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Several Republican senators on Sunday discouraged suggestions that the chamber could convict former President Donald Trump in his upcoming impeachment trial.
“Well first of all, I think the trial is stupid,” Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Told “Fox News Sunday”. “I think it’s counterproductive. We already have a blazing fire in this country and [impeachment is] take a bunch of gasoline and pour it on the fire. “
Rubio added that he believes Trump “bears responsibility for some of what happened” in the deadly riots on Capitol Hill earlier this month, but doesn’t think impeachment is the right way to resolve the problem. He also said it would be “arrogant” to say that Trump should be barred from running again.
“The first chance I get to vote to end this trial, I will do it because I think it’s bad for America,” he said. “If you want to empower people, there are other ways of doing it, especially for the president.”
Rubio said impeachment “will make it harder to get things done that matter and will just continue to fuel those divisions that have crippled the country and turned us into a country of people who hate each other.”
Speaking to NBC’s “Meet the Press”, Senator Mike Rounds, RS.D., called the impeachment trial a “moot point.”
“Because I think right now Donald Trump is no longer the president, he is the former president,” Rounds said, adding that he didn’t think impeaching a former president was constitutionally viable. and that a trial would remove other items from the Senate agenda, including confirmation from President Joe Biden’s cabinet.
A Congressional Research Service report released this week noted that while the Constitution does not explicitly say whether a former president can be impeached, academics “who have scrutinized the matter have concluded that Congress has the power to extend the dismissal process for officials who are no longer in office. “
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., announced on Friday that a trial would begin in early February under a deal reached between Democrats and Republicans. In order to condemn the president, at least 17 Republicans would have to join all Democrats. If found guilty, the Senate could then determine whether to bar Trump from further candidacy for office.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Who has sharply criticized Trump in the wake of the riot, said he was undecided on whether to convict the former president. Meanwhile, Republicans like McConnell or the handful of GOP House members who voted in favor of Trump’s conviction have faced strong backlash from conservatives.
In an interview with ABC’s “This Week,” Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., Declined to say that the election was not stolen from the president – the sentiment that led to the Jan. 6 assault in the first place. For months, Trump and his allies have been making false claims about widespread electoral fraud and other electoral integrity issues.
Paul pledged to spend the next two years investigating the election and said he “won’t be intimidated by liberals in the media who say there is no evidence here and that you are a liar if you talk about electoral fraud. “
On “Meet the Press”, Rounds said that if he thinks “the election was fair,” he supports the investigation in order to “show it to the American people”.
Senator Mitt Romney, R-Utah, told CNN’s “State of the Union” that he would decide how to vote in the impeachment trial after being presented with the case. Romney was the only Republican to vote for the conviction of Trump in his first impeachment trial last year.
He added that he thought it was “fairly clear” that a post-presidential impeachment was constitutional and that it was appropriate that Trump be impeached by the House.
“I think what is alleged and what we have seen, which is an incitement to insurgency, is an ungodly crime,” he said. “Otherwise, what is it?”
On “This Week,” Senator Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., Highlighted the 1876 impeachment trial of former Secretary of War William Belknap – who went on trial after he resigned from office – as a precedent for the impeachment trial of a former civil servant.
“I think we’re going to get more and more evidence over the next few weeks – like it’s not enough that he sent an angry mob [the National Mall] to invade the Capitol, I did not try to stop it, and a policeman was killed, “Klobuchar said.” I don’t really know what else you need to know. The facts were there. We saw it on the platform at the grand opening, as you could still see the spray paint at the bottom of many of the columns. “
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