Senators Who Did Not Attend Impeachment Trial – As the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump enters its third day, lawmakers are losing interest, with several dozing off and more than a dozen Republicans irregularly leaving the chamber.
According to pool accounts, there were as many as 15 empty Republican senator seats during the first several hours of the trial on Thursday, compared to only a small number of Democrats who were outside the chamber.
Sens. Jim Risch (R-Idaho) was in the basement using his phone, while Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) were also gone from their desks, according to CNN’s Manu Raju.
Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Chuck Grassley of Iowa were each reading papers while Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, according to CNN’s Jeremy Herb, “had a blank map of Asia on his desk and was writing on it like he was filling in the names of the countries”.
A general melancholy was developing on both sides of the aisle, with many senators, including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Tom Carper (D-DE), Pat Toomey (R-PA), and Tommy Tuberville, allegedly unable to remain awake (R-Ala.).
Even Trump’s legal team was examined; according to reports, David Schoen and Bruce Castor did not take any notes, and Schoen even left the courtroom to speak to reporters and take part in several TV news interviews.
Schoen said that the impeachment managers’ arguments are “more of the same thing” when Raju questioned him about leaving the trial to do interviews, calling their use of video showing Capitol rioters claiming Trump as their inspiration “offensive, quite frankly”.
7 Republicans Discuss Why They Voted to Find Trump Guilty of the Capitol Attack
Senators Who Did Not Attend Impeachment Trial – On Saturday, all of the Democrats and seven Republican senators judged former President Donald Trump guilty of provoking the violence at the U.S. Capitol, but the bipartisan vote fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict.
Republican Senators Richard Burr of North Carolina, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania voted in favor of convicting the 45th President during his second impeachment hearing.
Along with 48 Democrats and 2 independent senators. There are now 7 Republicans in the Senate. In a 57-43 vote. The Senate cleared Trump of the charge of encouraging an uprising for his participation in the deadly Capitol incident on January 6. To convict Trump, Democrats needed 17 Republicans to side with them.
Republicans who voted for release did so mostly for procedural reasons rather than the substance of the case. For instance, Kentucky-based Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell claimed that former President Trump was to blame for the violence and that he might still be charged with a crime.
The decision was made after House impeachment management changed their minds and decided against calling for witnesses. Which would have suspended the decision. A five-day impeachment trial has concluded with the defendant’s release.
Senators Who Did Not Attend Impeachment Trial, the only president to be both impeached and tried twice is Donald Trump:
1: Mitt Romney, Utah
Romney was the lone Republican to go from his party and convict the president during Trump’s initial impeachment trial. In 2020, the Senate cleared Trump of the charges of impeachment related to his attempts to exert pressure on Ukraine to look into then-Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
“President Trump incited the uprising against Congress by utilizing the authority granted to him by his position to call his followers to Washington on January 6 and urge them to demonstrate in front of the Capitol building as the electoral votes were being counted. He did this dedespite the clear and well-known threats of violence that day, according to a statement from Romney.
Additionally, by failing to defend the Capitol, the Vice President, and other Capitol visitors, President Trump broke his oath of office.
2: Richard Burr, North Carolina
Burr, who has declared he won’t run for office again, had previously voted to throw off the impeachment proceedings for lack of a warrant. The term of Burr ends in 2022.
“I have heard the arguments put out by both parties and taken the facts into account. The facts are obvious,” Burr said in a statement.
He added that he didn’t “come to this conclusion lightly”, saying that “by what he did and by what he did not do, President Trump broke his oath of office to preserve, maintain, and defend the Constitution of the United States”.
3: Lisa Murkowski, Alaska
Murkowski, who is running for re-election in 2022, demanded Trump’s ouster following the disturbance at the Capitol.
Senators Who Did Not Attend Impeachment Trial, After the trial, Murkowski stated that candidates for the presidency must vow to faithfully carry out their duties as president as well as to uphold, defend, and preserve the US Constitution.
“President Trump swore an oath to defend America and everything we hold dear as the country’s elected leader and the Commander in Chief of our armed forces. He violated that oath, she continued.
4: Pat Toomey, Pennsylvania
Toomey has also called for the president’s resignation. When his seat is up for election in 2022, he has declared that he won’t do so.
“Partly because of the numerous successes of his administration, I was one of the 74 million Americans who voted for President Trump. Sadly, his actions following the election undermined the faith that millions of us had in him, Toomey said in a statement.
He stated that “conviction was necessary due to his breach of the Constitution and his oath of service”.
5: Susan Collins, Maine
Senators Who Did Not Attend Impeachment Trial – Due to her backing of Trump’s judicial choices, Collins faced a hotly contested senate campaign in Maine last year. However, Collins split with her party over the previous president’s behavior during the Capitol incident. On the Senate floor, she gave an explanation for her vote to convict.
“President Trump did not avert a perilous scenario; he made one. And rather than stand up for the constitutional transition of power, he instigated an uprising to stop it from happening,” Collins added. “His actions constituted an abuse of power and constitute grounds for conviction. They interfered with the peaceful transfer of power, which is a cornerstone of our constitution and our American democracy.”
6: Ben Sasse, Nebraska
Last month, Sasse declared that he was willing to take articles of impeachment against the former Republican president into consideration.
After being found guilty, Sasse stated that an impeachment trial “is a public proclamation of what a president’s oath of office entails and what behavior that oath demands of presidents in the future.”
The sad truth is that most Republicans and Democrats would simply switch sides if a Democrat were in office. Tribalism is a terrible narcotic, but we must stick to the truth because of our oath of allegiance to the Constitution, Sasse continued.
7: Bill Cassidy, Louisiana
Cassidy first said he would throw out the case on the basis that it was unconstitutional, but he recently changed his mind, claiming that Trump’s attorneys had done a “poor” job of laying out the case.
According to Cassidy, who voted to convict, “He got together a gathering but a fraction of that was transformed into a mob, and when they went into the Capitol it was evident that he desired lawmakers be frightened”. “And even after he became aware of the violence, he continued to approve of the mob’s presence essentially. He didn’t ask them to leave till thereafter. All of that indicates motivation and a strategy, and that is unacceptable; he needs to answer for it.
In his native state, Cassidy has already encountered resistance. Cassidy was censured by the Louisiana Republican Party’s executive committee after a unanimous vote to convict Trump.
The defense team for Trump refuted claims that the former president encouraged the attack and insisted that his rhetoric was protected by the First Amendment. Additionally, because Trump was no longer president, his attorneys claimed that the trial was unlawful.
Michael van der Veen, a lawyer for Trump, claimed in closing arguments that Democrats had been “obsessed” with trying to remove him from office since the beginning of his presidency.
Conclusion
“In essence, this entire impeachment process has been a hoax from start to finish. The opposition party’s irrational pursuit of a long-standing political vendetta against Mr. Trump has been the sole focus of the entire show, he said.
Senators Who Did Not Attend Impeachment Trial – In his concluding remarks, lead impeachment manager Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland encouraged senators to take into account the “overwhelming,” “irrefutable,” and “unrefuted” evidence.
“In the end, this trial is not about Donald Trump. Donald Trump is well-known throughout the nation and the globe. Who we are is at stake in this trial, Raskin remarked.
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