Still tethered to Trump, Republicans have ample impeachment risks
by W. James Antle III, Politics Editor |
| February 02, 2021 06:00 AM
As former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial approaches, Republicans find themselves confronting a dilemma about how closely tied they should remain to the polarizing figure who departed the White House last month.
While Democrats face their own impeachment quandary — how much political capital should they spend on a Senate trial for a president who is already out of office at the expense of enacting a COVID-19 relief package and other items on President Biden’s legislative agenda? — it is beginning to dawn on Republicans that Trump might not let them rely on constitutional process arguments in advocating for his acquittal.
Forty-five Senate Republicans have already voted in favor of dismissing the House’s charge that Trump incited an insurrection when he addressed supporters who later stormed the Capitol to protest certifying the election results on Jan. 6. Their reasoning is that it is unconstitutional to use the impeachment process against a former president. (Five GOP senators voted with the chamber's Democrats that doing so is constitutional.)
The vote signaled that some GOP lawmakers rumored to be open to convicting Trump, such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, could, in fact, vote to acquit him. It would be difficult to support Trump’s conviction after going on record as saying that his trial violates the Constitution. Sen. Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican who raised this point of order, described impeachment as “dead on arrival.â€
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