Susan Collins Closes Door on Reporter After Being Pressed on What Trump Has "Learned" Since Impeachment
February 13th 2020
Fortune Most Powerful Women 2013 (Fortune Live Media)
By Dan Desai Martin
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) said Donald Trump learned his lesson from impeachment. But when confronted on Wednesday morning, Collins couldn’t list a single lesson Trump learned.
CNN’s Manu Raju asked Collins if there were any lessons Trump learned from impeachment, in light of Trump’s recent actions. Collins would not or could not identify any lessons, responding instead with a lengthy defense of her votes to acquit Trump.
“I’ve made very clear that I don’t think anyone should be retaliated against,” Collins said. “I voted to acquit the president… because his conduct, while wrong, did not meet the high bar established by the Constitution” for removal.
Raju again asked, “Do you think he learned any lessons?”
Collins again refused to answer the question.
When Raju asked a third time if Trump learned any lessons, Collins closed the door on him, ending the interview.
The day before Collins and her Republican colleagues voted to acquit Trump, Collins went on television defending her decision.
“I believe that the president has learned from this case,” Collins told CBS News on Feb. 4. “The president has been impeached. That’s a pretty big lesson.”
Since the Senate acquitted Trump, he has sought to retaliate against those who testified against him and interfered in a Department of Justice case involving one of his former close associates.
Two days after the Senate voted, the White House fired Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a Purple Heart recipient who told Congress he was uncomfortable with Trump’s July 25 phone call with the president of Ukraine. On that call, Trump asked the Ukrainian government to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden.
Later that same day, the White House fired U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, who testified to Congress that the Trump administration engaged in a quid pro quo with the Ukrainian government, offering a White House meeting in exchange for opening investigations that would politically benefit Trump in 2020.
On Wednesday morning, Trump admitted that his handpicked attorney general, William Barr, interfered in the sentencing recommendation of Trump campaign adviser and convicted felon Roger Stone. DOJ career attorneys recommended Stone be sentenced to up to nine years in prison, and Barr revised the recommendation to a lighter sentence after Trump complained about the original recommendation on Twitter.
Collins’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the interview with Raju.
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