di David MacMillan
On February 5, Donald Trump became the first American president to receive votes for removal from both the opposition and his own party.
It was also the first time any party in the Senate had unanimously voted to convict and remove a president for high crimes and misdemeanors. In 1999, ten Republicans — including current senators Susan Collins and Richard Shelby — crossed the aisle to vote with Democrats and acquit Clinton. The same was true with the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson in 1868. This was the first time an opposition party had all agreed, without defection, that a president needed to be removed to protect the country.
Trump’s survival of the Senate trial was never in question, but the partisan acquittal and bipartisan conviction votes dealt the president a heavy blow. After the Republicans had successfully shut their ears to hearing further incriminating testimony from fellow conservative John Bolton and had quashed attempts to subpoena damning emails, there was widespread anticipation in the GOP that Trump would receive acquittal votes from both parties.
Republican lawmakers from the House insisted it was only a matter of how many Democrats would defect. On the Senate floor, South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham boldly predicted an “overwhelming” acquittal and vowed revenge on the President’s political enemies.
These hopes were dashed when Utah senator and 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney stood in the Senate on Wednesday afternoon.
“The grave question the Constitution tasks senators to answer is whether the President committed an act so extreme and egregious that it rises to the level of a ‘high crime and misdemeanor.’
“Yes, he did.
“The President asked a foreign government to investigate his political rival. The President withheld vital military funds from that government to press it to do so. The President delayed funds for an American ally at war with Russian invaders. The President’s purpose was personal and political.
“Accordingly, the President is guilty of an appalling abuse of the public trust.
“What he did was not ‘perfect’ — no, it was a flagrant assault on our electoral rights, our national security interests, and our fundamental values. Corrupting an election to keep oneself in office is perhaps the most abusive and destructive violation of one’s oath of office that I can imagine.
“With my vote, I will tell my children and their children that I did my duty to the best of my ability, believing that my country expected it of me. That I was among the senators who determined that what the President did was wrong, grievously wrong.”
Romney would go on, just hours later, to vote “Guilty” on abuse of power but “Not Guilty” on obstruction of Congress. It was a bold move for a freshman senator whose constituents have a lower approval of him than of Trump.
Romney’s example was ignored by centrist Republicans Lisa Murkowski, Ben Sasse, Susan Collins, and Lamar Alexander, who all admitted that Trump’s actions were wrong and illegal but nevertheless declined to vote against him. In her statement, Susan Collins declared that she believed Trump had “learned his lesson” and probably wouldn’t try to extort another foreign country for political assistance again. When pressed by Fox’s Martha MacCallum, she tempered her statement again, saying she only hoped he would learn his lesson.
Of course, this is the most wishful sort of thinking.
David MacMillan per Age of Awareness
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