You can tell Claire McCaskill really liked being a prosecutor. She's pretty emphatic that Trump committed a crime.
"Claire McCaskill, this is, you know, I think it was Tom (Nichols) earlier who brought up, like, how much more do we need? This was quite incredible, a direct line to President Trump and a direct connection with a quid pro quo," Mika Brzezinski said.
"There's a couple of things here," McCaskill said. "First of all, the whistle-blower is now irrelevant. We can quit talking about who it is or where they worked or the identity because now there is multiple first-person sources of what was going on."
"Starting with the White House memo itself," Mika said.
"Starting with the summary of the call itself, and then you add on Giuliani's statements, you add on Sondland's statements, you add on Mulvaney's statements. Now you add on Bill Taylor's statements, so let's forget about that. The other thing that's really bugging me right now is these Republicans are all talking process, that this is a secret proceeding. America, the Republicans are in the room. They are there listening to all of this testimony. They are asking questions. This is not being hidden from the Republicans on Capitol Hill. They have access to all this information, and eventually the public will too, once it gets past the investigative portion," McCaskill said.
"Claire, the White House is saying their defense at this point, and even Mick Mulvaney kind of, you know, really stepped in it, but he did it, too, 'Get over it. This is what we do.' What's wrong with it? Is this a crime?" Mika asked.
"It is a crime," McCaskill said. "It is a crime to shake down a foreign government for your political purposes, and this is a classic shakedown. As somebody who prosecuted shakedowns, a prima facie case has more than been made. it is time to take it to the jury which is the Senate, and shame on Republican senators if they try to smear this man. This is a West Point grad, this is a veteran, this is someone who has served Republican administrations with honor and the Republican senators know it.
"So if they try to smear this guy, they should have trouble sleeping at night."
Claire, Claire, Claire. If Republican senators were burdened with a conscience, they wouldn't be Republicans!
