President Trump said Friday that his impeachment by the House should be “expunged” because it was a “total political hoax” as he headed to North Carolina on his first trip out of Washington since being acquitted in a Senate impeachment trial.
An economic event will offer a glimpse of how much Trump plans to continue to focus on his impeachment while fallout from the trial continues, including reports that he is preparing to push out a national security official who testified against him. At events Thursday, Trump railed against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Sen. Mitt Romney (Utah), the only Republican who voted to convict him.
The crux of the case against Trump was the allegation that he withheld military aid and a White House meeting to pressure Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and his son. Hunter Biden served on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, while his father was vice president.
●With trial over, Trump returns to political maelstrom.
●Trump lambastes his critics as he moves to target perceived enemies over impeachment.
●Trump celebrates end of impeachment with angry, raw and vindictive 62-minute White House rant.
How the Senate voted|Key documents from the impeachment process| The full Trump-Ukraine timeline
11:30 AM: Trump backs idea of expunging is impeachment
Trump endorsed an idea Friday by House Republicans to “expunge” his impeachment if they take control of the chamber next year.
“They should because it was a hoax,” Trump told reporters as he prepared to leave the White House for North Carolina. “It was a total political hoax.”
Talk of such a move has gained traction in response to repeated assertions by Pelosi that Trump has been “impeached forever” despite his acquittal in the Senate.
In a television appearance Friday morning, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Tex.) touted the idea.
“Honestly, when we’re back in charge, we can have a vote, we can have a resolution that would seek to expunge the impeachment,” Roy said on Fox News. “I don’t know if it will carry any legal weight, but we can send a loud message that this was a political, partisan effort.”
By: John Wagner
11:20 AM: Trump says he is ‘not happy’ with Vindman
Trump told reporters Friday that he is “not happy” with Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a National Security Council staff member who testified during the House impeachment proceedings, but he would not definitively say whether Vindman would be reassigned in coming days.
“You think I’m supposed to be happy with him?” Trump asked reporters as he prepared to leave the White House for North Carolina. “I’m not.”
“They’ll make a decision,” he added. It was not entirely clear to whom he was referring.
Vindman has already informed senior officials at the NSC that he intends to take an early exit from his assignment at the White House and leave his post by the end of the month, according to people familiar with his decision.
But Trump has appeared eager to make a symbol of the Army officer soon after the Senate acquitted him of the impeachment charges approved by House Democrats.
By: John Wagner
11:10 AM: Pence defends Trump’s attacks on Pelosi
Vice President Pence on Friday defended Trump’s attacks on Pelosi — including the president calling her a “horrible person” and questioning whether she prays at all — after his acquittal by the Senate.
Pence said that Trump had been subject to misguided investigations since taking office, including the “sham” that led to his “partisan impeachment” by the House related to his conduct toward Ukraine.
“It’s over, and I don’t think any American would begrudge the president strong feelings about those who have spent so much energy in the past three years trying to stop him and this administration from turning this country around,” Pence said on Fox Business Network.
Pence also criticized Pelosi for having torn up a copy of Trump’s prepared remarks at the conclusion of his State of the Union address Tuesday.
The vice president said he did not realize what Pelosi was doing at the time, but felt it was “a new low” for her once he learned what had happened.
“It tells you all you need to know about this radical, leftist Democratic Party,” Pence said, adding that Democrats seek opportunities “to try and distract from the extraordinary progress the American people have made under President Trump.”
By: John Wagner
10:25 AM: Rep. Raskin criticizes ‘banana Republicans’ for not standing up to Trump
Rep. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Md.) criticized “banana Republicans” Friday for not standing up to Trump regarding reports that he is preparing to push out Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a National Security Council staffer who testified in the House impeachment proceedings.
“The president’s conduct is perfectly consistent with the tin-pot dictator in a banana republic,” Raskin said during an appearance on MSNBC. “The shocking thing is that there are now banana Republicans who will follow him and walk the plank on every one of these outrageous maneuvers. In a democratic society, people who serve in the military or on the civilian side are not subject to retaliation and reprisal because they tell the truth in an official government proceeding.”
