Whitman: 'Shame on you, GOP' for protecting President Trump

Former Gov. Christine Todd Whitman said that her fellow Republicans have “lost any moral compass” by not calling any witnesses at the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.

The Republican-majority Senate narrowly rejected Democratic demands to summon witnesses for Trump’s impeachment trial late Friday, all but ensuring Trump's acquittal in just the third trial to threaten a president's removal in U.S. history. But senators pushed off final voting on his fate to Wednesday.

The former New Jersey governor said it was "mind boggling" that some senators believe Trump asked for foreign interference in the U.S. domestic elections but did not need to hear from witnesses.

Notably, Sen. Lamar Alexander, who is retiring from office at the end of the year, was the most vocal, saying he did not need to hear more evidence to conclude that Trump was wrong to ask a foreign leader to investigate a rival.

“But," said Alexander, "the Constitution does not give the Senate the power to remove the president from office and ban him from this year’s ballot simply for actions that are inappropriate."

Whitman said she was also appalled that some Republican senators pointed to Trump's policies as a reason not to convict him, while criticizing Democrats for wanting to impeach him over matters of policy as well.

"What has happened to the rule of law when even lawyers lie? What has happened to standards? What lessons are our children learning? What is happening to our country and its position in the world," Whitman asked in one of a series of messages on her Twitter account on Saturday.

“How do we function as a democracy when we acknowledge that our President is allowed to break the law and yet look the other way?” Whitman tweeted.

The North Jersey Record reported in October Whitman wrote on Twitter "#Hitler has nothing on #Trump."

Her tweet linked to a New York Times story about a digitally edited video that showed a phony Trump shooting media organizations and political opponents — a manipulated version of the violent final scene of the 2014 film "Kingsman: The Secret Service.

The tweet is no longer visible to the public on Whitman's Twitter feed. It was replaced the next day by another tweet linking to the same Times story, with a different message from the former governor.

"This video, played @ the president's resort, is the stuff of dictators. The US is a land of discourse with those who disagree, not violent destruction of opponents in a church. #Trump & his defenders should be ashamed. What is America becoming?" read Whitman's replacement tweet.

In a series of tweets in April 2019 Whitman called Trump a "dictator" after the release of a redacted version of the Mueller report — which wrapped up the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, and any possible collusion with the Trump campaign. Mueller ultimately determined there was not enough evidence to charge any member of the campaign with criminal conspiracy, but told a House committee his report didn't address "collusion," which is not a legal term. His report also detailed potential instances of obstruction by the Trump campaign, but declined to draw a conclusion as to whether any of them rose to the level of a crime.

Whitman said Trump's actions show "a president with little or no respect for the law, someone who looks at the office as his personal fiefdom. That is the stuff of dictators and potentates. To ignore the intent because the act was never completed is to send a message that we aren’t troubled by this kind of undermining of our Constitution."

Contact reporter Dan Alexander at Dan.Alexander@townsquaremedia.com or via Twitter @DanAlexanderNJ