Portland Press Herald Editorial: Susan Collins Should Demand To See All The Evidence

In Sunday Editorial, Portland Press Herald Says Senator Collins’ “Current Position is Troubling” 

Collins Confirms in Interview: “Too Early to Say Definitely If Witnesses Should Be Called”

In a Sunday editorial, the Portland Press Herald is holding Senator Susan Collins accountable for failing to meet the standard she set in 1999, calling her “current position troubling” and noting she has refused to demand witness testimony as well as “appeared to dismiss the idea of opening the record to new information.”

The editorial ran as Senator Collins reiterated in a new interview that she believes it is “too early to say definitely if witnesses should be called.” The position directly contradicts her own words from 1999 when she said “I need more evidence. I need witnesses and further evidence to guide me to the right destination, to get to the truth.”

Portland Press Herald: Our View: Sen. Susan Collins should demand to see all the evidence

January 19, 2020

Key Points 

• What kind of trial gives you a verdict without witnesses or evidence? It’s called a cover-up.

• If Senate Republicans stick together, that’s what will happen with the impeachment trial of Donald Trump.

• On which side will Sen. Susan Collins land – cover-up or trial?

• So far, it’s unclear. Maine’s senior senator has made comments that suggest she could be in favor of calling witnesses, but she has not demanded that they be called, as she did in 1999, when Democrat Bill Clinton had been impeached by the House. Back then, she said, “I need witnesses and further evidence to guide me to the right destination, to get to the truth.”

• Her current position is troubling, because unless some Republicans break ranks, this will be a cover-up, not a trial.
  […]

• A complicit Senate could maintain those gaps in the record, letting the president off the hook and setting a path for future presidents who want to operate outside the law.

• But the public will know. In the weeks since the House concluded its investigation, a number of facts have been exposed that were not available to House investigators.
  […]

• All of these developments support the already-strong picture assembled by the House investigators of a president using the power of his office to cheat in an election and then covering up when he was caught. At the very least, senators should demand to see all the evidence and listen to every witness before voting on whether Trump should continue in office.

• But last week, Collins appeared to dismiss the idea of opening the record to new information, telling CNN that the new revelations showed that the House had done an “incomplete job.”

• That sounds like an argument for a trial that closes the books on new evidence, no matter how relevant it is to the matter at hand. That sounds like the justification of a cover-up.

Read the full editorial here. 

The DSCC launched WhatChangedSusan.com to highlight Senator Collins’ alignment with Mitch McConnell and refusal to set the same standards for a fair impeachment process that she did in 1999. WhatChangedSusan.com will be updated regularly as the impeachment process unfolds.

Read release at WhatChangedSusan.com.

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