Will the Senate Vote to Convict Trump?

             Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and her minions in the House of Representatives voted January 13, 2021, to impeach President Donald Trump. The vote to impeach took place without any investigation or opportunity for Trump to defend himself.

House managers delivered the one article of impeachment – incitement of insurrection – to the U.S. Senate on Monday, January 25, 2021. Chief Justice John Roberts will not preside at the trial because Trump is no longer the President. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) will preside. Senators were sworn in as jurors on Tuesday, January 26, 2021. 

The Senate proceeding became more exciting soon after the swearing in procedure. Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) with support from other members of the GOP sought to block the Senate trial with a claim that the trial would be unconstitutional because Trump is no longer in office. The claim was put to a vote, and the Senate voted 55-45 to table the motion. 

            Five Republican Senators voted with the Democrats against the motion. They are Mitt Romney (R-Utah), Ben Sasse (R-Nebraska), Pat Toomey (R-Pennsylvania), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), and Susan Collins (R-Maine). Romney and Murkowski are no surprises because they are known to hate Trump, and Collins is from a liberal state.

            The fact that only five Republicans voted with the Democrats does not bode well for the people who want Trump convicted. Seventeen Republicans must vote with the Democrats to make the two-thirds of Senators required by the Constitution to remove a President from office. Paul later noted on Twitter that this vote could be a predictor as to how a Senate trial would conclude. “The Senate just voted on my constitutional point of order. 45 Senators agreed that this sham of a ‘trial’ is unconstitutional. That is more than will be needed to acquit and to eventually end this partisan impeachment process. This ‘trial’ is dead on arrival in the Senate.”

            The whole purpose for the impeachment and unconstitutional trial is an attempt on the part of the Democrats to keep Trump from running for office again. They have seen what he can do, and they are scared of him. They know that he is willing to stand up to them and to fight for the American people. The American people – at least half of us – appreciate the fact that he is willing to fight for them instead of fold like so many Republicans do.

            If nothing else happens and the Republicans hold together, it looks like Trump will be acquitted of inciting an insurrection. He is guilty of demanding integrity in the election process of asking his supporters who were in Washington, D.C., to “march peacefully and patriotically” to the Capitol to make their voices heard.

            I think that it is ironic that Murkowski is upset with Paul for forcing a vote for holding a trial. She said that the vote forced by Paul’s motion was “premature and unnecessary.” She excused her vote as one to give the Senate time to “thoughtfully consider this weighty institutional issue.” That is an interesting comment because she is already on record as calling for Trump to resign from office.