By: John Wagner
10:15 AM: Top Democratic super PACs join forces to target Collins, McSally, Tillis
Two of the largest Democratic super PACs said they are preparing to target three vulnerable Republican senators days after they each voted to acquit Trump on impeachment charges.
Priorities USA and Senate Majority PAC said they are launching a “multimillion-dollar digital partnership” this spring against Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Martha McSally (Ariz.) and Thom Tillis (N.C.).
Senate Majority PAC, the largest Democratic super PAC solely focused on Senate races, is run by J.B. Poersch, a former executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and has close ties to the party leadership. It raised $164 million for the 2018 midterm cycle.
Priorities USA, which raised more than $190 million in 2016, is expected to focus its energies on the presidential race, but it also raised $44 million for the 2018 midterms, spending most of it on Senate races.
The two groups ran a similar joint $30 million digital campaign targeting eight Senate races in 2018.
“By exonerating President Trump without securing a fair trial, Senate Republicans have ignored the rule of law and the will of the American people,” Poersch said in a statement. “Our new digital partnership with Priorities will allow us to hold Senate Republicans accountable by aggressively targeting voters in battleground states that are key to flipping the Senate.”
“Just winning the White House wouldn’t be enough. If we want to enact real change in this country, we need a Democratic Senate,” said Patrick McHugh, executive director of Priorities USA Action. “We’re proud to once again partner with SMP on this digital campaign to ensure we’re getting our message out to voters wherever they spend their time.”
By: Mike DeBonis
10:00 AM: Vindman remains in NSC job for now
Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman reported for work at the National Security Council on the White House complex Friday, and by 10 a.m. had received no notification that he was being transferred or reassigned, according to a person familiar with his status who requested anonymity to discuss a personnel matter.
Trump is preparing to push out Vindman, who testified during the House impeachment inquiry about concerns he had after hearing a July phone call in which Trump pressed the leader of Ukraine for investigations that could benefit him politically.
Vindman will be informed as early as Friday by administration officials that he is being reassigned to a position at the Defense Department, taking a key figure from the investigation out of the White House, according to two people familiar with the move who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss personnel decisions.
By: Carol Leonnig
9:30 AM: Republicans quick to credit Trump for jobs report
Republicans were quick to credit Trump for Friday’s better-than-expected jobs report, with some seeking to contrast his performance on the economy with the failed effort by Democrats to remove him from office.
“Democrats try to impeach him, corporate media spends all day attacking him, and all President Trump does is keep on fueling the best surging economy in decades,” Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), an ally of the president, tweeted. “It’s really amazing.”
[The economy added 225,000 jobs in January, showing continued strength]
The U.S. economy added 225,000 jobs in January, surpassing analysts’ predictions in a sign of continued growth for the economy. The unemployment rate ticked up slightly to 3.6 percent, remaining near a 50-year low.
Job gains were seen in construction, health care, as well as transportation and warehousing, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“Don’t show the report to Nancy Pelosi, she has a habit of tearing up long lists of good news,” Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Tex.) tweeted after the report’s release, referencing the speaker of the House shredding Trump’s State of the Union address earlier this week.
By: John Wagner and Eli Rosenberg
9:15 AM: Gingrich says Trump should not pay any attention to Pelosi, his ‘mortal enemy’
Newt Gingrich, a former House speaker, offered some advice Friday to Trump on how to handle the current occupant of that job in the wake of his acquittal.
“My advice to the president would be really simple,” Gingrich said. “Don’t pay any attention to Pelosi, because she’s your mortal enemy … There’s not much point in the president wasting time with her.”
During an appearance on Fox News, Gingrich also chided Pelosi for cutting short Trump’s introduction at the State of the Union, noting that he introduced President Bill Clinton four times during his tenure as speaker, saying each time that it was “my distinct honor and personal privilege” to do so. Cutting those words “was almost like a declaration of war,” Gingrich said.
Gingrich, who served as speaker from January 1995 to January 1999, oversaw Clinton’s 1998 impeachment.
