February 04, 2020 02:07 PM UTC

Will Cory Gardner Say ANYTHING on Impeachment?

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• by: Colorado Pols

UPDATE: The Senate has adjourned for the day. Gardner did not speak.

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Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Yuma) does not like talking about the subject of President Trump’s misconduct. He doesn’t talk to reporters or constituents. If he gets cornered by journalists, he melts into a puddle of pitiful talking points or blabbers out some nonsense like, “We have a trial.”

Today is the last day of the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump. Many U.S. Senators, including those facing difficult re-election campaigns in 2020, are explaining how and why they plan to vote for Trump’s acquittal on Wednesday.

But not Cory Gardner.

As CNN’s Manu Raju reported on Monday:

A number of Republican senators on Monday dodged questions about whether President Donald Trump acted appropriately with Ukraine, underscoring the internal GOP divide about his conduct even as the Senate is poised to acquit him later this week on charges of high crimes and misdemeanors.

Many Republicans instead are eager to shift the attention away from the President’s conduct and onto House Democrats, whom they argue failed to prove that Trump’s actions warrant his removal from office. Yet they won’t say if Trump acted appropriately in urging Ukraine to announce investigations that would help him politically, highlighting the fine line many are walking as they seek to avoid angering the President while not endorsing his actions…

…Colorado GOP Sen. Cory Gardner, one of the most vulnerable senators up for reelection, would not comment about Trump’s conduct after the closing arguments were delivered on Monday. Gardner last week joined 50 of his GOP colleagues in voting to block any witnesses or subpoenas for documents in the Senate trial.

“We’re still in the middle of this trial,” Gardner said when asked if Trump’s conduct was appropriate. “We still have tomorrow to deliberate and consider. I made my comments about witnesses, and I’m not going to go on screen now that I still think we’re in the middle of an important process.”

After a reporter noted that closing arguments had ended, Gardner said he would reserve his comments for the Colorado press. “I’ll talk to them,” he said. [Pols emphasis]

You can forgive local reporters for not believing that #CoverUpCory plans on speaking with them on the subject of Trump’s transgressions. Our guess is that Gardner’s office will issue some sort of statement once the trial is concluded — “We HAD a trial,” perhaps? — and that will be all we hear from the Yuma Republican. At most Gardner will show up as a guest on some small right-wing radio program in Colorado in the next week, or his office will again convince Shaun Boyd of CBS4 Denver to pretend to interview him.

Gardner has made it this far without saying anything of substance about Trump, Ukraine, or impeachment; there is little reason to think he’ll break that streak. On the first day of impeachment hearings in the House of Represenatives, Gardner issued a video statement about…some sort of new committee related to the Olympics.

Gardner knows full well that the central arguments in Trump’s defense are complete horseshit, but he’s cool with it. Late last week — after much equivocating and obfuscation — Gardner finally acknowledged (via statement) that he planned to vote against the introduction of new witnesses in the Senate impeachment trial, all but closing the door on any possibility of a serious accounting of the accusations against President Trump.

We’ll update this post if Gardner actually speaks about his vote on the Senate floor (or anywhere else, for that matter). We don’t need to tell you not to hold your breath.