In wake of impeachment testimony, no signs yet of GOP cracks

Congressional Republicans are showing overt signs of abandoning ir support for President Donald Trump, latest demonstration of how Democrats’ impeachment enquiry has left two parties inhabiting different political universes. Democrats revelled Wednesday over Ambassor Gordon Sondland’s testimony that Trump was requiring a “quid pro quo” — specifically, a public Ukrainian commitment to investigate Democrats in exchange for a Trump Oval Office meeting that ir newly elected president bly wanted.

Yet GOP lawmakers minimized Sondland’s appearance, saying his revelations about how Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani h delivered Trump’s demands to diplomats hn’t changed ir minds. Sondland said y later realized that Ukrainian investigations were also Trump’s price for embattled country to receive U.S. military aid alrey approved by Congress.

“A meeting, which is a thing-burger?” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said of one of Trump’s demands. “ president can meet with whoever he wants to meet with, for a good reason or reason at all.”

“ne of this” has risen to level of meriting Trump’s impeachment, said Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind. “And I’m pretty certain that’s what most of my cohorts in Senate are thinking.”

Even so, re is a GOP guardedness about impact of revelations like Sondland’s and what disclosures remain.

Polling has shown that while public opinion has shifted recently toward slightly backing Trump’s impeachment, Democrats strongly support effort while Republicans vehemently oppose it. Independents have been divided.

“ question is, is this information eugh to disrupt equilibrium or t?” David Winston, a pollster who works with congressional Republicans, said of Sondland’s testimony. Winston said it “takes a lot” for people who have strong opinions on a subject to change m.

Republicans ackwledged y would be watching for results of fresh polls and focus groups and monitoring attention inquiry receives back home.

For w, y said, re seems to be little shifting of people’s views and a sense that Democrats’ case against Trump is complicated and unwieldy for people to digest.

“Crickets,” Rep. Michael Conaway, R-Texas, who is retiring, said of his constituents’ reactions. “y’re tired of it. y’re wary of it. Stop.”

Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., a sophomore lawmaker who won his closely divided Omaha-based district by 2 percent points last year, said even Sondland’s appearance left him still thinking that Trump hn’t committed an impeachable offence.

“ keyword is he said he presumed, hn’t heard it firsthand, it’s same old thing,” Bacon said of Sondland’s testimony. Bacon said impeachment is on voters’ minds but leaves partisans on both sides entrenched in ir views about Trump.

Rep. Francis Rooney, R-Fla., who anunced he’d t seek reelection a day after saying he could consider impeachment, said Sondland’s appearance left him undecided. And he bemoaned partisanship that he said leaves both sides so starkly divided on issues, including impeachment.

“That’s sdest part of whole deal, it’s like Mars and Venus,” he said.

Rooney has said his retirement was unrelated to his openness to impeachment, but GOP lawmakers have long been wary of openly challenging Trump and career-threatening retaliatory tweets that could result.

Even using most charitable interpretation, Sondland’s appearance was a challenging day for Trump and his defenders.

A Trump contributor whom new president appointed to represent U.S. in European Union, Sondland told lawmakers that he and colleagues worked with Giuliani “at express direction” of Trump.

“Was re a quid pro quo?” Sondland asked rhetorically, ding, “ answer is yes.” He said Giuliani was “expressing desires of president of United States, and we knew that se investigations were important to president.”

Democrats touted Sondland’s appearance as a milestone.

“This is a seminal moment in our investigation,” House Intelligence Committee Chairman am Schiff, D-Calif., who is leing impeachment probe, told reporters. He said Sondland’s statements h been “deeply significant and troubling.”

Ar member of that panel, Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., said Sondland h been “an extraordinary witness. He pointed right at president.”

But Republicans said Sondland’s appearance wasn’t a game-changer.

“I don’t think so,” said Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., chairman of Senate Intelligence Committee, which has been conducting its own, bipartisan probe of Trump and Ukraine. He said Democrats must show that “re was an act that was committed that rose to level of removal from office. I’m just like American people, I’m waiting to see it.”

Still, suggesting a lingering sensitivity, several senators declined to discuss issue or said y h t watched Sondland’s appearance, citing Senate business.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said she h been at a committee meeting considering Trump’s minee to he Food and Drug ministration. Collins has declined to comment on hearings, saying she would wait to vote on wher to oust Trump in a Senate trial should House vote to impeach him.

“I have t seen any of hearing at all,” she said. “I really haven’t. t that I would comment anyway.”