Braun says evidence to impeach is lacking

U.S. Sen. Mike Braun said Thursday that House hearings have failed to prove President Donald Trump committed impeachable offenses.

“To me, when you drill down into the question that was asked of every witness, was there an impeachable moment, did you actually hear the president say – all the things that you would need for this to actually be a case have not occurred,” Braun, R-Ind., said in a conference call with Indiana news media.

“Will we even get to articles of impeachment? And if we do, I think the case, once it comes to the Senate, will even be fleshed out more to see that there's nothing there,” he said.

He said that “nothing has risen to that level” of crimes necessary for Congress to impeach a president.

Braun said he has no problem defending Trump even though the Republican-controlled Senate has yet to hear from witnesses or receive evidence. Trump is accused of withholding military aid to Ukraine unless its leaders agreed to investigate former vice president Joe Biden, a potential Trump rival in the 2020 election, for possible corruption.

“If there is further evidence that would come forward, either exculpatory or blaming the president with a closer connection, you've gotta be open to that,” Braun said.

“All I'm saying is it's funny how you can see the same stuff and have two different opinions currently. But that's the political element that enters into it,” he said.

“We've got an election coming up in less than a year now. And to me, so far, with the evidence that's been seen, that's where the judge and jury should sit, and we'll find out November of 2020,” he said.

Testimony by witnesses at hearings has been “their opinion, their interpretation” of communications among Trump, his aides and Ukrainian officials, Braun said.

The first-year senator from Jasper said public polling, particularly in swing states such as Wisconsin, will determine whether the Democratic controlled House files articles of impeachment.

“If this doesn't get beyond 50% (approval), especially now that it's ebbing, I don't know that they'll go forward with an article of impeachment, and if they do, it'll only be to save face because they've put this much time and effort into it,” Braun said about House Democrats.

He cited polls of registered voters in Wisconsin conducted by Marquette University. The surveys found support for impeachment slipped from 44% in October to 40% this month while opposition rose from 51% to 53%.

The latest compilation of polling by data analysis website FiveThirtyEight shows that 47.4% of Americans support impeachment and 45.6% oppose it. Support had reached 50.2% on Oct. 15.

Trump's opponents have been pushing for his impeachment since before he took office in 2017, Braun contended. He acknowledged that Trump's “push the envelope” behavior might have invited increased scrutiny of him.

It's “part of a style of a president that maybe isn't as careful politically as what he needs to be,” Braun said.

Meantime, Rep. Jim Banks, R-3rd, continued his daily tweeting in opposition to the impeachment proceedings.

“This impeachment sham is the latest charade in a long timeline of Democrat efforts to take Trump down. But it won't work,” Banks wrote Thursday on Twitter.  “The American people are sick and tired of the swamp's antics.”

He called the hearings “a shameful partisan effort to damage a sitting president before 2020 election.”

bfrancisco@jg.net