Most GOP senators don’t want to hold trial

Vote signifies that Trump’s acquittal is almost certain

WASHINGTON — All but five Republican senators backed former President Donald Trump on Tuesday in a key test vote ahead of his impeachment trial, signaling that the proceedings are likely to end with Trump’s acquittal on the charge that he incited the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

The vote also demonstrated the continued sway Trump holds over GOP officeholders, even after his exit from the White House under a historic cloud caused by his refusal to concede the November election and his unprecedented efforts to challenge the result.

Trump’s trial is not scheduled to begin until Feb. 9, but senators were sworn in for the proceedings

Tuesday, and they immediately voted on an objection raised by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., questioning the constitutional basis for the impeachment and removal of a former president.

“Impeachment is for removal from office, and the accused here has already left office,” he argued, adding that the trial would “drag our great country down into the gutter of rancor and vitriol, the likes of which has never been seen in our nation’s history.”

But Democrats argue that Trump must be held accountable for the riot, which saw the Capitol overrun and claimed the lives of one police officer and four rioters. Paul’s argument, they said, suggests that presidents can act with impunity late in their terms.

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said Tuesday that the Republican argument is “flat-out wrong by every frame of analysis — constitutional context, historical practice, precedent and basic common sense.”

The final vote was 55 to 45 to kill Paul’s objection, with GOP Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Patrick Toomey of Pennsylvania joining all 50 Democrats.

The largely partisan vote indicated that, nearly three weeks after the Capitol attack, much of the GOP anger over Trump’s actions immediately before and during the siege has faded. Notably, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. — who previously said Trump had “provoked” the Capitol mob — voted to back Paul and Trump, who has reached out to senators directly and through intermediaries to marshal support.

Convicting Trump would require support from 67 members of the 100-member body. The Democratic-led House has already impeached Trump a historic second time. If convicted in the Senate, the former president could be barred from holding office with a subsequent majority vote.

Paul had sought to muster at least 34 votes in support of his objection to signal that there were enough senators with constitutional misgivings to secure an acquittal. After the vote, Paul declared that “the impeachment trial is dead on arrival.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who has been advising Trump on his defense, said Tuesday that he considered 45 votes to be “a floor, not a ceiling” for an acquittal vote.

A few senators who voted with Paul disputed that Tuesday’s vote was a foolproof indication of the trial’s outcome. Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, for instance, told reporters he wanted to hear further debate on the constitutionality question but had not yet decided whether to convict Trump.

But several other Republicans, including Collins, drew the conclusion that a Trump acquittal was now fait accompli. “I think it’s pretty obvious from the vote today that it is extraordinarily unlikely that the president will be convicted,” she said. “Just do the math.”

Before the vote, Republican senators met for a private lunch where they heard from Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor who has argued that a former president cannot be tried for impeachment.

Exiting the lunch, Turley said that he had presented a nuanced argument — that the benefits of condemning a now-departed president were “outweighed by the cost” of setting the precedent that Congress could retrospectively impeach and remove former presidents, creating a new political weapon.

The theory has gained traction among Republicans as a way to side with Trump while sidestepping the question of whether he “incited” the violence at the Capitol — the allegation that is at the heart of the impeachment effort.

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said he hoped that Tuesday’s vote would prompt Democrats to reassess if it was even worth having a trial.

“I hope my colleagues … look at it from the standpoint, is it wise to do this?” he said. “I would hope we would end this now. It’s just not wise. It’s not healing. It’s divisive.”