Republicans are thinking of deserting the president: ‘This marriage with Trump is going to be very costly’
But some Republicans I spoke with were far less sympathetic. Paul Rosenzweig, who was one of Ken Starr’s deputies during the Clinton impeachment probe, had harsh words for the arguments put forth by Graham, Gaetz, and their GOP compatriots.
“Almost nothing that the Republicans have complained about in terms of process has any constitutional merit,” said Rosenzweig, now a senior fellow at the R Street Institute. “The Republicans on the Benghazi committee conducted dozens of closed-door depositions before they had open hearings, and I didn’t hear the Republicans complaining then. They are clearly trying to make a political point, but their political point really emphasizes the fact that they have neither the law nor the facts on their side, so they have to invade a SCIF instead.”
Rosenzweig’s impressions of the evidence that has been publicly reported so far was equally blunt. “Ambassador Taylor’s testimony was particularly trenchant and, uh, adverse to the president’s interests, both in suggesting that most of what he’s been saying so far is untrue, and in directly suggesting that he understood that [Trump] had conditioned the delivery of foreign aid on securing personal benefits,” he said. “That makes the diplomatic exchange one that is corrupted by the president’s intent, and thus both impeachable and quite possibly criminal.”
