SEVEN Republicans voted for a conviction….
The vote was 57 Against…43 For….
Most of the Republicans never voted on the charges….
They ducked by voting to say a ex-president could NOT be tried in their views….
The Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell has gone out of his way to say that Trump WAS guilty* of ‘provoking the events’ of the Capitol 6 protests and assaults after voting to acquit based on the bull shit argument of NOT trying an ex-President….
McConnell then said President Biden’s Justice Department COULD start a criminal case against Trump….
The United States Senate voted 57-43 to acquit Donald J. Trump in his second impeachment trial, as Republicans in a Senate still bruised from the most violent attack on the Capitol in two centuries banded together to reject the charge that he incited the Jan. 6 attack.
But seven Republicans voted with all 50 Democrats to convict, the most bipartisan support for conviction in any of the four impeachments in U.S. history.
That outcome reflects two factors. First, many of the senators experienced the violence of the attack, fleeing for safety as marauders overwhelmed the Capitol Police and swarmed the Capitol during the attack, and that Democrats built a case that the former president undertook a monthslong effort to overturn the election, and then provoked the assault on the Capitol in a last-ditch attempt to cling to power.
“If that is not ground for conviction, if that is not a high crime and misdemeanor against the Republic and the United States of America, than nothing is,” Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland and the lead manager, pleaded with senators before the vote. “President Trump must be convicted, for the safety and democracy of our people.”
With most of Mr. Trump’s party coalescing around him, the final tally fell far short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict him. Only with conviction could the Senate move to disqualify Mr. Trump from holding future office.
Minutes after the verdict was announced Mr. Trump sent out a statement thanking his legal team and decrying, as he did for most of his presidency the “witch hunt” he says is being waged upon him by his enemies….
- Note….
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Saturday unleashed blistering criticism of former President Trump, blaming him for sparking the attack on the Capitol while also explaining why he didn’t vote for a conviction.
McConnell also suggested that Trump could face criminal prosecution for his actions.
“There’s no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. No question about it. The people that stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president,” McConnell said….
Everyone that voted to convict deserves props…..
They CAN look in the mirror and be proud….
McConnell on the other hand deserves scorn….
The dance does NOT do him proud….
In the end?
I hope the ones with a political liability make out fine…
They deserve a pat on the back and to keep their jobs….
Jason Campbell
@JasonSCampbell
Sen Ted Cruz (despite being a juror in this case) shares the advice he gave to Trump’s lawyers: “What I started out saying…is I said, look, you gotta remember you’ve already won”
Geoff Bennett
@GeoffRBennett
“No number of witnesses would convince them,” Rep. Raskin says of Republican senators who voted to acquit.
Nate Silver
@NateSilver538
Of course Trump *could* win the 2024 nomination. But four years (three really, until Iowa) is a long time and voters tend to want to move on from losing candidates and there’s some evidence that Republican voters are already doing this with Trump.
CG?
Aaron Rupar
@atrupar
“People want to get home for Valentine’s Day” https://politico.com/news/2021/02/13/senate-democrats-impeachment-witnesses-468992
Two Republican points debunked….
You cannot try a ex-President on impeachment….
Done…
Trump was innocent….
The Republican Leader said he wasn’t….
Seven Republicans voted to convict…
47 ducked the guilty verdict…
Rep Joaquin Castro
‘Trump got off on a ‘technicality”
No ,he got off because forty three MAGA red hat wearing boot licking Republicans voted to acquit.
End of story.
I’m sure we will hear how many of those 43 don’t “really” suppport Trump
Media IS reporting the corporations are using McConnell’s comments to continue ponying up money for Republicans…
Pelosi Rules Out Censuring Trump
After” the Senate voted to acquit former President Trump, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Saturday ruled out censuring the former president — an idea that several Republicans had floated in recent days,” The Hill reports.
Said Pelosi: “Censure is a slap in the face of the Constitution. It lets everybody off the hook, it lets everybody off the hook.”
She added: “Oh, these cowardly senators who couldn’t face up to what the president did and what was at stake for our country are now going to have a chance to give a little slap on the wrist?”
Add Romney to the possible censured list…
Republicans get no credit for originality
Collins could get a censure vote back in Maine…
Alaska Republicans Censure Murkowski
The Alaska Republican Party has voted to censure Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and will recruit a challenger to run against her in next year’s election, the Anchorage Daily News reports.
Chris Coons said that and it is beyond pathetic.
They should have heard from the witnesses. Congresswoman Herrera-Buetler wanted to testify and was willing to put her political career as a Republican even more on the line. But the Democrats decided their Valentines Day plans were more important.
Even if it would not have changed an additional vote (and the way the momentum of this was going it probably would have gotten one or two more Republicans voting Guilty), the people deserved to hear all the facts and history deserved to record it on the record.
