A group of 60 people packed U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen’s Downtown office Friday, Jan. 17, to hear one of the most vocal supporters of the impeachment of President Donald Trump say Trump probably won’t be convicted by the U.S. Senate in the trial to come.

And Republican U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander released a guarded statement on the impeachment process – his first – in the week before the Senate trial begins.

“Most of the Republicans know what they are going to do. They are going to genuflect to Trump. They are going to vote to not convict him no matter what happens,” Cohen said at the district issues meeting. “He’s guilty as hell. … It’s as clear as it can be.”

Cohen expressed support for the seven House managers selected by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to present the case for convicting Trump on the impeachment counts of obstruction of Congress and abuse of power specifically for withholding military aid approved by Congress for Ukraine.

“He used his public office for his personal good,” Cohen said. “He won’t be convicted but the American public will know it. He deserves that stain. He is impeached forever.”

Four of Cohen’s colleagues on the House Judiciary Committee were appointed managers. Cohen praised the diversity of the group.

“They’ve got a tough job,” he said, adding the attorneys representing Trump in the trial to start next week are “experienced litigators.”

“They will make a show and they will do what the president needs to do, which is confuse the issue, put up a bunch of red herrings,” Cohen said.

Cohen praises impeachment managers; Republican Senate primary field takes shape

Most in the group expressed support for the impeachment of Trump and his conviction on the charges.

One constituent asked how much the trial will cost.

“Everybody gets paid,” Cohen said of those whose regular duties already require them to be working. “They are just working more. There’s no price you can put on democracy.”

Cohen sponsored five articles of impeachment against Trump in 2017 that didn’t go anywhere in what was then a majority Republican House.

Meanwhile, Republican U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee broke his silence Thursday with a 45-second video on Twitter under the heading: “Just because the U.S. House was a circus doesn’t mean the Senate needs to be.”

Just because the U.S. House was a circus doesn't mean the Senate needs to be.

We're approaching the impeachment trial according to our constitutional responsibilities—assuring the American people that we're giving the articles from the House a full and fair hearing. pic.twitter.com/WwV38DR0WU

— Sen. Lamar Alexander (@SenAlexander) January 16, 2020

“We’re approaching the impeachment trial according to our Constitutional responsibility,” Alexander says in the video. “That means we are going to hear the case, not dismiss it – number one. Number two – we are going to ask our questions and get answers through the chief justice. And then number three, we’ve been guaranteed a right to vote on whether we think we need additional evidence such as witnesses and documents.”

Alexander said the plan “fundamentally follows” the procedure used during the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton more than 20 years ago.

“It’s to assure the American people that we are giving the articles from the House of Representatives a full and fair hearing,” he said.

Alexander has had little to say about impeachment even before the two House impeachment resolutions began to take shape late last year.

Tennessee junior Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn has been much more vocal about the impeachment than Alexander, calling in recent days for the four Democratic U.S. Senators running for president to disqualify themselves from voting on the matter at the end of the Senate trial.

Blackburn has called the trial a “witch hunt” and in a Thursday Twitter video accused House Democrats of making “a mockery of the Constitution.”

The House had its turn and Democrats made a mockery of the constitution.

Today, 99 of my colleagues and I were sworn in for the impeachment* trial.

We will give @realDonaldTrump the fair trial he deserves. pic.twitter.com/lAamlysLeU

— Sen. Marsha Blackburn (@MarshaBlackburn) January 17, 2020

Alexander’s social media feed has focused for much of the move toward impeachment on other topics like his long-held drive to shorten the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form, passage of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada – or USMCA – trade bill and other legislation he’s been pushing in his final six-year term in the Senate.

Cohen also supports USMCA, telling constituents it is “otherwise known as NAFTA” – the North American Free Trade Agreement of the Clinton administration that USMCA replaces.

“It’s an improvement. It’s a great improvement,” Cohen said. “Trump wanted changes. He wants to have that be a ‘promises made, promises kept.’ Because he wanted it so bad, he accepted all of the work of labor to get a bill that was better for labor.”

USMCA is one of the few things Cohen and Republican U.S. Rep. David Kustoff of Germantown agree on. Kustoff called its passage “a major win for hardworking Americans.”

See my full statement below on Speaker Pelosi sending the impeachment articles against @realDonaldTrump over to the Senate today. pic.twitter.com/k6OnI3FAbh
— Rep. David Kustoff (@RepDavidKustoff) January 15, 2020
 

On the impeachment, Kustoff said this week as the House articles were formally sent to the Senate that Trump “committed no high crime or misdemeanor, and this impeachment was conducted on a purely political basis.”

Kustoff is a former U.S. Attorney.