Alabama Republican Party Chair Terry Lathan speaks outside party headquarters in Hoover: Facebook

By Glynn Wilson –

WASHINGTON, D.C. — We now know where the Alabama Republican Party stands on impeachment and the rule of law in this American democracy. They are against it, at least the so-called leadership of the party, Republican Party Chair Terry Lathan.

She held a news conference in Hoover this week simply to attack U.S. Senator Doug Jones and raise money for the party.

For his part, Senator Jones has not taken a stand on the impeachment investigation, since he is in the Senate, not the House, where the inquiry is ongoing.

If the House passes articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, which seems likely at this point since his abuse of power appears to be overwhelming and the Democrats only need 218 votes to do it, it will be up to the Senate to hold a trial and convict to remove Trump from office. As of this writing there are 235 Democrats in the House, 197 Republicans. Of course there are 53 seats held by Republicans in the Senate, with 45 Democrats and two independents who caucus with the Democrats. If all the Democrats and independents in the Senate vote to impeach Trump, they will still need 20 Republican votes to get the 67 they need for a super majority of two-thirds.

If it comes to a trial in the Senate, Senator Jones and Republican Senator Richard Shelby of Tuscaloosa would cast their votes after a trial is held in the upper chamber.

It is notable that Ms. Latham didn’t ask Senator Shelby where he stands, because he has not taken a stand on the investigation either.

In response to the scathing, partisan attack from Ms. Latham, Senator Jones did issue a statement.

Will Alabama Republican Party Chair Terry Lathan still stand with Trump after he’s impeached and removed from office for criminal acts against the U.S. Constitution?

“This is not a time for partisan rhetoric or political stunts,” Jones said. “If this matter was not so serious, the characterization made by the Alabama Republican Party leadership would be a laughable attempt to pack as many hyper-partisan cliches as possible into a sound bite. They clearly do not want a Senator who will follow his or her oath to defend the Constitution.

“As a U.S. Senator, it is my obligation to weigh all the facts fairly before making a decision, and we don’t have all the facts yet,” he said. “What I have seen so far raises legitimate concern for our national security and there appears to be evidence of abuse of power. I hope for the sake of our country that we can find the truth together.”

Several Alabama news organizations ran with the Republican Party’s statements without investigating them, and one said Trump has denied the allegations, calling it a “hoax,” about withholding military aid to foreign countries in exchange for help digging up dirt on one of his opponents in the presidential election of 2020. But he didn’t call it a “hoax.”

He called it a continuation of the “witch hunt” started with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian intervention in the election of 2016 on Trump’s behalf. That investigation found overwhelmingly that Russia did interfere in the election on Trump’s behalf, and that Trump obstructed justice in trying to cover up that fact, but the report did not recommend specific charges against Trump or members of his family and failed to draw a bright line for Congress to follow to impeach the president and remove him from office.

While Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, the California Democrat, recommended against impeachment in the wake of that report, information that came to light from a CIA agent who was assigned to the White House about an extraordinary phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in which Trump threatened to withhold military aid if he didn’t receive help investigating Democrat Joe Biden inspired her to launch the impeachment investigation. When the whistleblower’s account was made public, Trump ordered the classified transcript of the call released, and it confirmed the facts, even though the president has tried to spin it as the opposite ever since.

While Republicans around the country are starting to run from defending Trump, the Alabama Republican Party continues to stand with this president even though it appears obvious that he has abused his power in ways we have never seen before.

Also this week, the Republican Governor of Maryland came out in support of the impeachment investigation.

“I think we do need an inquiry because we have to get to the bottom of it,” said Maryland Governor Larry Hogan when asked whether he supported the impeachment investigation. “I’m not ready to say I support impeachment and the removal of the president, but I do think we should have an impeachment inquiry.”

Republican Senator and former Republican nominee for president Mitt Romney has come out in favor of impeaching Trump and removing him from office.

“By all appearance, the President’s brazen and unprecedented appeal to China and to Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden is wrong and appalling,” Romney said last week.

We would like to know where the Alabama Republican Party and Senator Richard Shelby stand on Trump’s tariffs and trade war, which threatens to derail much of the positive economic development in the state over the past few years.

Do they stand with the farmers, who have lost their business overseas thanks to Trump? Do they stand with Mercedes, Toyota, Honda and Hyundai, Airbus and the Port of Mobile, where Trump’s policies make it impossible to plan and threaten to create a global recession?

These are not the comments of a San Francisco liberal or a Washington swamp creature.

“The thing that keeps me up at night is a global recession,” said Jimmy Lyons, director of the State Port Authority in Mobile, quoted by Bloomberg Business News wire, no liberal blog. “I’ve seen what it can do to our business. It dips very quickly and comes back very slowly.”

Trump’s Global Trade War Comes to Alabama

The conflict with China has already caused a collapse in grain exports from Mobile, Bloomberg reports. A slowdown in the global economy would hit outbound shipments of metallurgical coal that account for 12 million of the 28 million tons of goods that pass through the port annually.

But what looms largest in Alabama these days is the possibility that Trump will open a new European front in his global trade wars.

In fact it is now being reported that the World Trade Organization has authorized President Trump to impose tariffs on about $7.5 billion worth of European goods, capping a 15-year trans-Atlantic dispute over illegal subsidies to aircraft maker Airbus. The decision — the largest in the trade body’s history — opened the door to a broader trade war with the European Union.

Senator Jones has been working on this issue for some time as a member of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. He even held a Senate Hearing in Mobile last year to talk to industry leaders and farmers about it.

What is the Alabama Republican Party doing about this? Have they met with Trump to try to get him to understand how devastating his policies will be on the state’s economy?

Of course not. They just kiss his ring and stand by this man who operates like a mob boss and a dictator who wants to be America’s first king.

They are taking money from Republicans in Alabama to try to defeat the one elected official in the state who cares enough to work on these issues across party lines and in good faith.

Alabama People Support the President, but May Be Hardest Hit by Trump’s Twitter Trade War

Now we want to know where Senator Shelby stands. Share this.

An Open Letter to U.S. Senator Richard Shelby, Republican of Alabama

Meanwhile, while we don’t know how much money the Alabama Republican Party is raising by attacking Senator Jones, the Jones’ campaign reports that they have raised over $2 million in the third quarter of 2019 alone. Jones has over 26,000 donors and over $5 million in cash-on-hand. The Jones campaign says that this will allow his campaign to continue building on its grassroots outreach, volunteer training, listening to Alabamians and driving home Doug’s message of “One Alabama.”

For that matter, we would also like to know where the Alabama Democratic Party stands on these issues. Is the party too busy fighting over its rules to actually represent the Democrats in the state who are very concerned about the unprecedented actions of this president and the economic and environmental threats his policies pose?

Crickets from Montgomery.