Forty-three Senate Republicans betrayed their oaths to the Constitution and the Senate in voting not guilty Saturday in the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump.
Their verdict was a fait accompli; their minds were made up from the start. They were going to do the inciter-in-chief’s bidding even amid the overwhelming evidence that he instigated a deadly attack by his supporters on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
There were seven Senate Republicans who did the right thing, and voted to convict — and they should be applauded.
The rest of the Republican caucus, once again, found an excuse not to do the right thing.
They hid behind whataboutism, and partisanship, and procedural arguments when this country called upon them (again) to hold an unlawful president accountable for his actions. They abandoned every principle, every fidelity to the rule of law, every promise to their constituents that they would “defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
They have allegiance not to a country, but a demagogue, who would do the same thing he did on Jan. 6 tenfold if given the chance to run for president again. They are as shameless as they are servile.
But here’s a message to these gutless, amoral cowards:
You cannot stop the Justice Department from doing its duty of investigating and prosecuting the Capitol coup participants, including those who incited the rebellion.
You cannot stop the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York’s ongoing investigation into Trump and his organization for alleged financial crimes.
You cannot stop the New York State attorney general, Letitia James, from investigating the same.
You cannot stop the district attorney of Fulton County, Georgia, who is now investigating another imperfect call by Trump — when he tried to get the state’s Secretary of State to unilaterally overturn the election results in the president’s favor.
Trump’s Senate henchmen have used up the last measure of control regarding the fate of the former president. What happens next belongs to the state and federal prosecutors who, unlike the henchmen, will fulfill their oath to the Constitution without political bias and without fear.
With apologies to Archibald Cox, the former special Watergate prosecutor, “Whether ours shall continue to be a nation of laws and not of men is now for” the prosecutors, “and ultimately the American people.”
Police release tear gas into a crowd of pro-Trump protesters during clashes at a rally to contest the certification of the 2020 U.S. presidential election results by the U.S. Congress, at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, U.S, January 6, 2021.
REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton/File Photo
