“In fairness, when I heard that, I was disturbed,' Murkowski said, responding to Mitch McConnell’s statement that “there would be no difference” between the impeachment trial strategy of the Senate GOP and the White House
Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images Describing his preparation process for the impeachment trial of President Trump, Mitch McConnell told Fox News’ Sean Hannity last week that “Everything I do during this, I’m coordinating with the White House counsel.” He added, “There will be no difference between the president’s position and our position as to how to handle this.”
The comment — made the same day the senate majority leader met with White House counsel Pat Cipollone to coordinate a strategy for the trial — has led to the first moment of potential dissent from Senate Republicans. On Christmas Eve, Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski told an Anchorage CNN affiliate that she was concerned with McConnell’s vow of fealty.
“In fairness, when I heard that, I was disturbed,” Murkowski said, adding that she believed there should be some daylight between the Senate GOP and the White House on trial preparation. “To me it means that we have to take that step back from being hand in glove with the defense, and so I heard what leader McConnell had said, I happened to think that that has further confused the process.”
Murkowski also criticized House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s approach to the impeachment articles as a rush job: “[She] was very clear, very direct that her goal was to get this done before Christmas.
A word of consternation from Murkowski means a lot more than that of the average Republican, as she is one of the rare GOP senators to break party lines on major votes during the Trump administration. Last October, she was the only senate Republican to oppose the nomination of Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, while in July 2017, Murkowski, Susan Collins, and John McCain tanked the “skinny repeal” of Obamacare by siding with the Democratic minority.
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