Sen. Rob Portman verdict in before Trump impeachment trial begins: Not guilty
Sen. Rob Portman is displeased President Trump sought foreign assistance in investigating a political rival, but has found no grounds for the president’s removal.
Rob Portman will listen carefully next month as a juror in the U.S. Senate impeachment trial of the president of the United States.
However, barring the emergence of startling new evidence against Donald Trump, the Republican from Ohio already has reached his verdict – and it’s firm: Not guilty.
The junior senator says he has spent hours reading transcripts of testimony before U.S. House committees, has analyzed Trump’s phone calls to the Ukranian president and has carefully weighed the issues and evidence.
“From what I’ve seen so far, I don’t see the evidence that leads to an impeachable offense,” Portman said Friday following a jobs-related tour of Eastland Career Center in Groveport.
Portman said he was disappointed, but not surprised, that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has announced that her Democratic caucus soon will approve articles of impeachment against Trump, advancing the case to the Senate.
The senator takes exception to Trump’s ongoing assertion his phone call with the president of Ukraine was “perfect,” but believes the president’s conduct does not scale the “very high bar” required to impeach a duly elected president.
“I don’t think everything was appropriate, particularly asking for a foreign government to look into a political opponent, but I don’t believe it rises to the level of saying, ‘We’re going to reverse the results of an election,’ which is what impeachment is,” Portman said.
American voters deserve to make the ultimate call on Trump in the 2020 election, Portman said.
″I think it’s much better to allow the voters to have the information and then to actually take this into the election. People who believe the current administration should be removed, they will have a chance to do that through the democratic process.”
Portman said he fears the highly partisan impeachment proceedings in pursuit of a “dramatic remedy” could color government and politics for years to come.
“That would mean very likely that the next Democratic president would also be impeached. That’s not what the founders intended. They intended for this to be very rare. You wouldn’t want this to be the constant approach Congress takes.”
Portman, also a former U.S. House member from Cincinnati, was not always a federal legislator. He served as director of the Office of Management and Budget under George W. Bush, a position once held by acting Trump Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney.
Asked about Trump and his administration refusing to honor House subpoenas seeking testimony and documents as part of the impeachment probe, Portman said the issue belongs before the courts, but has not been pursued by the Democrats.
“The courts have to decide that. It’s always a fight. It would be good to have some clarification,” he said.