spoken to a single GOP colleague in the Senate who's even considering voting for impeachment?" — @WillieGeist
"Yes." —@ChrisMurphyCT pic.twitter.com/T7rGEQ81jz
— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) December 6, 2019
Murphy then dismissed claims from political pundits, who have said on MSNBC some Republicans would support impeachment by secret ballot.
“I don’t buy this secret ballot thing. If there was a secret ballot, there’d still be only a handful of them that would vote to impeach this guy,” he argued.
Appearing on the partisan news network in September Mike Murphy, a former senior adviser to Sens. Mitt Romney (R-UT) and John McCain (R-AZ), claimed a Republican senator told him that 30 of the party’s U.S. senators would support the president’s removal Trump in a “secret vote.”
Murphy’s comments come one day after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) ordered the House Judiciary Committee to draw up articles of impeachment. The directive followed a House judiciary panel hearing featuring four law professors, who provided testimony on whether President Trump should be impeached. If the House votes to approve the articles, the Senate would be tasked with holding a trial on whether to remove the president — an unlikely move which required two-thirds of the Republican-controlled to vote in favor of.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has confirmed he will take up a trial if impeachment reaches the upper chamber, but signaled the measure is destined to fail there.
“Nancy Pelosi’s in the clutches of a left-wing mob. They finally convinced her to impeach the president. All of you know your Constitution. The way that impeachment stops is a Senate majority with me as majority leader,” he said in an October statement.
Pelosi launched a formal impeachment inquiry against President Trump over his July 25 telephone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. During the call, the president suggested Zelensky look into allegations of corruption against former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.
The younger Biden was made tens of thousands of dollars to sit on the board of a Ukrainian gas firm — Burisma Holdings — while his father was vice president, despite having little knowledge of the industry. A partisan CIA analyst’s mischaracterization of the call, laid out in a “whistleblower” complaint, later sparked the effort to remove the president.
Both President Trump and Zelensky have vehemently denied any pressure was applied to probe the Bidens and the White House released a transcript of their conversation as evidence that no wrongdoing occurred during the call.
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