BATON ROUGE, Louisiana (AP) – Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana joined the Democrats in voting against ending Donald Trump’s impeachment trial on Tuesday, a surprising reversal that Cassidy said was a response to lawyers of the ex-president doing “a bad job” of arguing his case.
Cassidy was among six Republican senators who allied themselves with Democrats on the question of whether a former president can be tried after leaving office. The Louisiana senator’s position was a change from January, when he voted to close the case on the grounds that it was unconstitutional.
The vote drew swift criticism from Republicans in the senator’s deeply conservative state. But Cassidy said Trump’s lawyers did not defend his case. While the Democrats’ impeachment managers were “focused, they were organized”, relying on precedents and legal scholars, the Trump team “was disorganized, random, had nothing,” he said.
“They talked about a lot of things, but they didn’t talk about the issue at hand,” said Cassidy after the vote.
Still, the senator said his decision to move forward with the trial should not be taken as a sign that he will vote later to convict the former president. In recent calls to reporters, including a Tuesday morning, Cassidy declined to say whether he believes Trump has committed an impeachable offense.
“I still haven’t decided how I’m going to vote,” he said.
Trump is the first president to face impeachment charges after stepping down. The Chamber accused him of inciting an insurrection for his role in the siege of the United States Capitol. Hundreds of protesters ransacked the building to try to prevent the certification of Democratic Joe Biden’s victory, a domestic attack on the country’s government headquarters like no other in its history. Five people died.
The Republican Party of Louisiana quickly issued a statement on Tuesday criticizing Cassidy for his vote and praising Republican Party junior senator John Kennedy for voting against moving forward with the impeachment trial. The Republican Party of Louisiana said it was “deeply disappointed” by Cassidy’s vote.
“We feel that an impeachment trial by an ordinary citizen is not only an unconstitutional act, but also an attack on the very foundations of American democracy, which will have far-reaching and unforeseen consequences for our republic,” said the party’s statement.
Republican Representative Mike Johnson of Louisiana said he was “surprised” by Cassidy’s vote and suggested that it was causing a stir in his ruby red state.
“I didn’t speak to him, but I can say that a lot of people at home are calling me about it now,” said Johnson.
Cassidy was re-elected this fall for a six-year term, giving him some time to reconcile with his party. But he has already received criticism for accepting the Electoral College vote for Biden and for recognizing the Democratic president’s victory weeks before many of his colleagues.
A local Republican women’s club sent Cassidy a letter in December saying they felt “betrayed” after he declared that Biden had won the presidential election.
Kennedy, who is running for reelection next year, issued statements calling the impeachment trial unconstitutional and calling it “a veiled effort by the superelites in our country, who disparage most Americans, to further denigrate the people they chose vote for President Trump and not vote for President Biden ”.
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AP Congressional correspondent Lisa Mascaro in Washington contributed to this report.