Gingrich was also critical of House Democrats for considering issuing a subpoena to former national security adviser John Bolton, who was not called as a witness in the Senate trail.
“That’s kind of like they want to shoot at Trump as often as they can until they finally get him, and they’d like him to be nice while they’re doing it,” Gringrich said.
By: John Wagner
9:00 AM: Sen. Paul draws ethics complaint for naming alleged whistleblower
An expert on whistleblowers is filing a complaint against Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) with the Senate Ethics Committee, due to the senator publicizing the name of the alleged whistleblower whose complaint sparked the impeachment inquiry.
In a letter to Sens. James Lankford (R-Okla.) and Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.), the chairman and vice chairman of the committee, Tom Mueller, the author of a book on the history of whistleblowing, alleges that Paul “engaged in improper conduct that is unethical and unbecoming of a Senator.”
During the Senate trial last week, Paul submitted a question that included the name of the alleged whistleblower. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. refused to read it, saying, “The presiding officer declines to read the question.”
Paul subsequently publicized the name to the media and later read his question on the Senate floor during a period reserved for speeches on impeachment from senators. Paul said he was not seeking to out the whistleblower but was naming someone whose actions were key to understanding the origins of the inquiry.
“Senator Paul’s conduct was especially corrosive because it occurred during one of the most solemn of the constitutional tasks bestowed upon the upper chamber, a time when the Senate was sitting as a court of presidential impeachment for only the third time in this nation’s history,” Mueller says in his complaint. “But even if this had been an ordinary trial in a conventional court, the behavior would have been contemptuous.”
Paul’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
By: John Wagner
7:45 AM: Trump shares tweet questioning job of national security aide
As he continued to share tweets from political allies, Trump included one in which Tom Fitton, president of the conservative group Judicial Watch, questioned why Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a National Security Council aide who testified during House impeachment hearings, remained on the job.
Trump is reportedly preparing to push Vindman out of his position at the White House as early as Friday and reassign him to a position at the Defense Department.
In a tweet that Trump retweeted, Fitton included a television clip from last year in which he questioned why Vindman was still working for the NSC.
“I don’t know how we can expect the president to have any trust in this person’s work,” Fitton said during an appearance on “Lou Dobbs Tonight” on the Fox Business Network. “He should be nowhere near any policymaking body for the government.”
During public testimony before the House in November, Vindman testified to the concerns he had after hearing a July phone call in which Trump pressed the leader of Ukraine for investigations that could benefit him politically.
By: John Wagner
7:35 PM: Joe Walsh, Republican who called Trump ‘unfit’ for office, ends presidential bid
Joe Walsh, a former Illinois congressman who announced a primary challenge to Trump last year, has ended his long-shot bid for the Republican nomination, he said on CNN Friday morning.
Walsh, a tea party activist who hosted a conservative talk radio show, once supported Trump, but he became one of the most prominent Republican voices to break from the president shortly after Trump took office.
Walsh launched his campaign last August, declaring Trump “unfit” for office and saying conservatives should have an alternative in 2020. Over more than five months of running for the GOP nomination, however, Walsh grew convinced Republicans who supported Trump were part of a “cult” and under a “spell,” he wrote in an op-ed Thursday for The Washington Post.
Read more here.
By: Amy B Wang
7:30 AM: Trump to appear at economic event in North Carolina
Trump plans to leave Washington for the first time since his acquittal for an event in Charlotte, focused on providing economic and job opportunities in low-income neighborhoods.
His appearance at the North Carolina Opportunity Now Summit will offer a window into how much the president wants to continue talking about the impeachment process now that the Senate trial is behind him.
In a pair of public appearances on Thursday — at the National Prayer Breakfast and an event at the White House — Trump spoke at length about what he called “vicious and mean” Democrats who pushed his impeachment and thanked Republicans who stood by him.
North Carolina is important to Trump’s reelection prospects this year. Trump carried the state over Hillary Clinton in 2016 with 49.8 percent of the vote to her 46.2 percent.
