Senate hopeful Graham Platner calls to investigate Trump and impeach two Supreme Court justicesnewsline24

YORK, Maine — Graham Platner says he will push Democrats to rethink their vision of power and pursue an aggressive agenda if he’s elected the next U.S. senator from Maine.

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In an interview Friday, Platner called for replacing Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.; organizing an anti-war movement; removing two conservative Supreme Court justices; potentially expanding the court and weakening the filibuster.

He also talked about what committees he wants to serve on and said he sees himself as an heir to the legacy of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who has endorsed him in the competitive Democratic primary.

“When you listen to how we talk about organizing, when you certainly look at our theory of politics around wealth inequality, our theory of politics around how the system has been structured to benefit the ultra wealthy at the expense of working people — I very much feel like I do fall in the legacy of Sen. Sanders,” Platner told NBC News. “I very much want to see this politics continue into the future. That’s why I’m doing this.”

He said if Democrats win control of the Senate, they must use subpoena power to investigate the Trump administration.

“I want to shut the White House down,” Platner said. “I want us to, for the next two years, be dragging every single person in the White House, every single person in all these agencies that have been conducting themselves in illegal and unconstitutional ways. They need to be dragged by subpoena in front of Senate committees over and over and over again.”

“We drag people who are involved in putting ICE agents in our streets, murdering American citizens, terrorizing communities,” he said, as well as those who “dropped a bunch of bombs on boats in the Caribbean all last fall,” which he labeled “murder.”

Platner leads Democratic rival, Gov. Janet Mills, and Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, in numerous recent polls, giving the outsider oyster farmer a plausible chance of making it to the Senate.

He said Trump has “absolutely” committed impeachable offenses, citing “rank corruption,” enriching himself, “crypto scams” and potential “insider trading” if people around him are betting on outcomes they know will occur.

The White House, which did not return a request for comment, has denied that administration officials have engaged in insider trading.

“I will say this, though, on that front: If we don’t have the votes in the Senate to convict, I don’t think we should waste our time with it,” Platner added, saying Democrats should instead focus resources on investigations.

The oyster farmer said he does, however, want Congress to impose ethics standards on the Supreme Court. Beyond that, he said he’s “definitely open to doing more, including to adding seats on the court.” He also said he would push the House to impeach of Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, saying “there’s a compelling case” against both of them.

“The relationship between Clarence Thomas and Harlan Crow is not hard to see as clearly corrupt, and Justice Thomas doesn’t even recuse himself from cases that impact Crow’s businesses,” he said. “These are absolutely reasons for removal.”

Crow is a Republican billionaire and friend of Thomas who has given the justice gifts of private jet travel, which Thomas has defended as “personal hospitality.”

Impeaching a justice is the same process as impeaching a president, requiring a majority vote in the House and a two-thirds majority in the Senate to remove them from office. Just one justice has been impeached by the House — Samuel Chase, in 1804 — and he was acquitted by the Senate.

Platner, notably, leans to the right on one issue: He said he’d oppose a ban on semi-automatic assault weapons, a goal that Democrats have pursued for years.

“In a nation awash in guns like ours,” he said, the focus should be on restricting access to firearms people with a violent history or “displaying a likelihood of committing a violent act.” He added that he favors universal background checks, and red-flag laws “are great starting point” and should be combined with expanding mental health care services.

“We need to have a much more holistic approach than simply banning types of guns that we already have uncountable numbers of in the United States already,” Platner said.

Platner also said he won’t support Schumer to stay on as leader. Asked who he’d rather see in that position, Platner floated four names: Sens. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii.

Schumer sidestepped a question from NBC News last week on whether he would support Democratic candidates in states like Maine and Michigan in a general election even if they have called for a change in Senate leadership.

“Look, we’re going to win the Senate,” he said. “We’re going to win in Maine, we’re going to win in Michigan, and our caucus is united and focused on winning those seats.”

Schumer has endorsed the center-left Mills in the primary. Mills told NBC News he’s uncommitted on whether she’d support Schumer to stay on as leader if elected: “I’ve talked to other members of the Senate who apparently are interested in running for leadership, I’m open minded. I haven’t committed to anybody.”

Platner also said he wants Democrats to spend resources to “organize an anti-war movement” in the streets againstTrump’s military campaign in Iran.

“This goes to one of my core critiques of the Democratic Party,” he said. “It has forgotten that power derives from more than just the institutions. It derives from more than just the structures that they’re used to working in. Power can be secondary, outside of the institutions, coming from things like movements coming things like organizing people. The Democratic Party has done, from what I can tell, absolutely nothing on that front.”

Collins, who has defied political gravity numerous times in the blue-leaning state, is gearing up to run a hyper-local campaign focusing on over $1 billion her office says she has brought home to Maine, aided by her chairing the Appropriations Committee.

Platner predicted her message won’t be effective with voters.

“Bringing money to the state of Maine as a U.S. senator is your job. That’s what you’re supposed to do, especially if you’re a senior senator. You don’t get a gold star just for showing up to work,” he said. “The thing is, the money she’s brought into the state is a pittance compared to what’s been pulled out of the state” when it comes to health care and education.

Collins’ campaign did not return a request for comment.

Platner said Collins should have used her power on the Appropriations Committee to hold up Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” which includes Medicaid cuts that “are literally closing rural hospitals in the state,” he said. “And you haven’t been protecting us from the extractive and exploitive corporate systems that have just been sucking money out of the state for decades.”

He also revealed which committees he wants to serve on.

“Eventually, appropriations,” he said. “When we lose Susan Collins, and we will lose Susan Collins, we’re going to lose her seniority. We need a senator who can and wants to spend the time rebuilding that seniority, especially on appropriations. But I also want to go to commerce, agriculture and HELP.”