Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) chastised House Republicans on Thursday for voting against impeachment and accused President Trump of bribing Ukraine.
“I just feel like, somebody please walk over there to those people and say, ‘Your boy called Ukraine and bribed them,’” Tlaib said, referring to Republicans.
House Democrats on Wednesday took the historic step of passing two articles of impeachment, which charge Trump with abusing power in his dealings with Ukraine and obstructing Congress in its investigation of those actions. Bribery was not included in the articles, which passed almost exclusively along party lines.
Trump and his allies pressed Ukrainian leaders earlier this year to open two investigations that might have helped him politically in 2020: one into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son and another into debunked theories that Kyiv interfered in the 2016 election. During those efforts, the administration temporarily withheld almost $400 million in U.S. aid to Ukraine.
The next fight in the impeachment process, Tlaib told members of By The People, a campaign pushing for Trump’s removal from office, is to “make sure we have a fair trial in the Senate.” She said that means putting pressure on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other GOP senators.
“Please know that the pressure that we’re putting on Mitch McConnell, on the senators who are honestly looking away, some of them have spent no time reading the transcript, reading the report from the [House] Intelligence Committee, the Mueller report or all of those things. That’s your job, that’s your responsibility.”
The demonstrators later occupied McConnell’s office, where they staged a sit-in. Capitol Police said 10 people were arrested.
Anthony Torres, communications and political director of By The People who was among those arrested, said McConnell’s “continued complicity in trying to rig a trial process or do whatever it takes to defend and protect Trump is a betrayal of our democracy.”
When reached for comment, McConnell’s office pointed to the senator’s remarks on the Senate floor Thursday in response to the House vote.
McConnell called the House impeachment a “slapdash process” that was “purely partisan.”
“Let’s be clear: the House’s vote yesterday was not some neutral judgment. … It was the predetermined end of a partisan crusade,” he added.
A Senate trial is expected to begin sometime in January. Sixty-seven votes are needed to convict a president on an article of impeachment. Republicans who hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate.