Background Briefing: January 27, 2021

On By gram

 

As Republicans Try to Stop the Impeachment Trial, Will Democrats Wimp Out With a Censure of Trump?

We begin with efforts underway by Senator Lindsey Graham to sabotage the impeachment trial and drag it out while Democratic Senator Tim Kaine is now talking about wimping out with a censure motion in contrast to Senator McConnell who says he wants to hear all the evidence. Joining us to discuss whether or not the 139 Republicans in the House and the 8 in the Senate who voted against American democracy after their workplace was sacked and looted by a mob of domestic terrorists who were out to lynch their Vice President, is Elizabeth Neumann. From 2017 to 2020 she served as a senior advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff of the Department of Homeland Security and prior to that served on the Homeland Security Council in the George W. Bush Administration. She is currently the Co-director of The Republican Accountability Project and has an article at USA Today with Olivia Troye, “How we’re holding Republicans responsible for cleaning up the Trump Mess.” We discuss whether Republicans will hold Trump to account or whether the GOP is still Trump’s party and they will try to sweep what happened on January 6 under the rug.

 

Elite Impunity: Why Did Wall Street Titans Pay Epstein So Much Money?

Then we speak with William Cohan, a former senior Wall Street investment banker and New York Times bestseller of Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World and House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street. He writes a weekly column in The New York Times and is a special correspondent at Vanity Fair and we discuss what Jeffrey Epstein did to earn hundreds of millions of dollars from wealthy clients like the private equity billionaire Leon Black who paid Epstein $158 million.

 

Biden Freezes Arms Sales to Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E.

Then finally we speak with Shireen Al-Adeimi, a professor education at Michigan State University who has lived through two civil wars in her country of birth, Yemen, and since 2015 has played an active role in raising awareness about the U.S.-supported, Saudi-led war in Yemen. She joins us to discuss today’s announcement that President Biden is freezing arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E.