Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) said Sunday that “history has its eyes” on senators as President Trump’s impeachment trial in the upper chamber is set to begin this week.
The former presidential candidate said on ABC’s “This Week” that the trial is a moment for senators to “get out of our partisan corners and to look at the long arc of history.”
“History has its eyes on us,” he said. “How are we going to operate? We cannot cave to partisanship and tribalism that’s destroying our nation.”
“In this moment, we’ve got to let our highest selves come through and sit in those seats and uphold the oath we all just swore last week and do right by our nation to ensure that this democracy endures,” Booker added.
The New Jersey senator said he would push for “relevant” witnesses to come before the Senate, adding that former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter are not relevant to a trial on the the president’s actions.
Booker called Trump legal counsel Alan Dershowitz’s argument that the president cannot be impeached for abuse of power “preposterous.” He dismissed the GOP argument to forget about the trial and let the voters decide Trump’s fate.
“It’s almost like saying that the Astros have cheated and we’re going to decide whether to hold the Astros accountable by how they do in the next game,” he said, citing the Major League Baseball cheating scandal.
The Senate’s impeachment trial is scheduled to begin Tuesday, after the House sent the articles charging Trump with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress to the upper chamber last week.
Democratic lawmakers are arguing for more witnesses and evidence to be included in the trial, but Republicans are firing back that the House Democrats should have included all of the relevant information in its impeachment inquiry.
The impeachment inquiry in the House began after a whistleblower report found that Trump asked the Ukrainian president to look into political opponent Biden and his son days after withholding military aid from the country.