Richard Burr opposes removing Trump from office even if there was a quid pro quo
Sen. Richard Burr does not think the articles of impeachment brought against President Donald Trump rise to the level of removal from office even if witnesses confirm there was a quid pro quo, he said Tuesday morning on former North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory’s radio show.
“The hearsay that John Bolton or anybody else may bring to this is irrelevant because even if the president said this, it does not raise to the level of removal from office, which is a sacred thing because the American people have duly elected him,” said Burr, a North Carolina Republican.
Burr said he agreed with the assessment of Trump defense attorney Alan Dershowitz, who closed Monday night’s proceedings in the trial.
“I think Alan Dershowitz said it very well last night, ‘You blew it, House managers.’ The articles you’ve brought don’t rise to the level of removal from office. So you may have impeached the president. Great. But they don’t rise to the level of removal,” Burr said. “And if the Senate did it, then look out in the future — every president will go through this.”
The defense presented its final day of arguments Tuesday. Now senators have up to 16 hours to ask questions of the House managers and the defense. Then there will be a debate and vote on calling witnesses, including former Trump administration official Bolton.
Bolton’s book won’t sway Tillis
Burr is the second of North Carolina’s two Republican senators to dismiss the significance of Bolton as a potential witness in the Senate’s impeachment trial.
Democrats want to call Bolton to testify about his time as Trump’s national security adviser and specifically about how the president handled aid to Ukraine.
In an unpublished manuscript described in a New York Times story Sunday, Bolton says Trump told him he wanted to continue withholding the security aid until Ukraine turned over material related to his political rivals Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton. Bolton’s forthcoming memoir is called “The Room Where It Happened.”
But Sen. Thom Tillis said the new account from Bolton “hasn’t affected my decision” on whether he will vote to call witnesses in the Senate’s impeachment trial.
Tillis has said he would probably oppose calling witnesses.
He also said he plans to vote to acquit Trump, something he made clear even before the Democrat-controlled House impeached Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
Burr on quid pro quo
Burr, who has said less, took a similar view Tuesday.
“I personally feel that even if they invited witnesses and witnesses confirmed, yes, the president had a quid-pro-quo or something like this, if it doesn’t rise to the level of removal from office than why would we put the American people, the institution, through this process, when we know what the outcome is going to be at the end of the day,” Burr said.
It would take 67 votes to remove Trump from office. Republicans control 53 seats, so 20 of them would have to vote to remove Trump along with all 47 Democrats and independents.
Burr has not been commenting to reporters in the Capitol during the trial. He explained why in the interview with McCrory, a Republican who narrowly lost his re-election bid in 2016 — the same year North Carolina voters re-elected Burr and picked Trump in the presidential election.
“I’m still the chairman of the intelligence committee,” Burr said. “I’m still doing real-time things that involve Ukraine, Russia, that involve areas that are pertinent to this. I might say something that isn’t part of the trial but is pertinent to the time frame and I don’t want to mess that up.”
Burr said he is very familiar with the contents of the trial from his work on the Senate intelligence committee.
“I do know a lot about it. Here again, it’s not my role to try to educate my colleagues. It’s not my role to spend time with the president’s defense team. It’s my turn to sit and specifically see the case that the House managers present,” Burr said.
Tillis’ take
Tillis also appeared on McCrory’s program. McCrory was at the National Republican Senatorial Committee in Washington, D.C., co-hosting a show with Henry Hinton. McCrory said he was in the Senate chamber gallery on Monday.
“They don’t have the case,” Tillis said. “It should be dismissed based on the lack of evidence and lack of process.”
Trump’s defenders have said his requests to Ukraine related to the Democrats were separate from the freeze on the aid. Still, the Bolton news didn’t change Tillis’ view, he told reporters in the Capitol on Monday.
“I actually think the most impactful piece of information I got over the weekend was additional testimony that the House managers opted to take out which undermine a lot of their case,” Tillis said.
Tillis was referring to arguments Trump’s attorneys made at length on Saturday that House Democratic impeachment managers were presenting evidence selectively, omitting key facts, figures and conversations that would appear to undercut their claims that the president was abusing his power.
Pressed on what he thought of the Bolton reports specifically, Tillis said, “I go back to what I said. We had an endless number of people, including high-ranking Democrat, or high ranking State Department and diplomats who said they never got a specific request from the president.”
Bolton’s political action committee has provided campaign help for Tillis in the past and has endorsed him in his re-election campaign last year, something the state Democratic Party highlighted as it criticized Tillis’ stance last week.
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This story was originally published January 27, 2020 at 5:49 PM.
