By Denny Gulino
WASHINGTON (MaceNews) – The second impeachment of President Donald Trump Wednesday has left open the future of his “stop the steal” movement entwined with the violent attack on the Capitol. The next step, a Senate trial, could clarify what happens next.
The final vote was 232 to 197 with eight members not voting. That 10 Republicans voted with Democrats made the impeachment the most bipartisan of the other two suchr exercises through history. That 197 Republicans stuck with Trump, having argued against impeachment on a variety of grounds, showed no major defections are yet threatening his hold on the lower Chamber’s partisans.
Senator Mitch McConnell confirmed the obligatory Senate trial will be held under Democratic control, beginning as soon as Inauguration Day after which Trump will be a private citizen. McConnell, even while losing his leadership post to Sen. Chuck Schumer, will still hold the key to any conviction.
If The New York Times story is correct – and it has not been denied – that McConnell was pleased with the impeachment effort, that would raise the possibility he could influence his Republican colleagues to amass the 17 votes for the two-thirds majority required for conviction. Such a conviction would eliminate any elective office in Trump’s future since that would take only an additional simple majority vote.
President Trump quickly issued a video after the impeachment in which he said, “Mob violence goes against everything I believe in.” He went on, “No true supporter of mine could have ever endorsed violence,” a statement that will doubtless be cited by his defenders in his pending Senate trial – a trial that could ultimately take away most of his post-presidency perks.
Trump did not refer to the House vote . Since his last impeachment Trump has lost his Twitter account and several other social media avenues, including YouTube, as those firms said he has been repeatedly violating their rules against incitement to violence.
The single article of impeachment charged Trump with “incitement to insurrection” and was based on the culmination of his two months of denying Joe Biden won the presidency fairly, the rampage of hundreds of his supporters through the Capitol building. The document was signed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi late in the day, saying it was a sad, heartbreaking event. She did not answer questions of reporters.
A Capitol police officer was fatally injured. Many dozens of the Capitol police and D.C. metropolitan police were injured at the Capitol, and the chants of “Hang Pence” and other threats were convincing evidence many more lives, including those of lawmakers, were in jeopardy. Now the Capitol is ringed by a double perimeter of nine-foot fencing, backed up by a National Guard and police force of more than 15,000 that will grow even larger by next Wednesday’s inauguration ceremony.
Trump has still not formally conceded Joe Biden won the election fairly and he has repeated the win was stolen from him. He has refused to accept any responsibility for the Capitol riots or in the subsequent threats the FBI has said are directed against the inauguration ceremony and every statehouse across the country. Wray late Wednesday warned police departments across the country to be prepared for violence and to share any intelligence.
What Congress loosely describes as debate, the serial statements for and against impeachment that led to the final vote, included a narrow range of arguments. Republicans unanimously condemned the week-ago violence but in all but a few instances said Trump did not contribute to it.
Democrats cited Trump’s tweets weeks ago looking forward to a “wild” gathering in Washington, his exhortations to the crowd saying to exercise their strength at the Capitol and his failure to effectively stop the rampage as reasons he needs to be removed from office. That it all was intended to overturn the results of an election and block the Senate from certifying Electoral College votes, was the basis for the indictment of sedition returned by the House.
The single most effective argument for Democrats, however, was the oft repeated accusation of a Republican, that of the No. 3 in the House Republican leadership, Liz Cheney. Her words in the mouths of Democrats could be heard again and again. Trump “summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack, she said. “Everything that followed was his doing,” she said. “None of this would have happened without the president. I will vote to impeach the president.”
It was not lost on any Republican that Cheney’s father is former vice president, defense secretary and one-time Republican Whip in the House Dick Cheney, making her break with Trump much more of a counter to House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, a Trump loyalist, than would be the case with perhaps any other member of Congress. The tension within the GOP, having just reelected party officials who are firmly in Trump’s camp, has set the stage for a showdown, the outcome of which may depend on what the Senate does as soon as next week.
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Contact this reporter: denny@macenews.com.
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