Senate Republicans rally against Trump's impeachment trial
Forty-five Senate Republicans have supported a failed effort to stop former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial.
In a 55-to-45 vote on Tuesday, the Senate narrowly killed a Republican effort to halt the proceeding, dismissing it as unconstitutional because Trump is no longer in office.
The numbers showed that loyal Republicans were again ready to spare him from conviction, this time despite his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol assault that left five people dead.
Trump was blamed for inciting an insurrection when the lawmakers were busy certifying the victory of Joe Biden in the disputed 2020 presidential election. Trump believes Biden did not win the election fairly, and that the vote was rigged to deprive him of a second term.
Sen. Rand Paul had made a motion on the Senate floor arguing that the impeachment trial in February violates the US Constitution.
“It’s one of the few times in Washington where a loss is actually a victory,” Paul told reporters after the Tuesday vote. “Forty-five votes means the impeachment trial is dead on arrival.”
"If 34 people support my resolution that this is an unconstitutional proceeding it shows they don’t have the votes and we’re basically wasting our time."
Some Republican senators who supported the motion said their vote did not show how they might come down on the former president’s guilt or innocence after a trial.
“It’s a totally different issue as far as I’m concerned,” Republican Senator Rob Portman told reporters.
Meanwhile, Senator Susan Collins of Maine, one of the five Republicans who voted to proceed to trial, also said, “I think it’s pretty obvious from the vote today that it is extraordinarily unlikely that the president will be convicted,” adding, “Just do the math.”
The Senate would require a two-thirds majority, or at least 67 votes, to convict the president and that could result in a vote to bar him from running for office again.
Other four GOP senators, who favor Trump’s impeachment, were Lisa Murkowski, Alaska, Ben Sasse, Neb., and Pat Toomey, Pa., and Mitt Romney, Utah.
“My review of it has led me to conclude that it is constitutional, in recognizing that impeachment is not solely about removing a president, it is also a matter of political consequence,” Murkowski told reporters on Tuesday.
Trump is the only US president who has been impeached twice by the House and will be the first to face trial after leaving the White House.
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