Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) both voted Wednesday to convict President Donald Trump in a failed effort to remove him from office during the nation’s third-ever impeachment trial.
The full U.S. Senate voted to acquit Trump on the two charges he faced.
Less than an hour before the historic vote, Leahy urged his colleagues to hold the president accountable for his “brazen abuse of executive power” by inviting foreign interference into U.S. elections.
“Today is not about differences over policy. It is about the integrity of our elections, and it is about the Constitution,” Leahy said from the Senate floor. “The Constitution cannot protect itself.”
Sanders spent Wednesday morning on the presidential campaign trail in New Hampshire but returned to Washington in time for the vote. He submitted a written statement for the record explaining his votes.
“Sadly, we have a president who sees himself as above the law and is ignorant or indifferent to the Constitution,” he wrote. “And we have a president who clearly committed impeachable offenses.”
Impeachment required a two-thirds majority, or 67 votes, since all 100 senators were present. The results were mostly along party lines. Only Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) defected and voted to impeach Trump on the first article, which charged that the president abused his power by withholding military aid to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political rivals. Trump was found not guilty by a 52 to 48 vote.
The second article charged that Trump had obstructed Congress by directing federal officials to ignore subpoenas to testify in the House trial; the president was acquitted by a 53 to 47 vote.
Before Wednesday, neither Leahy nor Sanders had said publicly how they’d vote, though both supported the impeachment inquiry. Last week, both senators lambasted Senate Republicans for breaking with precedent and refusing to allow witnesses to testify in the trial.
Sanders reiterated that point in his statement Wednesday.
“It defies basic common sense that in a trial to determine whether the President of the United States is above the law, the Senate would not hear from the people who could speak directly to President Trump’s behavior and motive,” Sanders said. “Leader Mitch McConnell’s handling of this trial, unfortunately, was nothing more than a political act.”
Leahy was among dozens of senators who spoke ahead of the 4 p.m. vote. The dean of the U.S. Senate, Leahy was first elected shortly after president Richard Nixon resigned from office in 1974. In his speech Wednesday, Leahy referred to the Watergate scandal that took down Nixon as “quaint” in comparison to Trump’s misconduct.
Vermont’s senior senator said the vote marked a “dark day” in American history. Acquitting Trump would set a dangerous precedent, Leahy argued: If Trump wasn’t held accountable for freezing military aid in a quid pro quo, what would stop a future president from holding the federal budget “hostage to their personal whims?” he asked.
“The answer is nothing,” Leahy said. “We will have relinquished the very check that the Founders entrusted to us to ensure a president could never behave like a king.”
Trump has maintained his innocence, Leahy noted.
“Lord help us if the Senate agrees,” he said, “because the only lesson the president has learned from this trial is how easily he can get away with egregious, illegal misconduct.”
“We’ve only seen a preview of what will come,” Leahy added.
Vermont’s lone Congressman, Democratic Rep. Peter Welch, also voted for impeachment at the conclusion of the House trial in December.
“It’s the most significant vote I have taken in Congress,” Welch told Seven Days on December 18. “It’s not difficult because the evidence is overwhelming.”
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Pat, Bernie and Pierre Delecto. America’s triumvirate!
The cowards in the GOP have placed a crown upon Trump’s head. Now, nothing is out of bounds for Trump, who has no boundaries in the first place.
After Trump’s Nuremberg Rally speech last night and the Congressional GOP behaving like Putin’s Duma things are on a fast downhill slide.
Trump is, indeed a symptom of a dying democracy and failed economic system. He is ignorant, greedy, vulgar, unreflective, and incapable of any empathy for another human. In many ways, America deserves an obtuse oaf like Trump. The Democrats are not blameless in this mess. They abandoned the working class during the Clinton years and Obama was nothing more than a Wall Street Trojan horse .
Neither party is worth my vote. They are just two arms on the same corporate profit machine puppet.
JIMMY, I think you mean Pierre DEFECTO, the Dems secret weapon. We can’t forget Petey! It’s a quadrangle!
The cowards in the Democratic party placed great discredit on themselves and Congress, and have earned their dunce crown. Now, nothing is beyond their nonsense, and they have shown they are boundless in their contempt for Trump and honest working Americans.
After Pelosi’s petulant, partisan hissy fit Tuesday night and her DNC colleagues behaving like spoiled, entitled children, they have put themselves squarely on the downside of history, and have shown America they will put their party before their country and the constitution they swore to uphold.
Term limits come to mind when I see partisan’s like Pelosi, Nadler, Leahy and Schiff, thumbing their nose at due process and the rule of law, in a sad, vain, pathetic effort to overturn the will of the American people. They, along with their slate of pathetic candidates are trying to kill our democracy with their failed economic policies, promotion of socialism and bigotry. Trump’s economic system is the envy of the world.
They have proven they are ignorant, greedy, vulgar, incompetent, power hungry partisans, without a shred of concern for their fellow Americans. In many ways they have demonstrated they think it is all about them and their power and their hurt feelings. They deserve a socialist like Bernie destroying the very fabric of the Democratic party, because they have no moral compass.
The Dems have turned their back on blue collar America, which can’t be disputed because the last election proved it when Hillary ignored the American heartland. Obama was nothing more than a completely inept community organizer.
The impeachment is over, but the investigations aren’t. Maybe the swamp will get drained after all…
How Sanders and 3 other senators who are presidential candidates were even allowed to vote at all in a trial involving their political rival/competituon smacks of the Biden did nothing wrong hypocrisy. Ecstatic Trump was acquitted & looking forward to 4 more years of making America greater.
HAHAHAHHA….LOLOLOLOLOLOL… THE 3 BALD AMIGOS LOST.. THEY SAID TRUMP WAS DONE OUT GONE.
Guess what, TRUMP 2020..HE’S STILL OUR PRESIDENT !!!
Pelosi acted like a spoiled little brat while ripping up papers, low-class Pelosi low-class