GOP senator says Dems running for president must recuse themselves from impeachment trial

Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.) says her Democratic colleagues running for the White House in 2020 must recuse themselves from the impeachment process against President Donald Trump, saying "their presidential ambitions prohibit their ability to view this trial through an objective lens."

What are the details?

"Tomorrow, one hundred United States Senators will be sworn in to serve in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump," Blackburn wrote in a statement on Wednesday. "Four of those Senators must recuse themselves for their unparalleled political interest in seeing this President removed from office."

Sen. Blackburn went on to say that Sens. Michael Bennett (D-Colo.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), "cannot sit in judgment of the very President they seek to replace."

"To participate in this trial would be a failure of the oath they took to be an 'impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws,'" Blackburn continued. "Their presidential ambitions prohibit their ability to view this trial through an objective lens."

According to the press release from Blackburn's office, "in Andrew Johnson's impeachment trial, an objection was lodged against an Ohio senator who was next in line to become President, if Johnson were removed."

Blackburn added via Twitter that the four Democratic senators who remain in the 2020 presidential race "are spending millions of dollars to defeat @realDonald Trump, and we're supposed to believe they will be impartial during the trial?"

Anything else?

The Hill reported that "the call for presidential contenders to recuse themselves from the trial comes after some Democrats have called on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to do the same after he pledged to be in 'total coordination' with the White House and that he would not be an 'impartial juror.'"

In response accusations that he would not be impartial, Sen. McConnell told Fox News last month, "Do you think Chuck Schumer is impartial? Do you think Elizabeth Warren is impartial? Bernie Sanders is impartial? So let's quit the charade. This is a political exercise."