The Senate voted on Saturday to absolve former President Donald Trump on charges of inciting insurrection, despite significant Republican support for the sentencing, ending the fourth impeachment trial in U.S. history and Trump’s second.
Seven Republicans voted to condemn Trump for allegedly inciting the January 6 deadly riot on Capitol Hill, when a crowd of pro-Trump supporters tried to disrupt the electoral vote count by formalizing Joe Biden’s victory before a joint congressional session. This is by far the most bipartisan support for condemnation in the history of impeachment. The final vote was 57 to 43, 10 less than the 67 votes needed to secure a conviction.
Republican senators Richard Burr of North Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania all voted for the blame.
The vote means the Senate cannot prevent Trump from taking future federal positions.
Moments after the end of the vote, the ex-president issued a statement praising his legal team and thanking the senators and other members of Congress “who stood proudly for the Constitution that we all revered and for the sacred legal principles that are at the heart of our country” .
“This was another phase of the biggest witch hunt in the history of our country. No president has ever gone through anything like that,” said Trump.
Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y. called the vote “the largest and most bipartisan in any impeachment trial in history”, but noted that it was not enough to warrant a conviction.
The trial “was about choosing the country over Donald Trump, and 43 Republican members chose Trump. They chose Trump. It must be a burden on your conscience today and it will be a burden on your conscience in the future,” he said in a speech at Senate plenary session.
With Senate control divided into 50-50, House managers have always had an uphill battle when it came to convincing enough Republicans to cross the party lines and condemn a former president who is still very popular with most of the republican base.
In his closing argument, house manager Joe Neguse, D-Colorado, argued: “The stakes could not be higher. Because the cold and hard truth is that what happened on January 6 could happen again. I fear, like many of you do, that the violence we saw on that terrible day may just be the beginning. “
Impeachment manager Jamie Raskin, D-Md., Asked senators to think about the future.
“Senators, this judgment is ultimately not about Donald Trump. The country and the world know who Donald Trump is. This judgment is about who we are, who we are,” said Raskin.
Trump’s lawyer, Michael van der Veen, meanwhile, insisted that his client did nothing wrong and claimed that he was a victim of vengeful Democrats and biased news media. He called the impeachment process a “beginning to end riddle”.
Although he often seemed angry during his presentation, van der Veen was delighted with absolution. Reporters saw him punch a colleague on Trump’s legal team and exclaim, “We’re going to Disney World!”
The task of managers became more difficult on Saturday when Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell announced in an email to his colleagues that he would vote for absolution as Trump was already out of office.
“Despite being a difficult decision, I am convinced that impeachments are primarily a tool for removal and therefore we have no jurisdiction,” wrote the influential Kentucky Republican in the email obtained by NBC News.
McConnell, who rejected Democratic efforts to initiate the trial while Trump was still in office, condemned Trump’s conduct after the riot and said he would keep an open mind about voting to convict – something he totally dismissed during the first impeachment trial in the last year.
After voting for absolution, McConnell criticized Trump for his “shameful abandonment of duty” and placed the blame for the riot on Trump’s door in what amounted to an endorsement of many of the arguments put forward by the House’s impeachment managers in a Senate floor speech. .
“There is no doubt – none – that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for causing the day’s events,” said McConnell.
McConnell had suggested in the email earlier in the day that Trump could still face other penalties.
“The Constitution makes it perfectly clear that presidential criminal misconduct during the term can be prosecuted after the president leaves office, which, in my opinion, alleviates the disturbing argument of the ‘January exception’ raised by the House,” he wrote.
Two of the Republicans who voted to condemn, Burr and Toomey, are not running for re-election. Romney, the only Republican to cross party lines and vote to condemn Trump in his first impeachment trial, cannot be re-elected until 2024, while Sasse, Cassidy and Collins were all re-elected for six-year terms in November. Murkowski, against whom Trump had already promised to campaign, is running for re-election in 2022.
Toomey, whose state of Pennsylvania was at the center of several of Trump’s false allegations of electoral conspiracy, said: “As a result of President Trump’s actions, for the first time in American history, the transfer of presidential power has not been peaceful.”
“Unfortunately, his behavior after the election betrayed the trust that millions of us place in him. His betrayal of the constitution and his oath demanded condemnation,” said Toomey.
Cassidy gave a simple explanation for his vote in a 10-second video statement he posted on Twitter.
“Our Constitution and our country are more important than anyone. I voted to condemn President Trump because he is guilty,” he said.
Opening arguments at the trial began on Wednesday, with House managers blaming the riot in Trump’s months-long campaign to cast doubt on the 2020 election, and his repeated claims that the only way to lose would be if the election was “stolen”. They focused on his fiery speech the morning of the January 6 riot, where he urged his supporters to “fight like hell” – and his refusal to act after that.
Trump declined a request from managers to testify at the trial, and even refused to send a statement to that effect, facts that Raskin asked senators to keep in mind on Saturday.
“I ask any one of you, if you have been accused of inciting a violent uprising against our country, and you are falsely accused, would you come and testify? I know you do,” said Raskin.
The trial was a president’s fourth impeachment. No president has ever been convicted.