It has always seemed unlikely that Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader of the Senate, would vote to condemn the disgraced ex-president who, even in exile in Mar-a-Lago, has control over most of his party.
But the justification McConnell offered in announcing his vote for absolution on Saturday was an act of political cynicism and an evasive evasion of the main question the Senate was asked to decide: whether Donald Trump has responsibility for the January 6 resignation of the Capitol.
McConnell has already said what he thinks about the facts: Trump is guilty of incitement, at least under a common sense definition of the word.
“The crowd was fed with lies,” McConnell said in a Senate speech last month. “They were provoked by the president and other powerful people and tried to use fear and violence to prevent a specific procedure” – the certification of President Biden’s election – “which they did not like”.
For McConnell, who usually resembles a sphinx, it was a moment of impressive clarity – the closest to an act of courage we’ve seen lately at a party whose members are alternately delighted or terrified by Trump.
But McConnell then backed down, voting to save Trump from being held accountable – not because he is innocent, but for narrow procedural reasons.
“Although it is a difficult decision, I am convinced that impeachments are primarily a tool for removal and therefore we have no jurisdiction,” he wrote to other senators before the vote.
Although Trump was impeached when he was president, McConnell argued, he cannot be put on trial after his term ends.
Most law scholars, both conservative and liberal, believe that the argument is wrong. In the past few centuries, the Senate has tried at least two officials who were no longer in power. And last week, by a bipartisan vote of 56 to 44, the Senate maintained those precedents.
The reason for McConnell’s withdrawal is clear: he wants to give his Republican colleagues a history of coverage, a technical excuse to vote against the impeachment so that he doesn’t haunt them again. Most Republican voters in the primaries remain loyal to Trump, often fiercely.
But the reason McConnell is providing is so fragile that it is unlikely to hold up well in the eyes of history.
McConnell’s avoidance was not the only weak excuse that Republican senators sought while looking for reasons to absolve a defendant that many believe they are guilty of.
Some engaged in the old-fashioned eye for an eye: Sure, Trump angered the crowd, but didn’t some Democrats do the same thing when they made excuses for violence on the sidelines of the Black Lives Matter protests?
“You had a summer when people all over the country were doing similar things,” said Sen. Roy Blunt, from Missouri. So what is the problem with Trump encouraging people who sacked the Capitol and threatened to kill the vice president?
Equally weak was the claim that the impeachment was “just political”, a product of hatred for Trump and his followers.
“It is about humiliating the individuals who supported President Trump,” argued Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee.
Let us leave aside that 10 House Republicans, including Congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming, considered the charges serious enough to join the Democrats to vote in favor of impeachment.
Then there is the First Amendment argument: the notion that holding Trump accountable for the effect of his words is a violation of his rights.
This is just wrong. The 1st Amendment protects the right of citizen Trump to speak his mind. It does not protect former President Trump from losing his job – or from being prevented from occupying it again – if Congress decides he has committed crimes against the constitution. And the 1st Amendment does not protect incitement to violence.
And that brings us to the substantive charge against Trump – the one that Republicans always try to escape.
The evidence made it clear that Trump did not just encourage the mob; when they broke into the Capitol, he waited for hours before telling them to go home.
Supporters of the president want senators to judge Trump’s guilt for incitement under criminal law standards, which requires showing that he caused the turmoil consciously and directly.
But impeachment is not a criminal case. It is the process by which Congress can remove a senior official who violated his oath and disqualify him from taking office in the future.
Senators who voted for absolution need to say clearly whether they believe Trump has stirred up the crowd or not. McConnell said that Trump was “practically and morally responsible” for the January 6 events, but let him slip by a technicality. Most other Republicans have not even made it this far.
History will remember your votes as your judgments about Trump’s words and actions – not as a decision about whether employees are exempt from the impeachment trial for actions in their last month in power.
They must consider what their short-term political calculations might look like a few years from now, including to voters in the next elections.
On Saturday, Trump claimed his acquittal as a victory and promised his followers that he will remain politically active. “Our historic, patriotic and beautiful movement for Make America Great Again has just begun,” he said.
In the coming months, new evidence may emerge to show whether Trump was colluding directly with the extremists who attacked the Capitol. As we heard on Saturday, Trump did not seem concerned that members of Congress were in mortal danger that day.
And if Trump survives all investigations into his conduct, maintains control over the Republican Party and wins his party’s presidential nomination in 2024, his loyal Senate followers will take responsibility – even if they can pretend it wasn’t their fault.
McConnell, who is not a Trump fan, seems to bet that the former president will naturally disappear and that his hold on the Republican Party will weaken. He and the GOP have to hope they are right.