The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
After Trump acquittal, Blumenthal says ‘quest for accountability will continue.’
WASHINGTON — After his impeachment acquittal, Connecticut Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy warned that former President Donald Trump cannot get away with his actions leading up to the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
“No one wanted to hold another impeachment trial. No one wanted to relive the painful and traumatic events of January 6th. But we had to do so,” Murphy said in a statement. “Without accountability, we simply do not have a democracy.”
Blumenthal said: “The quest for accountability will continue.”
“Although we did not reach a conviction, it does provide some measure of accountability — but much more must be done to stop a would-be Trump tyrant from similar attempts to mobilize or exploit the rage of violent extremists to subvert our democracy,” Blumenthal said, noting the prosecutions of people who stormed the Capitol and criminal investigation into Trump’s election efforts in Georgia.
He said Democrats could consider steps like censure against Trump, but he wants to focus on more coronavirus relief legislation.
Connecticut House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora, R-North Branford, said Trump’s words and actions inflamed individuals and likely sparked the attack, but accountability should have come from the justice system, if warranted, not lawmakers. He urged politicians to take the temperature down.
“Holding somebody accountable for words and actions, I think is a really slippery slope because I think as was demonstrated in the hearing, there are just as many other public officials who have said some pretty horrible things and have incited similar type of violence,” he said. “To the extent that Democrats want to continue to go after Trump is going to be viewed as political opportunity as opposed to really seeking justice.”
The Senate voted 57-43 Saturday for conviction, short of the 67 votes needed to convict Trump on the charge of inciting an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Support from twothirds of the Senate is needed to convict.
Blumenthal and Murphy voted with all Democrats in favor of conviction, as they did in Trump’s previous impeachment trial in 2020, which also concluded with an acquittal. Republican Sens. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Mitt Romney of Utah, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Richard Burr of North Carolina and Ben Sasse of Nebraska voted with Democrats in this trial to convict.
“I wasn’t completely surprised because I had talked with a number of them,” Blumenthal said. “They didn’t tell me definitively what they were going to do... they were wrestling with this very challenging decision.”
The House impeachment managers presented their closing arguments Saturday after deciding not to call any witnesses to testify. They argued Trump pushed a lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him, incited his supporters to attack the Capitol to stop its certification and failed to intervene to stop the mobbing of the building, forcing lawmakers into lockdown and resulting in five deaths.
Trump’s defense team argued that Trump’s speech was protected by the first amendment and suggested his words did not meet the legal standard of incitement. They said he was innocent of wrongdoing.
After his acquittal, Trump called the trial “another phase in the greatest witch hunt in American history.”
"Our historic, patriotic and beautiful movement to Make America Great Again has only just begun. In the months ahead I have much to share with you, and I look forward to continuing our incredible journey together to achieve American greatness for all of our people," he said. "We have so much work ahead of us, and soon we will emerge with a vision for a bright, radiant, and limitless American future."
Blumenthal said he was not worried by the possibility of a future Trump campaign.
“I believe he has been so thoroughly disgraced and discredited by this evidence of fueling and inflaming mob violence that attempted to overthrow our democracy that the American people will see him for what he is,” he said.
Candelora feared another Trump campaign would be all about his personality, not his policies.
“I would hope that our president would reflect on the events over the last four years and think long and hard before he makes a decision like that,” Candelora said. “Regardless of whether people supported his policies or didn’t support his policies, the debate revolved around his personality because he has a very strong personality the way he presents. If that doesn’t change, I don’t think that’s helpful to the American people.”
U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, D-4, blasted Trump’s supporters and the Republicans who voted to acquit him.
“That millions of Americans admire him is a sickness in the land,” Himes said. “The Republican senators and congressmen who defended him have poisoned their legacies.”
Trump was defended by lawyers David Schoen, a criminal defense lawyer from Alabama, Bruce Castor, the former acting Attorney General of Pennsylvania, and Michael T. van der Veen, a criminal attorney from Pennsylvania. Van der Veen, who gave the defense’s closing arguments, obtained his law degree from Quinnipiac Law School in 1988 and graduated in 1981 from Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford.
One of the House managers prosecuting the case against Trump, U.S. Delegate Stacey Plaskett, D-V.I., graduated from Choate just three years after Van Der Veen. It’s not clear if they knew each other there.
While the historic trial — the first for a president who has left office and the first time a presidents has faced a second impeachment trial — is over, investigations into the events of Jan. 6 and leading up to it will continue.
Blumenthal said he plans to introduce legislation to establish a non-partisan commission to investigate the insurrection, similar to the one that probed the Sept. 11 attacks.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3, has been leading a congressional effort to examine law enforcement’s response to Jan. 6 through the House Appropriations Committee, which she chairs.
“Like so many others, I will never forget that day. I struggled to put on my gas mask in the House Chamber to the sound of gunshots and calls for violence and huddled with my Republican and Democratic colleagues as we ran and hid from the insurrectionists,” she said. “And I will never forget, and history won’t either, that the attack was the result of months of inspiration and a direct call for violence by the former president.”