Skip to content Skip to footer

Only Five GOP Senators Rejected Effort to Declare Impeachment Unconstitutional

If the vote serves as a proxy for impeachment, it signals that Trump will be acquitted.

Sen. Rand Paul and Sen. Susan Collins attend a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing on September 9, 2020, in Washington, D.C.

On Tuesday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) attempted to introduce a motion to the Senate to declare the upcoming impeachment trial for former President Donald Trump unconstitutional. The resolution was shot down by the Senate, 55-45. Five Republicans voted to table the resolution.

The vote, ahead of the impeachment trial that’s scheduled to start next month, may be viewed as a precursor of how Senate Republicans may be expected to vote on the impeachment. The 55 votes to table Paul’s resolution fall far short of the 67 votes that will be necessary to convict Trump in the impeachment trial, so it is an early signal that acquittal may be coming.

Republican Senators Mitt Romney (R-Utah), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Ben Sasse (R-Nebraska), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Pat Toomey (R-Pennsylvania) all voted to table the resolution. Some Republicans who sided with Paul in voting to declare it unconstitutional said that it was a sign that Trump would be acquitted. Others, however, said that they voted for Paul’s resolution because they believed it merited discussion and that their vote was not indicative of how they will vote on impeachment.

Many legal experts dispute Paul’s claim that the impeachment is unconstitutional. The Constitution states that a former president can be impeached and convicted as it opens up the potential for the person to be barred from seeking office in the future.

According to a tracker set up by The Washington Post, however, 36 GOP senators have said that they oppose Trump’s impeachment. If all of these senators vote to acquit Trump — even if all 64 others vote to convict him — then Trump will, once again, be impeached but not convicted.

Other impeachment activities proceeded as normal on Tuesday. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), who will be presiding over the trial, was sworn in for his role. Leahy then swore in the Senate jurors who will be helping to moderate the trial, and they signed an oath to be impartial.

As president pro tempore of the Senate, Leahy is third in the presidential succession line and is the default neutral choice for a modern impeachment proceeding for someone who is no longer president. Leahy is a Democrat and has a record of disagreeing with Trump — and voted to convict him during Trump’s first impeachment — but he has vowed to stay neutral for the impeachment proceedings. “I will not waver from my constitutional and sworn obligations to administer the trial with fairness, in accordance with the Constitution and the laws,” he said in a press release.

“I have presided over hundreds of hours in my time in the Senate. I don’t think anybody has ever suggested I was anything but impartial in those hundreds of hours,” he told reporters. “I’m not presenting the evidence. I am making sure that procedures are followed.”

Chief Justice John Roberts presided over Trump’s first impeachment trial but expressed a desire to not do so this time around. Impeachment proceedings say that the Senate could have asked Vice President Kamala Harris to preside, but that would likely have been viewed as too partisan a choice.

Nine impeachment managers from the House have been chosen by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and will present the case to the Senate. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) will serve as the lead. The others are David Cicilline (R-Rhode Island), Eric Swalwell (D-California), Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), Ted Lieu (D-California), Stacey Plaskett (D-Virgin Islands), Madeleine Dean (D-Pennsylvania), Joe Neguse (D-Colorado) and Diana DeGette (D-Colorado). All nine of Pelosi’s chosen managers have law degrees.

Earlier this month, the House voted to impeach President Trump during his final days in office for his role in inciting the violent attempted coup at the Capitol building on January 6. That article of impeachment was delivered from the House to the Senate on Monday, which typically triggers the trial to begin immediately, but members from both parties agreed to push the trial back to February 8.

We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.

As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.

Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.

As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.

At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.

Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.

You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.