GOP senators back rebuke, but not removal, of Trump
WASHINGTON — Even as they are set to acquit President Trump in his impeachment trial this week, Senate Republicans appear to be increasingly breaking with his defense that he did nothing wrong.
On Sunday, Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, who was a key vote against calling witnesses in the Senate trial, expanded upon his criticism that Trump was “crossing the line” in his pressure campaign against Ukraine. And Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, who has remained a reliable defender of the president during his trial, called his actions “not what I would have done.”
A day before the first contest of the 2020 election, two days before Trump’s State of the Union address and three days before his expected acquittal, they and other Republicans appeared to be coalescing around a more nuanced argument: Trump’s efforts to push Ukraine into investigating a political rival while withholding critical military aid might not have been appropriate. But that did not warrant the president’s removal from office for the first time in American history.
“I think he shouldn’t have done it — I think it was wrong,” Alexander said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “And then the only question left is: Who decides what to do about that?”
“The people,” he added. “The people, is my conclusion.”
Alexander acknowledged the merits of the House case for removing the president on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress: that the president had withheld nearly $400 million in military aid to pressure Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
“I don’t think it’s the kind of inappropriate action that the framers would expect the Senate to substitute its judgment for the people in picking a president,” he said Sunday.
That argument has come under fire from Democrats, who say the nature of Trump’s offense could compromise the 2020 election.
“They need to remove him from office because he is threatening to still cheat in the next election by soliciting foreign interference,” Rep. Adam Schiff, DBurbank, said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
The Republicans’ argument stands starkly at odds with Trump’s — that he had a “perfect” phone call with Ukraine’s president and did not act improperly.
But Alexander’s reasoning was echoed by multiple Republicans. “Lamar speaks for lots and lots of us,” said Sen. Ben Sasse, RNeb.