Today the character of Jeff Flake, the former resident Hamlet of the Senate, is being played by GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who originally inherited her Senate seat from her daddy, Frank Murkowski. Murkowski the daughter says she is “disturbed” by Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s statements that he will be working closely with and taking his cues from President Trump in any impeachment trial in the Senate.

Imagine that -- the leader of her party in the Senate defending the President from her party from a political coup involving one sham investigation after another with no real crime, not even a poll-tested crime. There is no real evidence, except for fake evidence paid for by the DNC and Hillary Clinton and/or manufactured and manipulated by Obama’s corrupted FBI, DoJ, and intelligence community complete with forged documents and hidden exculpatory evidence. This does not disturb Murkowski, but McConnell objecting to and refusing to participate in this charade does disturb her:

Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a high-profile moderate who now finds herself in the middle of a highly politicized impeachment process, said in a recent interview that she was "disturbed" by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's recent comments vowing cooperation with the White House.

While Murkowski stressed the need for a "full and fair process," McConnell told Fox News' Sean Hannity earlier this month that he will be "coordinating" with the White House and that "there will be no difference between the president's position and our position as to how to handle this."

"When I heard that I was disturbed,” Murkowski told local NBC affiliate KTUU in an interview that aired Tuesday evening. “To me it means that we have to take that step back from being hand in glove with the defense, and so I heard what leader McConnell had said, I happened to think that that has further confused the process."

Full and fair process?  Murkowski was silent when. Rep. Adam Schiff was conducting his star-chamber depositions of hearsay witnesses in the House catacombs, when Team Trump was being denied due process, the presumption of innocence, and the right to confront one’s accuser. McConnell called it what it is – a charade.

Full and fair process? One of the  two vacuous impeachment articles is something called “obstruction of Congress” which is how Democrats translate “separation of powers” It means President Trump is being impeached for the high crime and misdemeanor of invoking executive privilege, which the courts have already ruled is a constitutionally protected right. The Democrats could once again challenge in court, but they said they had no time for courts and that Trump was so dangerous to the Constitution that they had to ignore the Constitution.

The Constitution says the House has the sole power of impeachment and shall, not might, transmit any articles of impeachment to the Senate, which has the sole power to conduct a trial. The House does not tell the Senate what to do. The Senate runs the trial any way it wants to, and Mitch McConnell runs the Senate. Get over it, Murkowski.

Interestingly, Murkowski’s became “disturbed” after #NeverTrumper Bill Kristol of the now-defunct Weekly Standard and his group, Republicans for the Rule of Law, targeted Murkowski with a million-dollar ad buy to persuade her and other wavering GOP Senators to turn on Trump:

A national group called Republicans for the Rule of Law is running ads aimed at moving U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski off the sidelines. They want her to criticize President Donald Trump for asking Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden…

This ad is showing up in Alaskans’ Facebook feeds. It’s focused, of course, on that call this summer, when Trump leaned on the president of Ukraine for an investigation of the Bidens.

“We think she will be receptive to the message,” said Chris Truax, a San Diego attorney who volunteers for the anti-Trump group. And yes, he said, they really are Republicans. One of their founders is Bill Kristol, former editor of conservative magazine The Weekly Standard.

“One of the running jokes at Republicans for Rule of Law is, we’ve all been Republicans far, far longer than Donald Trump has,” Truax said.

And if you want to know how effective they’ve been with their RINO purity, just ask Presidents McCain and Romney.  

Murkowski is hardly a profile in courage. During the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh she invoked her own purity test in opposition:

Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski said she arrived at her decision to vote against Judge Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court at the last possible moment Friday before opposing him on the Senate floor…

Speaking to reporters at the Capitol, Murkowski described a wrenching decision based on issues that are "bigger than a nominee." Murkowski had been publicly agonizing over her vote for days, meeting with victims of sexual assault and even revealing her own “#MeToo moment” to a local reporter as she wrestled with the allegations of misconduct against Kavanaugh. The nominee fiercely denied the accusations and most Republican senators dismissed them as uncorroborated.

"The truth is that none of this has been fair," Murkowski said, including to Kavanaugh. Murkowski called Kavanaugh "a good man" but added that he's "not the right man for the court."

Gee, you might say she was “disturbed” then too. But not by the slander, lies, false or on existing evidence, hearsay and innuendo hurled against both Kavanaugh and Trump. Her continued presence in the Senate is disturbing. In the end, Murkowski cleverly voted “present” on Kavanaugh in a move that would only benefit her and the Democrats. An analysis on these pages by Daniel G. Jones explains why:

The mathematics are odd because Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) switched her “nay” vote to “present.” She says she did this to accommodate her colleague Senator Steve Daines (R-MT) who was attending his daughter’s wedding and unable to register his vote in favor of the nomination.

Really? If Murkowski had voted “nay,” the result would have been 50-49. Kavanaugh still would have won. Her voting “present” had no effect on the outcome. Do you suppose she didn’t think of this? Or might she have something else in mind?...

Had Murkowski voted “nay” as she originally announced, Manchin’s “aye” would have broken a 49-49 tie. He would have been Kavanaugh’s fiftieth and deciding vote, and many of his Democrat supporters in West Virginia would never have forgiven him. Bad news for his re-election in November. On the other hand, if Manchin had voted against Kavanaugh, he’d likely have lost many of his Trump supporters. Again, bad for re-election.

Murkowski gave Manchin a safe way to vote for Kavanaugh and save his Senate seat for the Democrats. How thoughtful of her. Interestingly, Sen. Frank Murkowski, Lisa’s daddy, raised no objection in 1998 when Senate Democrats under Tom Daschle coordinated matters with Pressident Clintons' impeachment defense team:

According to then-Washington Post reporter Peter Baker’s book, “The Breach: Inside the Impeachment and Trial of William Jefferson Clinton,” Senate Democrats coordinated with the White House on a number of impeachment-related issues behind the scenes.

According to Baker, one of those arrangements involved White House Counsel Charles Ruff arranging a “secret signal” with Democratic leadership. If Ruff wanted to rebut anything from the Republican House managers, something rules didn’t allow for, he pre-arranged with then-Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle’s aides for a senator to submit a question to then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist asking the White House to respond.

Murkowski was a state legislator when she was appointed in 2002 by her father, Frank Murkowski, to the U.S. Senate seat he was giving up to become governor. She was defeated in the primaries by Joe Miller, a 43-year-old Yale-educated lawyer, West Point graduate, and Gulf War veteran, Miller was a little-known Fairbanks attorney before he was endorsed by former Gov. Sarah Palin and the Tea Party Express, who called the Murkowskis a royal dynasty that had to go. But Murkowski ran as a write-in candidate, beating the erratic Miller and returning to the Senate without any further challenge from Palin.

Palin may get another chance though, if she’s interested. Wavering on both Kavanaugh and Trump is hurting Murkowski, who is up for reelection in 2022. Nor long ago Palin dropped a hint in a tweet: “I can see 2022 from my house.”

Daniel John Sobieski is a former editorial writer for Investor’s Business Daily and freelance writer whose pieces have appeared in Human Events, Reason Magazine, and the Chicago Sun-Times among other publications.