十二名证人。五天。零名共和党叛逃者。
随着众议院弹劾调查的公开阶段被认为已经结束，民主党人正逐步接近弹劾唐纳德·特朗普总统。但仍有任何众议院共和党人表示支持罢免总统——让共和党领导层无忧无虑。
尽管几位现任和前任政府官员描绘了一幅令人发指的总统肖像，试图向外国同行施压，让他们在国外进行有利于国内政治的调查，但共和党人没有让步。因此，民主党似乎未能说服他们的同僚。
事实上，民主党指出温和派共和党成员是潜在的摇摆选民，他们可能会改变共和党内部的弹劾潮流，但他们转而支持他们的同事的观点，即特朗普参与贿赂或滥用权力的指控缺乏证据。他们说，尽管特朗普被指控的不当行为可能非常不当，但他们已经明确表示，他们认为特朗普的行为不值得弹劾。
私下里，当弹劾条款可能需要投票表决时，共和党领导层并没有表现出任何对叛逃者感到苦恼的迹象。一名共和党高级助手表示，周五的少数党党鞭会议上讨论这个话题时，共和党高层没有表达任何担忧。这名助手出席了会议，但要求匿名讨论私下讨论。
这位助手说，众议院情报委员会的共和党人是“会议的代表——涵盖了方方面面”，该委员会是调查的先锋，主持了公开听证会。作为证据，他们指出吉姆·乔丹(共和党人)和伊莉斯·斯特凡尼克(共和党人)，前者是特朗普的长期辩护律师，后者是一名立法者，她最近因对总统的辩护而声名鹊起，相比之下，威尔·赫德(民主党人关注的温和派)是众议员。
但是，助手指出，“他们之间没有阳光。”
赫德在周四的弹劾听证会上表明了这一点。
赫德说:“可弹劾的罪行应该是令人信服的，绝对清楚和毫不含糊的，不能草率或轻率对待。”。"我没有听到证据证明总统行贿或勒索。"
威尔·赫德众议员11月20日在DC国会山朗沃斯众议院办公楼举行的众议院情报委员会听证会上，向美国驻欧盟大使戈登·桑德兰提问。
鉴于特朗普更温和的观点和过去对他的嘲笑，以及他不寻求连任的决定，这位即将离任的立法者和众议院唯一的黑人共和党人一直是弹劾的王牌。他将特朗普7月25日与乌克兰总统沃洛季米尔·泽兰斯基(Volodymyr Zelenskiy)的电话描述为“不恰当、误导性的外交政策”，在电话中，特朗普向外国领导人施压，要求调查拜登和2016年美国选举阴谋论他补充说，扣留军事援助和白宫会议以换取调查的指控“损害了我们的国家安全”和美国与乌克兰的关系。
最后，赫德没有动摇。
另一名共和党人，俄亥俄州的迈克·特纳，形容特朗普与泽伦斯基的对话是“警告”和“不好”特纳经常沉浸在外交政策事务中，是投票弹劾前总统乔治·布什在伊拉克战争问题上误导国会的24名众议院共和党人之一。
但在弹劾听证会上，特朗普在讲台上通过提问和评论激烈地为特朗普辩护，表明了他的立场。
“你们想成为历史的笑柄，因为美国总统没有参加会议就弹劾他吗？”特纳周四说。“哦，拜托。亲爱的上帝。请承担这一点。”
11月20日，美国驻欧盟大使戈登·桑德兰在DC国会山的朗沃斯众议院办公大楼向众议院情报委员会作证时，迈克尔·特纳议员问了一些问题。
特纳在周五由全国共和党国会委员会发送给支持者的筹款电子邮件中被提及，共和党竞选团队在邮件中引用了这位立法者的话，称弹劾程序“荒谬”
共和党众议员弗朗西斯·鲁尼(共和党)，上个月不排除弹劾的另一位即将退休的共和党人，似乎在这个问题上仍然犹豫不决，弹劾听证会的超党派性质似乎并没有把他推向民主党的方向。
“这是整个交易中最悲伤的部分，就像火星和金星，”他告诉记者美联社周四。发言人没有回应新闻周刊的评论请求。
众议院议长南希·佩洛西最初对发起弹劾调查犹豫不决，原因是选民和共和党人缺乏支持。但那是几个月前的事了，乌克兰丑闻给加州民主党人留下了一个信息给她的共和党同僚。
“我们说过我们希望看到事实，我们希望美国人民看到事实。佩洛西在周四的每周新闻发布会上说:“无论做出什么决定——现在还没有做出——无论做出什么前进的决定，都将基于我们信守我们的就职誓言，而不是基于另一方对共和党真相的抵制。”。“我认为所有这些可悲的悲剧是总统的行为和共和党人对这种行为的辩护。”
在参议院，共和党人表示，尽管他们占多数，但他们缺乏投票来通过一项驳回弹劾审判的措施，这表明一些共和党成员需要在最终决定总统的命运之前充分发挥这一过程。
但这并不是说参议院共和党领导层或白宫担心上议院宣布特朗普无罪。
特朗普在接受长达近一小时的电话采访时说:“坦白地说，我想要一次审判。”狐狸和朋友星期五早上。“他们永远都不应该弹劾...仇恨令人难以置信。”
DEMOCRATS HOPED TO SWAY REPUBLICANS ON IMPEACHMENT. THAT DREAM HAS FAILED TO BECOME A REALITY
Twelve witnesses. Five days. Zero Republican defectors.
