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Republicans signal support for Trump in Senate impeachment trial
A motion to render the trial unconstitutional was defeated in a 45-55 vote in the Democrat-led 100-member Senate, which cleared the way for the trial to proceed. But the voting pattern revealed that Trump may eventually be acquitted, as a conviction requires a supermajority.
US Senate Republicans on Tuesday signalled they were ready to hand former president Donald Trump another acquittal when most of them rallied behind a motion that argued his impeachment trial was unconstitutional.
The proposal, moved by Republican Senator Rand Paul, was defeated in a 45-55 vote in the Democratic-led 100-member Senate, which cleared the way for the trial to proceed. But the voting pattern revealed that Trump may eventually be acquitted, as a conviction requires a supermajority.
Paul had argued that the trial of Trump as a private citizen violated the constitution.
“Forty-five votes means the impeachment trial is dead on arrival,” Paul told reporters after the vote. “We’re excited about it. It’s one of the few times in Washington where a loss is actually a victory.”
At least 17 Republicans senators will have vote with the 50 Democrats in the impeachment trial in the evenly divided Senate to achieve a two-third supermajority to convict the former president, who is charged with incitement of insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6.
In a possible sign of things to come, only five Republican senators — Mitt Romney, Susan Collins, Ben Sasse, Pat Toomey and Lisa Murkowski— broke with the party on Tuesday and voted against Paul’s motion.
The remaining 45 voted in support of the proposal, including Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate who has been among the most outspoken of Trump’s critics since January 6, saying the rioters had been “provoked by the president and other powerful people”.
They may choose to vote differently in the trial, experts have warned, but chances of that were said to be slim.
The vote took place shortly after the 100 senators had been sworn in as jurors for the impeachment trial, which is slated to start on February 9.
Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives on January 13, a week after the storming of the US Capitol, on the solitary charge of incitement of insurrection. He is the only US president impeached twice and the first to face an impeachment trial after leaving office.
Trump was acquitted the last time by a Republican-led Senate, in January 2020. If he was convicted, he would have had to leave office. This time, as he is out of power already, a conviction would disqualify him from holding a public office in future.
Later Tuesday, Senator Patrick Leaky, the Democrat who is presiding over the impeachment trial, was taken briefly to hospital “out of an abundance of caution” after he felt unwell, spokesperson said.