The rest of you are Democrats. Is nobody else disappointed? If a trial was being held, was there not an obligation to actually have as much of a real trial as possible? Mitch McConnell never would have caved on this the way Schumer did.
Ah CG?
The Dem Senator from Delaware is tight with the Democratic President recently from Deleware, eh?
Hmmmmm?🙄
So the Republicans had their chance to get rid of Trump once and for all, making it impossible for him to run for office in the future, and they ran in the other direction.
The decision was baked when McConnell announced that he was voting to acquit on the phony grounds that this impeachment was unconstitutional. With him went the last chance to bring enough Senators along to actually convict.
Of course McConnell’s excuse speech was pathetic on so many levels. What a complete coward. He believes Trump did it all, is guilty of sedition, but he still couldn’t pull the trigger. A profile in courage.
Witnesses or no witnesses the decision would be the same – although I was surprised that seven Republicans came along. And, for the record, the impeachment managers did a great job.
It seems the Republicans want to leave it up to local Democrats, the District Attorney in Fulton County, the Manhattan DA, and the Attorney General in DC to do their dirty work for them. A thousand legal knives slowly turning Trump into OJ. However, he still has time to cause a lot of trouble for the GQP, especially those Republicans who had the nerve to vote against him.
Expect his revenge tour to start shortly.
Of course I expect the Congressional Committees to continue their investigations into what happened, and no one should be surprised when other shoes drop about what certain Members of Congress knew and when they knew it.
Pretty much sums it up.
Witnesses wouldn’t have mattered at all as to the conviction vote.Besides, all these people who allegedly have information about the insurrection can bring it forward anytime they want.I didn’t see the big deal in that.Wouldnt have changed a vote.
Sen Bill Cassidy ,one of the seven Republicans who voted to convict Trump ,says there should be a full investigation of the insurrection.
I agree.
There are a host of unanswered questions here as to why certain things happened and didn’t happen.
Actually, such an investigation, without the persona of Trump as the central character ,could ironically prove far more damaging to him than the Impeachment trial itself.
I think u got it about right Keith…
Except for the GOPer’s actually doing anything definitive….
They continue to have few members that have ‘balls’….
Slowly it fades…
But it HAS Begun…
Of course Guilty was the only logical vote and had it been a secret ballot, it would have been at least 80 for Guilty and most of the other 20 would have just been concerned about being figured out if it were near unanimous.
So, while I am very disappointed in 43 Republicans, I also cannot pretend that there are not legitimate Constitutional concerns that can at least be made about taking action against a President who is no longer in office. Why didn’t the Nixon Impeachment move forward after he quit for example? I agree with the arguments that the trial was Constitutional but the issues are murky enough to give people political cover.
McConnell made it clear that Trump, as a private citizen. should be subject to criminal prosecution and that would indeed be the most appropriate consequence for Trump.
The legal thing IS MOOT….
Rhe Senator’s DID the vote …
McConnell also delayed the trial until Trump was out of office.
Bingo!
In S.C. political news…
Lindsay Graham has endorsed Lara Trump as the Republican candidate to succeed retiring Senator Richard Burr in North Carolina.
I’m sure that a Lindsay Graham endorsement in NC is worth gold (as in morning piss).
By the way, I enjoyed watching Lindsay on SNL.
Graham may need a Georgia lawyer soon….
Actually i’m waiting to see how Lindsey crawls back to Biden…
You need to watch Lindsay’s performance on Fox News this morning.
I don’t even know what you mean “crawl back to Biden.”That implies that at one point he was “with” Biden.When was that exactly?
Yeah – I saw the interview. Graham was awful even by Graham standards. Graham says he wants the GOP in 2022 to be “Trump-Plus” – which I took to mean an even more extreme version of Trump on steroids than we have now. I have no reason to believe that Graham has any intention of working with Biden. None whatsoever.
Nor does anyone else.
James just invents these little fantasies in his mind.The facts be damned.Then,in almost pathetic fashion ,he will grab ahold of any mere happening,say Graham voting for some bill that Biden is for ,to tell us such “proves” that he(Graham) is “crawling back.”
Then, of course, we will read the well known”This dog was right…”
We’ve all seen this show before.Its actually rather amusing but he takes it very seriously.
Mark my words….
Lindsey WILL attempt to crawl back just as he has in the past…
He goes whatever way the wind blows….
I hope Lara Trump loses that primary in North Carolina.
It is my understanding that Lara Trump hasn’t yet decided whether she will run, although Graham may know things that we don’t yet know.
For that matter, we don’t know who else might be the GOP nominee. Pat McCrory is a possibility. When McCrory lost his gubernatorial re-election, he blamed it on the “non-citizens” vote. McCory remains a rather frequent guest analyst on TV. McCrory’s term as Governor might be best remembered for the anti-LGBT HB2 which caused the NBA to move its All Star game from Charlotte.
