- Del. Stacey Plaskett (D-Virgin Islands) was House’s manager in Trump’s second impeachment trial.
- She told CNN that some Senate Republicans said in particular that she “defended” the conviction.
- But she said they already planned to acquit Trump and did not want to “stand out” through the conviction.
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An impeachment manager at the House said that Republican senators privately told her that she “defended” the conviction of former President Donald Trump, but still voted to absolve him.
Del. Stacey Plaskett, a Democrat from the Virgin Islands, said CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Monday about her interactions with unidentified Republican senators during Trump’s second impeachment trial last week.
“I had senators, even after our presentation, who stopped me in the hall, Republicans, who said we had defended the case, but they would still vote to absolve the president,” said Plaskett.
Plaskett said he tried to win over these senators by saying that they could vote to acquit Trump, but not vote to disqualify him from office in the future – a vote that would have occurred after the sentencing, and it requires only a simple majority.
—Cuomo Prime Time (@CuomoPrimeTime) February 16, 2021
“The answer was, ‘Well, I don’t think you’re going to make it to 17, so I’ll never make it to the second disqualification vote and I don’t want to stand out alone,'” recalled Plaskett, referring to Democratic senators needing 17 Republicans to vote with them. to condemn Trump.
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Plaskett has also defended in recent days his decision not to call witnesses during the trial.
“We had no need to call any witnesses at the end of the trial because, as all Americans believed at the time, the evidence was overwhelming,” Plaskett told NPR on Sunday.
She also said CNN in a separate interview on Sunday: “I know people are feeling a lot of anguish and believe that maybe if we had that, the senators would have done what we wanted, but listen, we didn’t need any more witnesses, we needed more senators with thorns.”
Trump was acquitted in his second impeachment trial on Saturday, with 57 votes to condemn and 43 votes to acquit. A two-thirds majority of the votes is required to remove a president. Seven Republican senators voted to condemn, joining all 50 Senate Democrats.
Among the Republicans who voted to condemn is North Carolina senator Richard Burr, who will retire after this term. Senator Lindsey Graham, a close confidant of Trump, said Burr’s vote at the trial paves the way for Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, to run for her seat.
Although Plaskett did not get the result she was looking for in Trump’s second impeachment trial, she said it was necessary for the country and can work to prevent Trump from running for office in the future.
“I believe that January 6 [Capitol riot] it was a second type of Civil War and it was necessary for us to have a reckoning and for those individuals who waged war against our democracy to be brought to justice, they needed to be held accountable, “Plaskett told CNN’s Cuomo on Monday.
“And this is what I see as my duty and my service to my country. I believe we were on the front lines to save our union and our republic, ”he added.
“I believe, even if we lost that case, that we show who Donald Trump is, we show the enemy that was among us, who was trying to lead us, who was using us for his own greed and power, and that he will not have the same power I had if I try to run again. “