Sen. Mike Braun: Need to Get Impeachment Trial ‘On and Over With’

On Episode 103 of War Room: Impeachment Stephen K. Bannon, Raheem Kassam, and Jason Miller were joined by Senator Mike Braun to discuss the Senate’s potential to move forward with the impeachment trial.

Democrats are “struggling with what to do” with the articles of impeachment, Senator Braun told the War Room.

“The House or the Senate Democrats?” Bannon clarified.

“Both. I think they’re in cahoots in the whole process,” Braun explained. He mentioned the Democrats may be waiting for “something to arise,” such as Bolton’s willingness to testify.

“As a juror, you should be open to [a Bolton testimony]”, Bannon said. “You want to get all the information out there. Don’t you?”

“As long as it’s fair,” Braun said. “Like it was not in the House. Once we get through phase one, and whether you go to depositions or live witnesses, we better not get rolled like we do most of the time.”

DOWNLOAD THE WAR ROOM PODCAST FREE

Bannon mentioned Braun’s last appearance on War Room six weeks ago, saying: “you were the first guy to say this shouldn’t be a dismissal… I thought the whole [Senator Josh] Hawley part of it was to get this thing dismissed and not even go to a trial.”

“That was to say there is some urgency to this, [House Democrats are] not going to control the time frame,” Braun explained. “That is something separate. First of all, [Hawley’s measure] probably won’t get a vote. We’re talking around it. And we want to push the point [to House Democrats]: you’re dawdling, you’ve got a weak case, and get it to the Senate.”

“Once it gets to the Senate,” the Senator continued, “we want a trial that’s going to be done not in the way the House did it. Where the President does get a chance to vindicate himself. And if witnesses are needed after we hear one side and the other, we’ll deal with that just like we did in the Clinton trial.”

Miller said to Senator Braun: “Mitch McConnell is saying he has the 51 votes to proceed with essentially the Bill Clinton impeachment structure; that he has the votes ready to go. Nancy Pelosi is saying…’hold on, I’m still not going to send it over.’ What is the exact state of play? Is Senator McConnell willing to go and start this thing and get this trial moving? Would you expect him to do that if he has the votes to do it? Or are we still going to wait around for Nancy Pelosi and her permanent fishing expedition as the permanent impeachment party tries to keep this going?”

“When it comes to Leader McConnell,” Braun responded, “that would be his forte as a tactician vis-a-vis how he’s going to deal with Pelosi. I think being a traditionalist he is going to want to wait until the articles are delivered. But everything I’m reading is [saying] we do have the ability to maybe start the proceeding without the delivery of the articles.”

“Do you think that we should?” Miller asked the Senator’s opinion.

“I think as time goes on-” the Senator began.

“‘Time going on’ being what? What is Senator Mike Braun’s red line?” Bannon asked for specifics.

Senator Braun’s red line is “what the Hawley resolution was. That I thought made sense. That’s by this coming Sunday,” he explained. “If it doesn’t happen shortly after that, we start looking at what we can do within the rules to get the thing started.”

“I don’t think it benefits the President or anyone,” the Senator said about Pelosi leaving the articles on ice. “They’ve got a weak case. That case needs to be delivered. We need to get it on and over with.”