With the public phase of the House impeachment inquiry believed to be complete, Democrats are inching closer to impeaching President Donald Trump. But there remains to be any House Republican who has indicated they support the removal of the president—leaving GOP leadership worry-free.
Despite several current and former administration officials painting a damning portrait of a president who sought to pressure a foreign counterpart to engage in investigations abroad that would benefit him politically here at home, Republicans did not budge. Democrats have, as a result, appear to have failed to persuade their colleagues across the aisle.
In fact, the moderate GOP members whom Democrats pointed to as potential swing voters who could shift the impeachment tide within the Republican Party swung the opposite direction, backing their colleagues' opinion that the allegations that Trump engaged in bribery or abused his power lack evidence. And while his alleged wrongdoing may have very well been improper, they said, they've made clear their belief that Trump's actions do not deserve impeachment.
And behind closed doors, GOP leadership isn't showing any signs of distress over defectors when articles of impeachment presumably come up for a vote. When the topic was addressed during a minority whip meeting Friday, there was no concern expressed among top Republicans, according to a senior GOP aide who attended but who requested anonymity to discuss the private deliberations.
Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, the panel that's spearheaded the inquiry and hosted the public hearings, are "representative of the conference—spans the spectrum," the aide said. As evidence, they pointed to Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Elise Stefanik (R-NY), the former a longtime Trump defender, and the latter, a lawmaker who rose to recent prominence for her defenses of the president, compared with Rep. Will Hurd (R-TX), a moderate whom Democrats had their eye on.
But, the aide pointed out, "there is no daylight between them."
Hurd made that evident at Thursday's impeachment hearing.
"An impeachable offense should be compelling, overwhelmingly clear and unambiguous, and it's not something to be rushed or taken lightly," Hurd said. "I've not heard evidence proving the president committed bribery or extortion."
Rep. Will Hurd (R-TX) questions Gordon Sondland, the U.S ambassador to the European Union, during a hearing before the House Intelligence Committee in the Longworth House Office Building on Capitol Hill November 20 in Washington, DC.
The outgoing lawmaker and only black Republican in the chamber had been a wild card on impeachment, given his more moderate views and past ridicule of Trump, in addition to his decision not to seek re-election. He characterized Trump's July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in which the president pressured the foreign leader to probe the Bidens and a 2016 U.S. election conspiracy theory, as "inappropriate, misguided foreign policy." The allegations of withholding military aid and a White House meeting in exchange for investigations "undermined our national security" and America's relationship with Ukraine, he added.
In the end, Hurd was not swayed.
Another Republican, Mike Turner of Ohio, has described Trump's conversation with Zelenskiy as "alarming" and "not OK." Regularly steeped in foreign policy matters, Turner was one of 24 House Republicans who voted to impeach former President George W. Bush for misleading Congress on the Iraq War.
But his fierce defense of Trump from the dais during the impeachment hearings by way of questions and remarks made clear where he stands.
"You guys want to be the laughingstock of history to impeach a president of the United States because he didn't take a meeting?" Turner said Thursday. "Oh, please. Dear God. Please, undertake that."
Rep. Michael Turner (R-OH) questions Gordon Sondland, the U.S ambassador to the European Union, during testimony before the House Intelligence Committee in the Longworth House Office Building on Capitol Hill November 20 in Washington, DC.
Turner was featured in a fundraising email pitch sent to supporters Friday by the National Republican Congressional Committee, in which the GOP campaign arm quoted the lawmaker calling the impeachment process "ridiculous."
Rep. Francis Rooney (R-FL), another retiring Republican who last month would not rule out impeachment, appeared to remain undecided on the matter, and the hyper-partisan nature of the impeachment hearings did not seem to nudge him in Democrats' direction.
"That's the saddest part of the whole deal, it's like Mars and Venus," he told the Associated PressThursday. A spokesperson did not respond to Newsweek's request for comment.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's original hesitance to launching an impeachment inquiry stemmed from the lack of support among voters and Republicans. But that was months ago, and the Ukraine scandal has left the California Democrat with a message for her GOP counterparts.
"We said we want to see the facts and we want the American people to see the facts. Whatever decision is made—and it has not been made yet—whatever decision is made to go forward will be based on our honoring our oath of office, not on the resistance to the truth of the Republicans on the other side," Pelosi said at her weekly press conference on Thursday. "I think the sad tragedy of all of this is the behavior of the president and the defense of that behavior by the Republicans."
In the Senate, Republicans said that, despite their majority, they lack the votes to pass a measure to dismiss an impeachment trial, an acknowledgment that some GOP members need the process to fully play out before making a final determination of the president's fate.
But that's not to say Senate GOP leadership or the White House is concerned about the upper chamber acquitting Trump.
"Frankly, I want a trial," Trump said in a ranting, nearly hourlong phone interview on Fox & Friends Friday morning. "They should never, ever impeach...The hatred is incredible."
