Arizona’s appointed, not elected Republican Sen. Martha McSally has her first general election ad up (maybe she should be more concerned about her GOP primary) attacking her anticipated Democratic opponent, astronaut Mark Kelly, for supporting the impeachment and removal of President Donald Trump. 1st McSally ad for 2020 race slams Kelly over impeachment. The ad is essentially just a reprisal of Trump’s unhinged Twitter raging:
McSally’s first television ad of the election cycle attempts to ties Kelly to liberal members of Congress and the leaders of the Democratic impeachment efforts, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Jerry Nadler and Adam Schiff.
“The Washington liberals are obsessed with President Trump,” a narrator says in the ad. “They wasted three years and millions of dollars trying to overturn the last election and steal the next one. Liberal Mark Kelly supported their impeachment scam.”
Mark Kelly said after the Senate impeachment trial that he would have voted to remove the president over charges of abuse of power and obstructing a congressional investigation.
“Before I joined the Navy, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution – the president did as well,” Kelly said at the time. “He did not live up to that oath when he intimidated witnesses, refused to provide documents and relevant testimony to Congress, and when he attempted to use his office to influence a foreign government to aid his re-election.”
Martha McSally took that oath also, and she took the oath of office for Senate and the special oath for impeachment trials in the Senate. She violated each of these oaths.
By acquitting Trump of crimes of witness tampering, obstruction of Congress, and extortion and bribery of a foreign government to encourage intervention by that government on his behalf in the 2020 election, McSally gave him license to engage in illegal conduct without fear of consequences from Republican enablers who are themselves accessories aiding and abetting Trump’s crimes.
As a result of this Republican cowardice and enabling, Trump has embarked on a vendetta tour against witnesses who testified against him — witness retaliation is a crime — and against the government officials who investigated him. Trump seeks to bend the executive branch as part of impeachment vendetta.
Does Martha McSally agree with other cowardly Republicans Who Think President Trump Had Every Right To Fire Government Officials Who Testified Against Him? Does she support the illegal witness retaliation against Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, and his twin brother who did not testify but is simply “guilty by association”?
Does McSally disagree with former White House Chief of Staff Gen. John Kelly, who says what Vindman heard was tantamount to an “illegal order” and he had no choice but to tell his superiors? John Kelly: Vindman Was Right to Report Trump’s ‘Illegal Order’ on Ukraine:
At a Drew University event Wednesday night, Kelly said Vindman is blameless and was only following the training he’d received as a soldier. “He did exactly what we teach them to do from cradle to grave,” Kelly said in a speech at the New Jersey college, according to The Atlantic. “He went and told his boss what he just heard.” Kelly went on: “We teach them, Don’t follow an illegal order. And if you’re ever given one, you’ll raise it to whoever gives it to you that this is an illegal order, and then tell your boss.”
Does McSally support Trump asking the Pentagon to consider punishing impeachment witness Vindman? And what about his twin brother, also serving in the military, who did not testify?
President Donald Trump said Tuesday that the Pentagon could look at disciplinary action against U.S. Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a key figure who testified in the Ukraine impeachment saga.
“We’re going to have to see, but if you look at what happened, they’re going to certainly, I would imagine, they’re going to take a look at that,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Tuesday, when he was asked whether the Defense Department would seek disciplinary action against Vindman.
“He is over with the military,” Trump added from the Oval Office. “We sent him on his way to a much different location and the military can handle him any way they want,” Trump said, referring to Vindman’s reassignment from the White House to the Department of the Army.
McSally likes to portray herself as a defender of the military and its ethical ethos. Where is McSally’s defense of the Vindman brothers?
As a result of Republican cowardice and enabling of Trump, he has also embarked on weaponizing the Department of Justice to seek retribution against government officials who investigated him, and to put his thumb on the scales of justice to excuse the illegal conduct of his cronies and friends. The Justice Department becomes a political hit squad for an unleashed president.
Is McSally OK with the president intervening in the case of Roger Stone, who was convicted of lying to protect Trump in the Russia investigation — a direct conflict of interest — by having his “new Roy Cohn,” William “Coverup” Barr overrule line prosecutors in sentencing recommendations?
Does McSally disagree with the American Bar Association, which issued a rare rebuke to “public officials who personally attack judges or prosecutors” after the president did just that? American Bar Association Goes After Trump For Blasting Roger Stone Sentencing On Twitter:
“The American Bar Association steadfastly supports judicial independence and the sound exercise of prosecutorial discretion,” ABA President Judy Perry Martinez said in a statement on Wednesday. “Public officials who personally attack judges or prosecutors can create a perception that the system is serving a political or other purpose rather than the fair administration of justice.”
The ABA message also appeared to refer to Attorney General William Barr, a Trump appointee and ally who has politicized the Justice Department in the president’s favor. Barr appears to have led the effort to reduce Stone’s sentencing recommendation, and Trump seemed to confirm Barr’s intervention in a series of tweets that praised the attorney general for “taking charge” of the case.
“It is incumbent upon public officials and members of the legal profession, whose sworn duty it is to uphold the law, to do everything in their power to preserve the integrity of the justice system,” Perry Martinez said in the ABA statement.
And where does McSally stand on Trump’s frequent and repeated assaults on the independence of the judiciary? Trump takes on judge ahead of Stone’s sentencing.
Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday that he does not “want to say yet” whether he would pardon Stone. Where does McSally stand on Trump pardoning Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, and others convicted in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, while at the same time William “Coverup” Barr pursues criminal investigations against the government officials who investigated the Russia matter?
As Greg Sargent says, “Trump is openly declaring that in interfering, Barr is helping to delegitimize that investigation entirely. In short, Barr — who has tasked prosecutor John Durham with ‘reviewing’ the investigation’s origins — is helping Trump make the Russian attack disappear.” As Trump openly corrupts DOJ, a former insider sounds the alarm.
Where does McSally stand on Trump’s attacks on Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson, who simply did his statutorily prescribed duty in handling the Ukraine whistleblower complaint? Michael Atkinson becomes latest Trump-appointed official to be targeted by one of his tweets. And where does McSally stand on “outing” the whistleblower, who is protected by federal law?
Arizona’s political media should aggressively be demanding answers to these questions from Martha McSally, as should her constituents. McSally’s vote to acquit Trump has enabled his unchecked lawlessness. She should be made to pay for being an accomplice to his lawlessness.