A Republican senator indicated on Sunday that he did not believe it was constitutional for the Senate to seek President Trump
Donald TrumpNYT: Deputy Perry played a role in Trump’s alleged plan to expel AG Arizona GOP censors leading state Republicans McCain, Flake and Ducey Biden and the UK Prime Minister discuss NATO, multilateralism during call MORE in an impeachment article accusing him of inciting an insurrection.
Sen. Mike Rounds
Mike RoundsSunday shows the preview: All eyes on the Biden administration to face the coronavirus. Senate chaos threatens to slow Biden’s agenda. Is the GOP in a solution: Gordian knot or existential crisis? MORE (RS.D.) told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he believed the Constitution only allowed current presidents to be impeached by Congress, thus making the discussion of whether Trump committed an impeachable offense with his incitement to the violent crowd that took over the US Capitol on January 6 a “moot point”.
“To begin with, I think it’s a moot point,” said Rounds. “Because I think Donald Trump is no longer the president now, he is a former president.”
“Article 1 … specifically point[s] that you can remove the president, and that does not indicate that you can remove someone who is not in office. So I think it is a debatable point, and I think they would have a hard time doing it in the Senate, “he continued.
Rounds said the Senate should move on to another matter, and pointed to confirmation of nominees from President Biden’s office as an area where the Republican Party should work with Democrats.
His statements echoed those of other Republican senators, such as Tom Cotton
Tom Bryant CottonSunday preview: All eyes on the Biden administration to face the coronavirus Senate approves resignation for Biden Pentagon candidate House approves resignation for Biden Pentagon candidate MORE (Ark.), Who argued that the impeachment of a former president is unconstitutional, an argument that Democrats disagree with.
“The Senate lacks constitutional authority to conduct impeachment cases against a former president,” Cotton said in a statement last week. “The founders designed the impeachment process as a way to remove occupiers from public office – not an investigation against private citizens.”