‘Their presidential ambitions prohibit their ability to view this trial through an objective lens…’
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) The Democratic presidential candidates in the Senate should recuse themselves from the upcoming impeachment trial, said Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., who argued they cannot fairly “sit in judgment of the very president they seek to replace.”
“Tomorrow, one hundred United States Senators will be sworn in to serve in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump. Four of those Senators must recuse themselves for their unparalleled political interest in seeing this President removed from office,” Blackburn said in a statement on Wednesday.
“To participate in this trial would be a failure of the oath they took to be an ‘impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws,’” she continued. “Their presidential ambitions prohibit their ability to view this trial through an objective lens.”
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts will swear in each senator as an impeachment juror on Thursday, and Blackburn said it’s obvious Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.; Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.; Michael Bennet, D-Colo.; and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., will not be “impartial.”
.@SenSanders, @SenWarren, @SenAmyKlobuchar, and @SenatorBennet are spending millions of dollars to defeat @realDonaldTrump, and we’re supposed to believe they will be impartial during the trial?
They should recuse themselves.
— Sen. Marsha Blackburn (@MarshaBlackburn) January 16, 2020
Sanders’s communications director, Mike Casca, told the New York Post that Sanders has no intention of shirking his “constitutional duty.”
Blackburn cited the 1868 impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson as a precedent for recusal.
“These individuals should say ‘Look, we’re spending millions of dollars to defeat this guy, and we don’t want him to be president,’” she told Fox News. “I do not think it is possible to fulfill their oath of impartiality if they are going to be running against him when they’re not sitting in the chamber.”