Who knows who will be the least offensive GOP Senatorial candidate in NC? Never underestimate who will be the leading conservatives in the race – especially in the South. We (including CG) just might find ourselves rooting for Lara Trump to win the nomination!
We do NOT need ANYMORE of the Trump family…..
ANYWHERE….
They need to go away…..
FAR AWAY…..
Donald Trump originally came from Long Island. Lara did not.
I know little about Lara other than she is married to Eric.
Donald Trump was born in Jamaica Hospital in Queens NYC…
The hospital is about 4 miles north of JFK AIRPORT…..
He was born in Jamaica ??
Was he even qualified to be President ??
Where is his Jamaican birth certificate ??
Did his parents know Kamala Harris’ father ?
Patriots need to know.
He, he, he….
I knew the hospital well back in the day…
I was going over, for curiosity’s sake, what is now past history.
GOP Reps. voting for impeachment; 10/211 ~ 1/21 ~ 5% ~ 20 to 1
GOP Sens. voting for conviction: 7/50 = 14% ~ 1/7 ~ 6 to 1
GOP voting for impeachment or conviction: 17/267 ~ 1/16 ~ 6.4% ~ 15 to 1
Then I wondered about a likely itinerary for the Revenge Tour. Were it only covering those 17 (including those, who will retire like Sens. Burr & Toomey), it might look something like this:
Maine — Sen. Susan Collins
New York — Rep. John Katko
Pennsylvania — Sen. Pat Toomey
Ohio — Rep. Anthony Gonzalez
Michigan — Rep. Fred Upton
Michigan — Rep. Peter Meijer
Illinois — Rep. Adam Kinzinger
Nebraska — Sen. Ben Sasse
Utah — Sen. Mitt Romney
Wyoming — Rep. Liz Cheney
Washington — Rep. Jamie Herrera-Beutler
Washington — Rep. Dan Newhouse
Alaska — Sen. Lisa Murkowski
California — Rep. David Valadao
Louisiana — Sen. Bill Cassidy
South Carolina — Rep. Tom Rice
North Carolina — Sen. Richard Burr
In my next post, I’ll speculate on the rough draft of itinerary (more like a Vengeance tour than a Revenge one) that included Governors, Mayors and Democrats.
I’m gonna make this into a post….
An incomplete itinerary for a Trump rage rally tour that included some of his other pet enemies:
Maine — Sen. Susan Collins
New Hampshire — Gov. Chris Sununu
Vermont — Gov. Phil Scott
Massachusetts — Gov. Charlie Baker
Massachusetts — Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D)
Massachusetts — Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D)
New York — Rep. John Katko
New York — Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D)
New York — ex-Sen. Hillary Clinton (D)
New York — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D)
Pennsylvania — Sen. Pat Toomey
Maryland — Gov. Ben Hogan
District of Columbia — Mayor Muriel Bowser
Ohio — Rep. Anthony Gonzalez
Ohio — Gov. Mike DeWine
Michigan — Rep. Fred Upton
Michigan — Rep. Peter Meijer
Michigan — Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D)
Michigan — Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D)
Michigan — ex-Rep. Justin Amash (Ind.)
Indiana — ex-Vice Pres. Mike Pence
Illinois — Rep. Adam Kinzinger
Illinois — Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D)
Illinois — Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D)
Minnesota — Rep. Ilhan Omar (DFL)
Nebraska — Sen. Ben Sasse
Utah — Sen. Mitt Romney
Wyoming — Rep. Liz Cheney
Washington — Rep. Jamie Herrera-Beutler
Washington — Rep. Dan Newhouse
Washington — Mayor Jenny Durkan (N/P)
Alaska — Sen. Lisa Murkowski
California — Rep. David Valadao
California — Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D)
California — Gov. Gavin Newsom (D)
California — Mayor Eric Garcetti (D
Louisiana — Sen. Bill Cassidy
South Carolina — Rep. Tom Rice
North Carolina — Sen. Richard Burr
Oops! I forgot to add to the Enemies of the People (not counting the Fake Media), among others:
Washington — Gov. Jay Inslee (D)
Georgia — Gov. Brian Kemp (R)
Georgia — Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan (R)
Georgia — Sec. of State Brad Raffensperger (R)
Georgia — Voting Systems Director Gabriel Sterling (R)
Pennsylvania — Supreme Court of the Commonwealth
Wisconsin — the (elected) Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court (R)
Those may not be very nice people, but, as we all, know there are countless others who are not so nice, either.
And then there are those Republican state legislative leaders from Georgia, Pennsylvania and Michigan who just wouldn’t do their patriotic duty to Stop the Steal and protect the people’s sacred vote by throwing out all the ballots and having the Republican state legislatures choose their electors instead.
Gov. Doug Ducey (R, Ariz.) wasn’t all that helpful, either.