The US Senate prepared on Wednesday to acquit Donald Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, ending the impeachment process and further clearing the skies over the White House as the president angles for re-election.
The Senate was scheduled to vote separately on the two articles of impeachment beginning at 4pm. The vote was prefaced by a third day of speeches by senators arguing their views.
“When the framers wrote the constitution, they did not think of someone like me as being a United States Senator,” said Democrat Kamala Harris of California, urging Trump’s removal. “But they did envision someone like Donald Trump being president.”
“Donald Trump is going to get away with abusing his position of power for personal gain, and falsely claim he’s been exonerated,” Harris said. “He’s going to escape accountability because a majority of senators have decided to let him.”
An out-of-reach two-thirds majority of senators would be required to remove Trump from office. Trump would become the third president in US history to be impeached and then survive a Senate trial.
Even before his acquittal, Trump was enjoying a run of positive political news. At his State of the Union address Tuesday night, he touted strong economic data and new international trade deals, skipping mention of impeachment.
Botched vote reporting in the Iowa Democratic party caucuses on Monday night meant that no opposition candidate was clearly boosted in the process, while the party emerged with a black eye and a damaging internal fight on its hands.
A Gallup poll published on Tuesday, meanwhile, indicated Trump’s approval rating is at or near all-time highs, including 94% approval among Republicans and rising support among independents.
With the momentum seemingly on Trump’s side, the chances improved that the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, would deliver a clean party-line acquittal vote for the president on Wednesday afternoon. The Republicans hold a 53-seat majority in the Senate.
Two Republicans, Mitt Romney of Utah and Susan Collins of Maine, broke with the party during the trial to vote in favor of calling witnesses and issuing subpoenas for documents blocked by the Trump administration.
On Tuesday afternoon, Collins announced she would vote to acquit on both articles of impeachment. “I do not believe that the House has met its burden in showing that the president’s conduct, however flawed, warrants the extreme step of removal from office,” she said.
Romney had given no public indication of how he planned to vote.
Two Democrats were likewise in the spotlight as potential swing votes. Joe Manchin of West Virginia called for a censure of Trump – a possible indication that he viewed the prospective removal of Trump as a step too far. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, a moderate Democrat in a state that supported Trump in 2016, has not indicated how she is planning to vote.
A third Democrat, Doug Jones of Alabama, who faces a difficult election in November in a heavily pro-Trump state, declared on the Senate floor on Wednesday morning that he would vote to convict on both articles of impeachment.
“I cannot and will not shrink from my duty to defend the constitution and to do impartial justice,” Jones said. “These actions were more than simply inappropriate, they were an abuse of power.”
House Democrats found that Trump had abused his power by conditioning military aid and a White House meeting for Ukraine on the receipt of personal political favors, and had obstructed Congress by issuing a blanket refusal to comply with requests including subpoenas for witnesses and documents.
The Tennessee senator Lamar Alexander explained on the Senate floor on Wednesday why he voted against hearing fresh testimony from witnesses, a move that helped speed the trial’s end but displayed a rare public criticism of Trump by a Republican and a boost for the Democrats’ presentation of the facts.
“There is no need for more evidence to prove something that has already been proven and that does not meet the US constitution’s high bar for an impeachable offense,” Alexander said.
He added: “It was inappropriate for the president to ask a foreign leader to investigate his political opponent and to withhold United States aid to encourage that investigation. But the constitution does not give the Senate the power to remove the president from office and ban him from this year’s ballot simply for actions that are inappropriate.”
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