Raleigh – A new, scathing editorial calls Senator Tillis “pathetic” for “pandering” to the president during the impeachment trial, noting that his own political survival is Tillis’ “only calculation, his only concern and his only ambition.”

“Senators shouldn’t be merely partisan players,” the editorial continued. Yet Tillis “is pledging absolute fealty to the president in the hope that Trump’s appeal can carry him to victory” and is “proudly rejecting [his] role as a crucial check” by prejudging the evidence “before the Senate trial even began.”

Tillis has earned consistently critical coverage across North Carolina for putting his reelection before our state. Tillis “long ago laid his political future at the feet of the president,” “quakes at every Trump tweet,”and “has abandoned the state he represents for the president he thinks he needs.” Tillis and Burr “will acquit the president,” but as yesterday’s Charlotte Observer editorial notes, “they cannot acquit themselves.”

Read key excerpts from the editorial below.

Charlotte Observer: The pathetic impeachment pandering of North Carolina’s senators
By the Editorial Board
January 29, 2020

Key Points:

• The impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate may go on even longer and witnesses may be called, but the outcome is still all but certain: President Trump will be acquitted. That certainly has nothing do with Trump’s guilt. It has to do with the supplication of Republican senators.
• Despite that reality, it’s still hard to witness the pathetic pandering to the president by North Carolina’s two Republican U.S. senators. Rather than retreating into the background and quietly casting a vote in keeping with Republican solidarity, they are proudly rejecting their role as a crucial check on the excesses of a rogue president.
• [Tillis] is up for re-election and is pledging absolute fealty to the president in the hope that Trump’s appeal can carry him to victory. Allowing no daylight between his positions and Trump’s is Tillis’ only calculation, his only concern and his only ambition.
• Speaking Tuesday morning on former North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory’s radio show, Burr said: “I think Alan Dershowitz said it very well last night, ‘You blew it, House managers.’ The articles you’ve brought don’t rise to the level of removal from office. So you may have impeached the president. Great. But they don’t rise to the level of removal. And if the Senate did it, then look out in the future — every president will go through this.”

• This from a senator who as a House member voted to impeach President Bill Clinton for lying about an extramarital affair.
• Tillis and Burr can’t be expected to vote to remove the president. They will acquit the president. They cannot acquit themselves.

Read more from the Charlotte Observer.