The U.S. Senate gets Trump how a Republican saves him in impeachment again

The Senate vote of 57-43 fell short of a two-thirds majority needed to convict Trump on a charge of inciting a revolt after a five-day trial in the same building who was looted by his followers on Jan. 6 shortly after they were heard delivering an intelligent speech.

In the vote, seven of the 50 Senate Republicans joined the united Democrats of the chamber in favor of condemnation.

Trump resigned on Jan. 20, so impeachment could not be used to remove it from power. But Democrats had hoped to receive a conviction to hold him accountable for a siege that left five people including a dead police officer and set the stage for a vote to prevent him from attending in never again in public office. With the opportunity to be in office in the future, they argued, Trump would not expect to incite political violence again.

Republicans saved Trump in February as well. 5, 2020, voted in his previous impeachment trial, when only one grandfather from his ranks – Mitt Romney – voted to condemn and dismiss him.

The drama on the Senate floor grew against a backdrop of gaping regions in a pandemic-weary United States along political, racial, socioeconomic, and regional lines. The lawsuit sparked more party war even as Democratic President Joe Biden, who took office in Jan. 20 after defeating Trump at the ballot box on Nov. 3, called for healing and unity after four turbulent years of his ancestors in power and a caustic election campaign.

Trump, 74, continues to hold on to his party with a judicial populist claim and a “America First” message. The wealthy businessman turned politician has considered running for president again in 2024.

Trump is the only president ever to be inducted into the House of Representatives – a step similar to a criminal lawsuit – as well as the first to be introduced twice and first to face trial after leaving office. But the Senate has yet to convict an amateur president.

Democrats went ahead with a high-profile move despite knowing it could go beyond early weeks of Biden’s presidency.

The House approved the same impeachment article against Trump on Jan. 13, with 10 Republicans joining the chamber’s Democratic majority. That vote came a week after the pro-Trump mob stormed the neoclassical domed capitol, stopped a formal conference confirmation of Biden’s influence, engaged an oversold police force, he said attacked the consecrated house and the Senate chambers, and sent in lawyers to hide for their own safety. .

Shortly before the rampage, Trump urged his supporters to march on the Capitol, reiterating his false claims that the election had been stolen from him by far-flung voting, and told them “if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore. “

During the trial, nine House lawyers who were trial managers, or prosecutors, persuaded Trump’s elders to hold him accountable for crimes against American democracy and to prevent future repetition . They played an investigative video of protesters swimming inside the Capitol and strongly threatening politicians including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and then Vice President Mike Pence. House managers said Trump called the move to Washington, gave march orders to the public and did nothing to stop the ensuing violence.

Defense Democrats have been accused by defense lawyers not only of trying to portray Trump as a feared political opponent in the future but of coming together to criminalize him. a political speech to which they disagreed and aimed to silence the voices of the tens of millions of voters who supported it.

Trump’s lawyers argued that the lawsuit was unlawful because he had already resigned and that his views were protected by the constitutional right to the language. -free. The words Trump used, they argued, were different from the words Democrats routinely used.

In his previous impeachment trial, the Senate voted to get Trump on two charges – abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. That impeachment arose from Trump’s 2019 pressure on Ukraine to investigate Biden as he seeks foreign support to salt a domestic political rival.

A common theme in the allegations at the heart of both impeachments was that Trump abandoned accepted democratic norms to advance his own political interests.

The U.S. Constitution defines impeachment as the instrument by which Congress can remove office leaders and prevent them from “betrayal, bribery or other crimes and misconduct. “

Impeachment, once a rarity, has become more common in America’s era of toxic political polarization in recent decades. In the 209 years after the inauguration of the first US president, George Washington, in 1789, there was only one impeachment.

Since 1998, there have been three, including two Trump. Andrew Johnson was extradited and acquitted in 1868 after the American Civil War and Bill Clinton was deported in 1998 and acquitted in 1999 of allegations of a sex scandal.

Richard Nixon retired in 1974 in lieu of impeachment over the Watergate scandal.

Trump’s release does not end the potential for other congressional action against him such as the censure move. A Republican appearance was dead against a view put by Democrats in the provision of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution banning from public office anyone who has “engaged in a revolution or re- out ”against the government.

The impeachment talks can also be seen in the context of a battle for the future of the Republican Party. Some Republicans – mostly moderators and founding figures – have intimidated the side that Trump took their party. Spies have accused Trump – who has never been in public office before – of weakening democratic institutions, promoting a cult of personality and following policies built around “white protest”. ”In a country with a growing non-white population.