The Senate voted on Friday nearly along party lines to block additional witnesses and evidence in President Trump’s impeachment trial, effectively accelerating the proceedings toward a final vote, which is expected to be held Wednesday.
But even before votes were cast Friday, a number of top Republicans came forward with statements rejecting the notion that the president should be convicted and removed, despite the evidence laid out in recent weeks by House impeachment managers.
While some lamented the partisan tenor of the proceeding, which they said threw the fairness of the trial into doubt, others said their decisions were based on a stronger conviction: Even if the president did everything the House managers described, his actions and alleged wrongdoing still did not justify his removal from office.
This is what they said:
Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee: “The question then is not whether the president did it, but whether the United States Senate or the American people should decide what to do about what he did. I believe that the Constitution provides that the people should make that decision in the presidential election that begins in Iowa on Monday.”
Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska: “Given the partisan nature of this impeachment from the very beginning and throughout, I have come to the conclusion that there will be no fair trial in the Senate. I don’t believe the continuation of this process will change anything. It is sad for me to admit that, as an institution, the Congress has failed.”
Senator Rob Portman of Ohio: “I have said consistently for the past four months, since the Zelensky transcript was first released, that I believe that some of the president’s actions in this case — including asking a foreign country to investigate a potential political opponent and the delay of aid to Ukraine — were wrong and inappropriate. But I do not believe that the president’s actions rise to the level of removing a duly-elected president from office and taking him off the ballot in the middle of an election.”
Senator Marco Rubio of Florida: “For me, the question would not just be whether the President’s actions were wrong, but ultimately whether what he did was removable. The two are not the same. Just because actions meet a standard of impeachment does not mean it is in the best interest of the country to remove a President from office.”
Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska: “Lamar speaks for lots and lots of us.”