The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
WHAT’S NEXT
Republicans, after succeeding in blocking witnesses, will almost certainly acquit President Trump today.
■ The historic impeachment trial of President Trump is expected to wrap up today with an acquittal in the GOP-led Senate.
WASHINGTON — The Senate is so far cleaving neatly along party lines in advance of today’s virtually certain votes to acquit President Donald Trump on two impeachment charges, with just two or three undecided members even considering breaking with their party. Senators took turns on the Senate floor Tuesday announcing how they would vote when they render a verdict.
What happened
Trump is accused of pressuring Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 presidential campaign on his behalf, by withholding military aid and a White House meeting to lean on the country to investigate his political rivals.
The impeachment trial was not formally meeting Tuesday, ahead of Trump’s State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress.
But their comments Tuesday were a last opportunity for senators to explain their positions before voting on the verdict, and they appeared to be aimed at their constituents, their core supporters, and in some cases, the president.
Collins announces she will vote to acquit
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said Tuesday that she would vote to acquit Trump of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, calling his conduct “wrong” but saying she could not support removing him from office.
The House Democratic managers failed to substantiate their assertion “that the president will remain a threat to national security and the Constitution if allowed to remain in office,” Collins said in a speech from the Senate floor.
Collins said that Trump’s call to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy of Ukraine, in which he asked for an investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden, was “improper and demonstrated very poor judgment,” but pointed to “conflicting evidence in the record” about Trump’s motivation for the “improper request.”
Collins, a moderate who is facing a steep reelection challenge this year, had bucked other Republicans when she voted in support of bringing in new witnesses to testify at Trump’s trial. She had been seen as one of only a few in her party who might convict the president of high crimes and misdemeanors. Twenty-one years ago, Collins voted to acquit President Bill Clinton during his impeachment. But she did not side with Democrats when it came to the final vote in Trump’s trial.
McConnell continues to rip Democrats’ motives
Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the majority leader, issued a stern rebuke of the House Democrats’ case and strategy, casting it as a politically motivated attack that amounted to the “most rushed, least fair and least thorough presidential impeachment inquiry in American history.”
In his most detailed remarks on the impeachment managers’ case to date, McConnell undercut an argument that the White House defense team had presented: that impeachment requires the violation of a criminal statue. But while McConnell said he did not subscribe to that legal theory, he condemned House Democrats all the same for sailing into “new and dangerous waters.”
Schumer: Senate trial ‘fails the laugh test’
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., spoke only briefly, to rebut what he called the majority leader’s talking points.
Defending the House managers’ case as “compelling,” Schumer denounced Senate Republicans for blocking his motion to consider hearing from additional witnesses — including John Bolton, the president’s former national security adviser who had offered to testify — and receive more evidence. The trial they created, Schumer said, “fails the laugh test.”
“The Republicans refused to get the evidence because they were afraid of what it would show,” he said, “and that’s all that needs to be said.”
Kaine: Senate infected by ‘a toxic president’
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., pledged to vote to remove Trump, and lamented the Senate’s “capitulation,” a turn of events, he said, that surprised him.
“We have allowed a toxic president to infect the Senate and warp its behavior,” Kaine said. “And now the Senate’s refusal to allow a fair trial threatens to spread a broader public anxiety about whether ‘impartial justice’ is a hollow fiction.”
Kaine, known in the Senate for his optimism, sounded a dark warning, insisting that an acquittal would only embolden Trump to engage in worse conduct.
What’s next
The bitterly divided Senate is all but certain to acquit Trump on both charges — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. It would take a two-thirds vote, or 67 senators, to convict and remove him, a threshold that neither side expects to materialize.