Elizabeth Warren: GOP Gave Trump ‘Permission to Conspire with Foreign Governments’

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) speaks to the media during a recess in the impeachment tri
MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images
Hannah Knudsen

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) on Friday declared that Senate Republicans, who successfully blocked the Democrats’ demands for additional witnesses in the impeachment trial, have given President Trump permission to “conspire with foreign governments to undermine” votes.

Senate Republicans on Friday effectively stiff-armed the Democrats’ demands for additional witnesses in the Senate impeachment trial. Only two Republicans, Sens. Mitt Romney (R-UT) and Susan Collins (R-ME), voted alongside Democrats in favor of additional witnesses. Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), two senators Democrats were hoping to win over, ultimately sided with their own party. Murkowski attributed her decision to the partisan nature of the entire process, noting that the House “chose to send articles of impeachment that are rushed and flawed.”

“Given the partisan nature of this impeachment from the very beginning and throughout, I have come to the conclusion that there will be no fair trial in the Senate. I don’t believe the continuation of this process will change anything,” she added.

The GOP’s success in blocking the Democrats’ calls for additional witnesses effectively paved the way for a speedy acquittal, which is expected to take place next Wednesday. As a result, Warren claims Republicans have “let the American people down” and touted the debunked left-wing talking point, proclaiming that the GOP has given the president “permission to conspire with foreign governments to undermine your vote.”

As Breitbart News has consistently reported throughout the impeachment process, Trump did not condition aid to Ukraine on an investigation, or an announcement of an investigation, into the Bidens. Ukraine received a call, meeting, and aid without any of the so-called demands Democrats claim Trump made. Nevertheless, lead House impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) also made the same claim on the Senate floor this week.

As Breitbart News detailed:

Lead House impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) laid out the case against President Trump in opening arguments on Wednesday in the Senate impeachment trial. The core of his claim was that Trump withheld a White House meeting from new Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, as well as essential military aid, unless and until Ukraine announced investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden and 2016 interference in the U.S. election.

Every part of that claim is untrue, and directly contradicted by the evidence that emerged in the House’s own inquiry.

Schiff is clearly relying on the testimony of U.S. Ambassador to the E.U. Gordon Sondland, who made the surprise announcement in his prepared statement for the public impeachment inquiry in the House Intelligence Committee that there had been a “quid pro quo” — a White House meeting in exchange for an announcement of investigations.

Under questioning, however, Sondland admitted that he had no direct knowledge of a “quid pro quo.” In fact, he testified that when he asked President Trump what he wanted from Ukraine, he said “nothing” and “no quid pro quo.”

Moroever, as the transcript of Trump’s first call with Zelensky in April showed, the president had already invited Zelensky to the White House with no conditions whatsoever — a fact that Schiff neglected to mention in the Senate.

As for the second call, there was never any discussion of withholding aid, or of the 2020 presidential election. The U.S. aid that was temporarily withheld was “security assistance” — not the all-important Javelin anti-tank missiles, which Trump provided earlier (and President Barack Obama had not). The hold had to do with future funding and had no effect on the flow of funds to Ukraine during the summer of 2019, when the temporary hold was in place.

Warren also continued to tout the same narrative.

“The GOP has shown where they stand—and it’s not with you,” she said on Friday.

“The only force that’s powerful enough to stop Trump and the Republicans is us—the American people. They want us to be discouraged and feel hopeless because they’re afraid of what will happen when we all come together and take up each other’s fights,” she continued, calling this a “moment of crisis.”

“In this moment of crisis, I know we’ll protect our democracy by standing up for ourselves and each other,” she added. “We have defeated corruption before. We have changed our system together before. And we will do it again”:

“Senate Republicans just failed the American people & broke their oath to the United States Constitution,” she wrote on her second verified Twitter account:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) indicated on Friday that the Senate is prepared to “conclude the trial in the coming days.”

“The Radical Left, Do Nothing Democrats keep chanting ‘fairness’, when they put on the most unfair Witch Hunt in the history of the U.S. Congress,” Trump said on Friday.

“They had 17 Witnesses, we were allowed ZERO, and no lawyers. They didn’t do their job, had no case,” he continued. “The Dems are scamming America!”:

“No matter what you give to the Democrats, in the end, they will NEVER be satisfied,” he added in another tweet. “In the House, they gave us NOTHING!”:

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