Getty Images President Donald Trump on Friday accused Democrats of trying to weaken Bernie Sanders’ chances of winning the party’s presidential nomination as he and other senators prepare to act as jurors in Trump’s impeachment trial.
“They are bringing him out of so important Iowa in order that, as a Senator, he sit through the Impeachment Hoax Trial,” wrote Trump in a tweet. Trump charged that Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who oversaw the president’s impeachment in the House, is giving an edge to former Vice President Joe Biden in the Democratic primary.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has made a similar charge, and a spokesman for Pelosi denied a link between impeachment and the race for the White House.
Now see: Trump’s impeachment: Here’s what happens next as White House receives summons.
Sanders said on Thursday he would prefer to be campaigning in Iowa and other states. “But I swore a constitutional oath as a United States senator to do my job and I’m here to do my job,” the Vermont senator said. Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses are scheduled for Feb. 3. Iowa polls show Sanders and Biden roughly even in the state.
The trial is scheduled to start in earnest on Tuesday. Sanders will in fact be one of several senators kept from the campaign trail by the proceedings. Among them are Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar.
