Senator Blackburn Calls on Presidential Candidates to Recuse Themselves From Impeachment Trial

By David Kamioner | January 16, 2020

Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) has called for the four Dem candidates for president who sit in the senate to recuse themselves from voting in the trial of President Donald Trump because they have an inherent conflict of interest.

The four senators she names are Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass), and Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO).

“Tomorrow, one hundred United States senators will be sworn in to serve in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.

Four of those senators must recuse themselves for their unparalleled political interest in seeing this president removed from office,” Blackburn said in a statement.

She also tweeted her views on the subject.

.@SenSanders, @SenWarren, @SenAmyKlobuchar, and @SenatorBennet are spending millions of dollars to defeat @realDonaldTrump, and we’re supposed to believe they will be impartial during the trial?

They should recuse themselves.

— Sen. Marsha Blackburn (@MarshaBlackburn) January 16, 2020

She actually may be doing them a favor, as only weeks before the vital Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary the four named senators would have to leave the campaign trail and sit in the Senate as jurors.

If that wily snapping turtle Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) wanted to have some fun he could draw out the proceedings to keep them AWOL in the presidential race.

Every day they are absent candidates like Joe Biden and Mayor Pete Buttigieg could gain on them.

And Blackburn has a general point as well.

How can they be impartial jurors when they have expressed numerous times that they want the president removed from office?

How can they vote fairly when they themselves would personally and politically benefit if the president were to be found guilty?

Blackburn’s salvo may not get anywhere. But it is a nice PR shot across the bow. Expect a lot more of those from both sides.

The Senator, who served as a State politician in Tennessee and in the U.S. House of Representatives, has been a firebrand conservative since taking her Senate seat in 2018.

Taylor Swift famously opposed her in a long Instagram post falsely accusing Blackburn of not caring about women’s rights, even though the Senator has worked aggressively for rescuing women from human trafficking and is herself a successful career woman.

Swift urged her Nashville-based fans to not vote for Sanders, but her plea was a little too late and Blackburn won.

This piece originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.