In the silent security video, Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah walks to his hidden workplace on the U. S. Capitol. He’s passed the Ohio watch, with his back to the Senate as he walks away from the camera, some other guy takes a few steps. That’s when Capitol police officer Eugene Goodguy rushes down the aisle into the bedroom and orders Romney to walk back, away from Trump’s angry supporters.
On Wednesday, just over a month after a pro-Trump crowd broke into the Capitol on January 6, Romney stared at the screen, blinking temporarily but sitting still. That’s how the Senate’s impequation procedure sat for much of whether former President Donald Trump, like his 99 jurors, Romney weighed the arguments put forward through House political trial officials and Trump’s defense and eventually voted that Trump was guilty, as he did in the former president’s first impequation.
Romney joined through six other Republican senators (Senators Richard Burr, Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Ben Sasse and Pat Toomey) in voting to convict Trump, but the vast majority of Republicans did not. The Senate voted to acquit President Donald Trump, through 57 votes to 43 on Saturday, 10 votes below the threshold needed to convict him and expel him from office in the long run.
Refusing to close the door, Trump, the former president, along with the poisonous policy he advocates, is free to cross it again, as he would have advised him to do. The Romneys in the Senate and the Liz Cheneys in the House, who voted for the impe-trial and need to see their Republican Party emerge from the shadow of the 45th president, have so far lost and although Congressional Republicans opened the door to him with his vote, even those who voted to acquit him said his legacy would not. be immaculate.
“It’s about preserving the republic, the expensive Senate,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the leading Democratic political trial official, at one point in the process, almost begging. “That’s what it’s all about: establishing criteria of conduct for the president of the United States so that this never happens to us again. “
Throughout the political trial, Democrats argued that the January 6 occasions were predictable after Trump questioned for months the effects of the 2020 presidential election and rebuilt crowd movements in and out of capitol construction to demonstrate the proximity of lawmakers to danger and how the insurrection had directly jeopardized the line of presidential succession.
Capitol Hill regulars, survivors of the January 6 attack, and many U. S. senators have re-checked their own reports of the day as political trial officials accompanied them, as well as the public: Romney security video, audio from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi terrified calls for help as a pro-Trump crowd knocks on a nearby door. Arrange a clip showing senators leaving the Senate chamber, another clip from then-vice president Mike Pence being evacuated.
The Captivating testimony of Democrats bewitched the Senate, even Trump’s lawyers seemed defeated, but only momentarily. On Friday, Trump’s defense team turned to focus their argument on a First Amendment defense. House officials had widely quoted Trump’s speech to his supporters on the day of the Capitol attack, where he told them to “fight like hell. “In an attempt to downplay this rhetoric, the defense completed a false argument of equivalence that democrats’ use of the word “fight” in political rhetoric is the same.
The presentation of the defense’s suggestion recalled his client’s grandiose style. “In short, this accusation was a total farce from start to finish,” Michael van der Veen, one of Trump’s lawyers, said in his final comments. “The totalArray. . of the exhibition was nothing more than the disorderly pursuit of a long-standing political vendetta that opposed Trump through the opposition party.
They also argued that it was unconstitutional to review a president who is no longer in the workplace and that Democrats had not conducted a thorough investigation before rushing to file a political trial. They overlooked the fact that Trump had been invited to testify at the Senate trial and refused.
His defense presentation lasted just under 3 hours, after which the Senate moved on to a question-and-answer period. His lawyer said Trump never warned of the danger Pence was in, directly contradicting public statements through Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who said he informed the president that Pence had been evacuated from the Senate House in a phone call.
On Friday night, Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler issued a confirmation of the main points of his verbal exchange with parliamentary minority leader Kevin McCarthy in which he told him he had spoken to Trump during the attack, begging him to call the troublemakers. “Well, Kevin, I guess those other people are more disappointed than you are with the election, ” Trump allegedly told McCarthy.
From the beginning, there was a transparent preference on both sides of the aisle to move temporarily through this accusation. Perhaps at no point was this momentum more noticeable than on Saturday, when the House prosecution team made the wonderful Senate announcement that it was seeking to quote. Herrera Beutler.
A possible fight opposed to witnesses was at stake that may have extended the Senate trial and anger erupted in the Senate. Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson has visibly angered Romney after the Utah senator voted to call a witness, appearing angry and heard him say in part, “You blame. “In the end, the two sides reached a quick agreement to present Herrera Beutler as evidence without further prolonging the process.
At the time, it was already transparent that no evidence would replace republican minds enough to condemn. By Tuesday, by the time the trial began, 44 Republicans had already voted that the entire trial was unconstitutional, making it incredibly unlikely that House administrators would get all 17 Republican votes. “Everyone knows the latest results of this procedure, that President Trump is going to be acquitted,” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said Saturday, hours before the final vote.
When asked through TIME after the vote how he felt about seven Republican senators voting to convict Trump, six more than in the past political trial, Trump’s lawyer, Bruce Castor Jr. , replied, “A victory is a victory. “
“This was another phase of the biggest witch hunt in our country’s history,” Trump said after the vote. “No president has experienced anything like this. “
President Donald Trump is the only U. S. president to have been charged twice and acquitted twice, leaving him free to run again for politics, but that doesn’t mean his disorder is over.
At least two state-level investigations are reportedly being conducted on the former president, one in New York similar to his finances and one in Georgia that became known in the Senate’s political trial, which was supposed to be related to his efforts to cancel the election.
“President Trump remains guilty of everything he did while in office, as a citizen,” Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell said after voting not to blame Saturday, arguing that the corrupt justice formula and civil litigation are the reasons why Trump will be responsible. “He hasn’t done anything yet. “
The impe trial could also have harmed Trump in other ways. While House officials provided a detailed account of Trump’s movements before and the insurrection, they would possibly have diluted his political strength with the Republican Party, even when many lawmakers helped him. who had lost his help in the days after the insurrection for a possible career in 2024.
“I don’t think he’ll ever be president of the United States again based on what’s going on here,” said Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, who voted in favor of acquittal, when asked about Trump’s long career in the Republican Party. the procedure has been harmful. “
However, nothing prevents you from trying. This would possibly be the last time Trump has sucked all the oxygen out of the Capitol in such a prestigious way, but it’s not offside. Lindsey Graham told Politico Friday that he planned to meet with Trump to inspire him to worry about the 2022 races. Cramer said that while he might no longer run for the country’s highest office, Trump would continue to “have so much influence. “as I suspect he wants. “
For Democrats who have advocated Trump’s conviction, this is a perspective.
“The hard, bloodless fact is that what happened on January 6 can happen again. I fear, like many of you, that the violence we saw on this terrible day is just the beginning,” Colorado Rep. Joe Neguse, one of the law enforcement officials, said Saturday. “Senators, this can’t be the beginning. It can’t be the new normal. This is going to have to be the end. And that resolution is in your hands.
For many who have watched the trial up close, those considerations may not seem as exaggerated as they did a few weeks ago, and unless there is a conviction, convincing others of this may also be the biggest victory Democrats can also have. I was waiting.
—Report via Tessa Berenson / Washington