KC senators vote to table Trump’s impeachment, signaling how they’ll vote in trial
All four GOP senators from the Kansas City region voted Tuesday to table former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, helping to all but guarantee Trump’s acquittal when the proceedings begin next month.
The Senate met Tuesday to adopt rules for the upcoming trial, but Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul brought a motion to table, arguing that the trial of a president after he leaves office would be unconstitutional.
Paul’s motion was voted down 55-45. It means the trial can proceed but also indicates the Senate is unlikely to reach the two-thirds majority of 67 votes required for Trump’s conviction.
Only five Republicans voted against Paul’s motion: Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Maine Sen. Susan Collins and Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, who was the only Republican vote to convict Trump at this first impeachment trial.
The four Republican senators from the Kansas City area voted in favor of Paul’s motion.
“I believe the constitutional purpose for presidential impeachment is to remove a president from office, not to punish a person after they have left office. No consideration was given to impeaching President Nixon when he resigned in 1974,” said Missouri Republican Sen. Roy Blunt, the No. 4 Republican in the Senate, in a statement.
“The Constitution hasn’t changed and the Congress should not set a new, destructive precedent. “
It is a talking point that has been used by numerous Republicans since the House’s impeachment vote.
Kansas Republican Sen. Jerry Moran’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment about his vote.
The Constitution contains no explicit prohibition against trying a person who has left office. While a president has never faced an impeachment trial after leaving the White House, the Senate has tried a cabinet secretary after he left office.
Trump also did not resign as Richard Nixon did mid-way through his second term. He refused to concede the free and fair election and was impeached during the final week of his single term.
Senate Republican leaders decided to hold off on a trial until after President Joe Biden took office. That delay has been used as the blanket reason for not convicting Trump without defending his behavior.
Trump remains eligible to run for a non-consecutive second term in 2024.
He stands accused of inciting insurrection after a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol. Trump encouraged them to converge on the grounds to protest the certification of Biden’s electoral victory.
‘Emotional level’
Blunt, the Senate Rules chair, told The Star he was the one who insisted on proceeding with the counting of electoral votes as soon as the rioters were cleared from the building.
“Don’t worry about trash on the floor. Don’t worry about something that’s broken. If the microphone’s working and the camera’s working, that’s all that matters,” Blunt recalled his instructions to the Architect of the Capitol, the office that oversees the building.
“You need to send a message both to the country and to the world that something like this is not going to stop the United States,” Blunt said about the need to proceed that night.
Democrats contend that failing to hold Trump accountable for his role in inciting the violence will send a damaging message, undermining the nation’s institutions even after he has left office.
The riot culminated weeks of conspiracy-mongering and racist innuendo by Trump and his allies, who claimed without evidence that the election was stolen in swing state cities with high minority populations.
“It was a message that he clearly sent over and over and over again,” Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Missouri Democrat, told The Star earlier this month. “People picked that up. And that’s why you had a lot of white supremacists in that crowd.”
Two of the Kansas City region’s senators were among the handful of Republicans to vote to overturn the election after the riot, Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley and Kansas Republican Sen. Roger Marshall.
Marshall, a freshman senator who voted against Trump’s previous impeachment of the House, was one of three Republicans present in the Senate chamber Monday evening when the House formally delivered the Articles of Impeachment.
Just three weeks after white nationalists stormed the Capitol to keep Trump in power, Marshall accused Democrats of being motivated by hatred in pursuing Trump’s impeachment.
“It just struck me the hatred that some people have towards President Trump, and how emotional it was for them, that they were down this emotional level, and not doing what I think is responsible, which is to say, look, the president has already left and this is unconstitutional what they’re doing,” Marshall told the Senate press pool Tuesday morning.
Hawley was the first senator to announce his intention to object to Biden’s electoral victory and he faces similar allegations that he helped incite the mob that stormed the Capitol.
Speaking to the Senate press pool Monday, Hawley distanced himself from Trump, while still maintaining that an impeachment trial would be unconstitutional.
“I think the ex-president’s rhetoric on the day was inflammatory. I think it was irresponsible. I think it was wrong,” said Hawley, who faces criticism about his own rhetoric regarding the election from former donors and supporters.
“But I think that this impeachment effort is, I mean, I think it’s blatantly unconstitutional,” Hawley said. “It’s a really really, really dangerous precedent. Because if you can do this, then you can just do anything.”
This story was originally published January 26, 2021 at 4:22 PM.
