McConnell tells GOP senators Trump’s impeachment trial is ‘vote of conscience’

• Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has emailed senators telling them that their decision whether or not to convict President Donald Trump in the next impeachment trial will be a “vote of conscience,” the US Senator said. North Dakota Kevin Cramer to Insider in an exclusive interview.
• Cramer has said he does not want Trump to be impeached. But he’s also not sure whether he wants the president to take up a federal post again after putting democracy in jeopardy, he said.
• “A conviction of Trump may mean he doesn’t show up anymore, but that doesn’t mean he gives up without a fight,” Cramer told Insider. “I don’t know if the impeachment sends a message that is a winning message to our base.”
• Cramer and others have been very enthusiastic about a legal assessment of retired Federal Judge J. Michael Luttig, saying the Senate cannot hold an impeachment trial once Trump leaves office.
• Visit the Business Insider homepage for more stories.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell tells fellow Republicans they have the freedom to vote as they see fit in Donald Trump’s upcoming impeachment trial after the lame president incites a deadly riot on January 6 at the US Capitol.

“His message to me was that it would clearly be a vote of conscience,” Senator Kevin Cramer, a Republican from North Dakota, told Insider. “He’s always been respectful of the members that way.”

The Senate could begin its trial of the president as early as Wednesday, the same day as the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden. According to Senate rules, the Upper House must prioritize the Trump trial after the House officially releases its impeachment article accusing Trump of inciting the rioters who stormed the Capitol. So far, that has not happened and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday declined to say when Democrats plan to make the official transfer.

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Ahead of the trial, GOP sources close to McConnell and the White House said earlier this week that the Kentucky Republican may vote to convict Trump in order to prevent him from filling federal office again. McConnell later told the other senators that he had not made up his mind and wanted to listen to the legal arguments before drawing any conclusions.

Cramer, a former House Republican and early Trump supporters in 2016 who stuck with him throughout his tenure, said he didn’t want to vote to condemn Trump. But he said he might be open to voting to ban Trump from serving again after last week’s attack.

Such a vote to end Trump’s federal career for good only requires a simple majority, but that would only happen if two-thirds of the Senate voted to condemn Trump. It had never occurred to a president in more than 230 years of American history.

Win McNamee / Getty Images

GOP senator calls riot ‘an attack’ on the Republic

The nationwide attack on the Capitol rocked lawmakers on both sides ahead of Biden’s inauguration, where around 20,000 National Guard troops established camp in and around the seat of the country’s legislative power.

“This is the representative republic at work, and it was such an assault – it was an assault on labor that day,” Cramer said in Thursday’s interview.

But the senator acknowledged that Republicans like him were also concerned about negative reactions from Trump and his supporters as the impeachment trial approached. Some GOP lawmakers have received death threats from Trump supporters and have purchased bulletproof vests to protect themselves.

Now they wonder if condemning Trump would chastise him or hold him accountable.

“A conviction of Trump may mean he doesn’t show up again, but that doesn’t mean he gives up without a fight,” Cramer said. “All of my pro-Trump Republican friends want to discourage me from blowing up the Constitution.”

The House voted on Wednesday 232-197 to impeach Trump for his role in urging rioters to storm Capitol Hill, making him the only president to be impeached twice. The 222 House Democrats and 10 Republicans all backed impeachment.

Trump spokespersons did not immediately return a request for comment on Friday. A spokesperson for McConnell declined to comment for this story.

Senate TV via AP

Counting of votes in the Senate

Senate Republicans have also debated behind the scenes whether an impeachment trial is even technically permissible, given that Trump will be out of office after noon on January 20.

Touring the GOP offices is an argument adopted by J. Michael Luttig, a former federal appeals judge who wrote in the Washington Post this week that the Senate cannot try an official once he left office.

“This Senate trial would be unconstitutional,” Luttig said.

Luttig’s point of view is not undisputed. Jeffrey Rosen, a constitutional scholar, said in Politico’s Playbook newsletter on Friday that discretion to hold the trial rests solely with the Senate.

It’s unclear how many Senate Republicans will eventually join the Democrats if the Trump trial – which will have U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts in charge – results in a final vote on conviction or acquittal. Even the more moderate members of the chamber, like Republican Senator from Alaska Lisa Murkowski, refuse to say how they will vote.

Cramer said he didn’t think there were 17 GOP senators who would join the 50 Democrats in condemning Trump.

If this scenario came true, Trump’s trial would end with the ex-president’s acquittal.

McConnell’s strategy of telling Republicans like Cramer they have the freedom to condemn Trump has sparked all kinds of speculation about what the GOP Senate Leader is doing. Some sources said they believe he is delivering a warning shot to the lame president that Republicans are done with him in politics.

“They’re free, like a bird,” a GOP source familiar with McConnell’s thinking told Insider. “They don’t want him to show up again. That’s what McConnell is trying to figure out how to do.”