Republican Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota told CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith” that he doesn’t know many “weak” people in the US Senate who would follow Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell when it comes to impeachment President Donald Trump.
“Mitch McConnell has a lot of influence, I don’t know if he has a lot of power,” said Cramer during an interview on Wednesday night. “He has a lot of power over the timeline, obviously, and over the process, but I don’t know that many weak people in the United States Senate are going to vote in one way or another just because Mitch McConnell does.”
McConnell already said an impeachment trial would not take place before President-elect Biden took office. McConnell also said he remains undecided about how he will vote.
The House of Representatives voted 232-197 for President Donald Trump’s impeachment, with 10 Republicans voting for Trump’s impeachment. The House voted to impeach Trump for “inciting insurrection” after a crowd of his supporters broke into the Capitol on January 6 and left five people dead, including a police officer. The unprecedented accusation was raised just seven days before the end of his term, and now Trump is alone in America’s 244-year history as the only president to be impeached twice.
Cramer said he thought the House “hastened the trial” and characterized it as “a much more political body than the Senate”. When presenter Shepard Smith asked Cramer if he would vote to condemn Trump, Cramer defended due process.
“I have read my Constitution many times, and in the country, you have due process, I think unless you are Donald Trump, then I am not to blame, because that goes against everything that the Constitution stands for and due process”, said Cramer.
In an interview on Wednesday night at “The News with Shepard Smith”, Ohio State University law professor Edward Foley explained when due process would take place during the impeachment process.
“What happened today in the Chamber serves what is, in essence, a complaint, and the trial is in the Senate, so that’s where due process will take place, on the trail, and it looks like the Senate will deliberately proceed with speed to ensure that be a fair trial. “
The impeachment article said, in part, that Trump “threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power and endangered a co-equal branch of government.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that impeachment and sentencing are the “constitutional remedy” for Trump’s actions “that will ensure that the republic will be safe from this man who is so resolutely determined to destroy the things we love and who keep us together. ”
Cramer, however, told Smith that it was not clear to him that Trump’s rhetoric incited the violent crowd on the Capitol.
“The president’s rhetoric, while imprudent, although at some level he might be accused of inciting anger and inciting some bad behavior, it is also clear that the exact words he used do not, in my opinion, reach a criminal level of incitement already that we would have to consider, in my view, in this very political process, “said Cramer.
At the Save America rally on January 6, Trump told thousands of audience members on Capitol Hill that “we will never give in” and promoted a show of strength from his supporters.
“We are going to walk to the Capitol and cheer for our brave senators, congressmen and women,” Trump said to a crowd near the White House. “We are probably not going to root for some of them so much, because you will never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong.”
Minutes later, a crowd of his supporters invaded Congress and terrorized him. Since then, Trump has taken zero responsibility for the deadly turmoil and defended his speech.