Former Arizona GOP Sen. Jeff Flake issued a scathing rebuke of those in his party who stand with President Trump during his impeachment.
Flake, 56, who did not run for reelection in 2018, published an op-ed titled, “Jeff Flake: The president is on trial. So are my Senate Republican colleagues,” in the Washington Post on Friday.
“As we approach the time when you do your constitutional duty and weigh the evidence arrayed against the president, I urge you to remember who we are when we are at our best. And I ask you to remember yourself at your most idealistic,” Flake wrote. “We are conservatives. The political impulses that compelled us all to enter public life were defined by sturdy pillars anchored deep in the American story.”
The former senator, who also spent time in the House of Representatives, ridiculed President Trump’s frequently used claim that his actions are “perfect” and added, “Personally, I have never met anyone whose behavior can be described as perfect … There are members of our party denying objective reality by repeating the line that ‘the president did nothing wrong.'” He also posed the question of what would Republicans do if President Barack Obama had done the same thing.
Flake, who is a resident fellow at Harvard University and a contributor to CBS News, went on to acknowledge that some may view the president’s actions as bad but ones that don’t rise to the level worthy of impeachment, but he countered, “But what is indefensible is echoing House Republicans who say that the president has not done anything wrong. He has.”
“The willingness of House Republicans to bend to the president’s will by attempting to shift blame with the promotion of bizarre and debunked conspiracy theories has been an appalling spectacle,” he said. “It will have long-term ramifications for the country and the party, to say nothing of individual reputations.”
Flake ended his piece by asking his former colleagues if they had changed in the time since the president was inaugurated.
