Appearing Thursday on Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade Show, Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN) said Democrats appear to have “orchestrated” and “planned” the release of fresh allegations against President Donald Trump ahead of the Senate’s impeachment trial, including claims made by indicted Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas.
A partial transcript is as follows:
BRIAN KILMEADE: I travel around, I know you in the Mid-West probably get this reaction, with the book tour for Sam Houston and the Alamo Avengers. I’ve been to 22 cities and one of my first stops was South Bend and Elkhart. I’ve talked to people and no one ever brings up impeachment, but now it’s front and center in the Senate. How much were you following this along the way?
SEN. MIKE BRAUN: You have to follow it and I’ve been following it closely because I do a lot of stuff with media and you’ve got to be up to date and abreast on this stuff, and it changes literally every day. But there’s been one thing that’s been clear from the beginning… I think [Democrats] made a political mistake. It’s cost them in the swing states, not only on the idea of impeachment, but its put President Trump in a margin, in some cases the margin of error where he was four to six points behind because the American public is getting fed up with it because we get nothing else done. I think we get this day behind us. You can tell that they’ve orchestrated it, even with the Lev Parnas stuff. That looks orchestrated, that looks like it was planned.