After returning to Washington later Friday, Trump is scheduled to present remarks at a Republican Governors Association fundraiser.
By: John Wagner
7:15 PM: Trump retweets allies critical of his impeachment
Trump shared a spate of tweets from political allies on Friday morning, many of them focused on his acquittal in the Senate and highly critical of Democrats.
Among the retweets was one by Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) of a banner headline in the Arizona Republic the day after verdict that read: “ACQUITTED.”
“ACQUITTED FOR LIFE,” Biggs added in his own words.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/has-impeachment-been-good-for-trump/2020/02/06/eca795f3-3205-43c6-bdaa-b3e333d8392e_video.html
Another retweet, by conservative commentator Dan Bongino, presented a “Short List of Debunked Democrat Hoaxes” that included “Russian collusion,” “Ukrainian quid pro quo” and “Pelosi is ‘praying’ for Trump.”
Another retweet showed a television appearance by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) in which he predicted Republicans would regain control of the House because of Trump’s impeachment.
By: John Wagner
7:00 AM: Schiff says John Bolton owes the American people an explanation
In an interview scheduled for broadcast Friday, Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), the lead House impeachment manager in Trump’s Senate trial, said that former national security adviser John Bolton owes the American people an explanation about why he wouldn’t submit an affidavit.
Schiff revealed earlier this week that the House managers unsuccessfully sought an affidavit from Bolton after the Senate voted not to hear from live witnesses in the trial. That decision came after reports that a book manuscript by Bolton includes the claim that the release of military aid to Ukraine was tied to investigations sought by Trump.
“Now he will have to explain at some point why he is willing to put this in a book but not in an affidavit under oath,” Schiff said during an interview on CNN, a segment of which aired early. “It is fairly inexplicable, but frankly, it’s more inexplicable that when he was willing to come forward before the Senate that the senators did not want to hear what he had to say.”
The other six impeachment managers also appear in the CNN interview.
By: John Wagner
6:25 AM: Rep. Roy pushes resolution to expunge Trump’s impeachment in House
During a morning television appearance, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Tex.) touted an idea gaining traction among Republicans: a resolution to “expunge” the House’s impeachment of Trump.
The move, which GOP lawmakers say would take place if the party regains control of the House next year, comes in response to assertions by Pelosi that Trump has been “impeached forever” despite his acquittal in the Senate.
“Honestly, when we’re back in charge, we can have a vote, we can have a resolution that would seek to expunge the impeachment,” Roy said on Fox News. “I don’t know if it will carry any legal weight, but we can send a loud message that this was a political, partisan effort, and then get busy. We can do that on the first day and then get busy doing the job the American people want us to do.”
Roy argued that the stain of impeachment would be attached to Pelosi and other Democrats, not Trump.
“I think it’s the scarlet letter that Speaker Pelosi so desperately wanted to tag to President Trump that is going to be tagged to her and to Democrats who really failed to do the work of the American people and instead were so caught up in hatred of the president that they were wasting the time of the American people,” he said.
By: John Wagner
6:00 AM: Trump prepares to push out national security aide who testified against him
Trump is preparing to push out a national security official who testified against him during the impeachment inquiry after he expressed deep anger on Thursday over the attempt to remove him from office because of his actions toward Ukraine.
Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman — a National Security Council aide who testified during House Democrats’ impeachment hearings — will be informed in the coming days, likely on Friday, by administration officials that he is being reassigned to a position at the Defense Department, according to two people familiar with the move who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss personnel decisions.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/video/national/trump-impeachment-hearings/vindman-tells-jordan-i-did-my-job/2019/11/19/1adeab65-5487-431b-84c0-3d9058ef9fe8_video.html
Vindman had already informed senior officials at the NSC that he intended to take an early exit from his assignment and leave his post by the end of the month, according to people familiar with his decision. But Trump is eager to make a symbol of the Army officer soon after his acquittal from the impeachment charges approved by House Democrats.
Read more here.
By: Josh Dawsey, Robert Costa and Greg Miller
2020-02-07 17:08:00Z
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