What happened
Donald Trump’s second impeachment
trial ended in an acquittal last week, but
“guilty” votes from seven Republican
senators and a blistering denunciation of
Trump from Senate Minority Leader Mitch
McConnell exposed a deep rift in the GOP.
The vote to convict Trump was 57-43, 10
short of the two-thirds majority required
for conviction, with Sens. Richard Burr of
North Carolina, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana,
Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski
of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben
Sasse of Nebraska, and Patrick Toomey
of Pennsylvania breaking ranks to vote
with 50 Democrats. The vote followed
a three-day trial in which House impeachment managers argued
that Trump incited the violence with a deliberate, deceit-driven
campaign to sow outrage over a “stolen” election and overturn his
loss. The evidence included harrowing footage of the Jan. 6 Capitol
insurrection, which revealed that Vice President Mike Pence and
several lawmakers barely escaped from a rampaging mob. Trump’s
lawyers insisted the former president truly believed the election was
stolen and had a First Amendment right to say so, and called the
trial a “witch hunt.” It is a “blatantly unconstitutional act of politi-
cal vengeance,” said attorney Michael van der Veen.
House managers opted not to call witnesses but read into the
record an incriminating account from Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler
(R-Wash.) of a frantic phone call during the insurrection from
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to Trump. McCarthy,
Herrera Beutler said, pleaded with Trump to call off the rioters, and
Trump responded, “Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset
about the election than you are.” The account, along with GOP
Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s statement that he’d told Trump in another
call that Vice President Mike Pence had been hustled out of the Sen-
ate Chamber for his safety, indicated that
Trump knew how dire the situation had
become and yet did nothing to stop it.
Many Republicans hung their votes on
the argument—which the Senate had
voted earlier to reject—that the Con-
stitution forbids impeaching a former
president. Senate Minority Leader Mitch
McConnell voted to acquit on those
grounds but then condemned Trump in
an extraordinary speech. “There’s no
question, none, that President Trump
is practically and morally responsible
for provoking the events of the day,”
McConnell said. Citing reports that
Trump was happy as he watched the
assault on TV, McConnell accused him
of a “disgraceful dereliction of duty”
and suggested he should face criminal
prosecution and civil lawsuits.
What the editorials said
Trump’s acquittal was “no vindication,”
said The Wall Street Journal. He faced
“the most bipartisan conviction vote in
history,” and even most Republicans
offered no defense of his “inexcusable”
behavior. The trial “will mar his legacy
for all time.” America “is moving past
the Trump presidency, and the GOP
will remain in the wilderness until it
does, too.”“The Republican Party has betrayed
the nation,” said the Fort Lauderdale,
Fla., Sun-Sentinel. The party was “on
trial along with Donald Trump,” and
“both now stand convicted.” The 43
GOP senators willing to “excuse a
monumental crime against the Ameri-
can people” have “prostituted our
democracy to a demagogue and despot.” But the 17 House and
Senate Republicans who “put country above party” deserve the na-
tion’s gratitude, said the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Instead of being
pilloried by their own party, these “profiles in courage” should be
“templates for the party’s future.”What the columnists said
Trump’s Republican enablers “put their careers over duty, honor,
and the Constitution,” said Tom Nichols in USA Today. They are
guided by one principle: stay in office and keep power. If that re-
quires “bending the knee yet one more time to the cult of Trump,”
it is a price “they will gladly pay.”The Democrats’ decision to pass on witnesses was “inexplicable,”
said Jim Geraghty in NationalReview.com. “Handed a gift-
wrapped bombshell witness” in Herrera Beutler, they took a pass,
saying Republicans would have voted to acquit no matter what.
It was one of several “spectacularly wrongheaded” Democratic
moves, including charging Trump with incitement, a hard-to-prove
charge that “offered too much wiggle room.”McConnell tried to “have it both
ways,” said Jonah Goldberg in The
Dispatch.com. He denounced Trump
but voted to let him escape responsi-
bility, “in the hope of reconciling the
divisions in the party that cannot be
reconciled.” His moral abdication “is
emblematic of the GOP’s rot.”Trump’s legal problems are hardly over,
said Jonathan Chait in NYMag.com.
He faces state and local investigations
into potential financial crimes in New
York and two probes into his pressure
campaign to overturn the Georgia
election results. The Capitol incite-
ment could also bring criminal charges
and civil lawsuits. “The informal aura
of legal impunity granted to former
presidents” has been “stripped off” by
the trial and the weak defense of many
Republicans, who “very obviously
wish for Trump to be disqualified by
somebody else”— prosecutors, judges,
and juries. ErinScha
ff/The^New^ YorkTimes
/Redu
xA House staff member tallies the historic vote.THE WEEK February 26, 2021
4 NEWS The main stories...
Trump acquitted as seven Republicans break ranks
Illustration by Howard McWilliam
Cover photos from AP (3)What next?
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced plans
this week for “an independent, Sept. 11–style
commission” to investigate the Capitol insur-
rection, said Hope Yen in the Associated Press.
Bipartisan support “appeared to be growing”
for such a commission, which would address
questions left unanswered by the trial and offer
“a definitive government-backed accounting
of events.” Even stalwart Trump ally Sen. Lind-
sey Graham has backed a commission, which
“would probably require legislation to create.”
Still, there are details to hammer out about the
scope of such an investigation, and “Republicans
are likely to do everything they can to cripple it,”
said Greg Sargent in The Washington Post. To
protect both Trump and Republicans with “ties
to some of the extremist groups that waged the
assault,” they could mount a filibuster to deny
it subpoena power or limit its focus. The 9/
commission model, said one Senate Democratic
aide, “depends on the good-faith cooperation of
a Republican leadership that no longer exists.”