Sen. Sherrod Brown claimed his Republican colleagues are privately acknowledging that they acquitted President Trump out of fear and for self-preservation.
Brown, 67, wrote a Wednesday op-ed for the New York Times after Trump was acquitted on both articles of impeachment, during which Utah GOP Sen. Mitt Romney was the only member of his party who cast a vote to convict. The piece, titled “In Private, Republicans Admit They Acquitted Trump Out of Fear,” began with a comparison to the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq, which was up for a vote just weeks before that year’s midterm elections.
The Ohio Democrat said the moment Rep. Adam Schiff read a CBS News report on the floor of the Senate trial, which alleged that a Trump confidant had threatened GOP members who were considering bucking the party on the vote, revealed to him that the California congressman “had clearly struck a nerve” with Republicans.
“In the words of Lizzo: truth hurts,” he wrote, referencing the singer’s hit song.
Brown went on to claim that congressional Republicans don’t support the president for “what he delivers for them” because Vice President Mike Pence would do the same if he were in the Oval Office. Rather, he alleged, “They are afraid that Mr. Trump might give them a nickname like ‘Low Energy Jeb’ and ‘Lyin’ Ted,’ or that he might tweet about their disloyalty. Or — worst of all — that he might come to their state to campaign against them in the Republican primary.”
He added, “In private, many of my colleagues agree that the president is reckless and unfit. They admit his lies. And they acknowledge what he did was wrong. They know this president has done things Richard Nixon never did. And they know that more damning evidence is likely to come out.”
Despite his claim that Republicans have privately admitted their fears, Brown said that GOP members “stop short of explicitly saying that they are afraid” of Trump’s future behavior.
“We all want to think that we always stand up for right and fight against wrong. But history does not look kindly on politicians who cannot fathom a fate worse than losing an upcoming election,” he concluded. “They might claim fealty to their cause — those tax cuts — but often it’s a simple attachment to power that keeps them captured.”
