On Wednesday, February 5, 2020, the United States Senate voted to acquit President Donald J. Trump of all charges.
The charges that the Senate voted to vindicate Trump were split into two different articles of impeachment. The first article of impeachment was called Article Ⅰ: Abuse of Power. The second article of impeachment was called Article Ⅱ: Obstruction of Congress. The United States Senate had 48 Senators that voted guilty and 52 senators for not guilty on the first article of impeachment.
The United States Senate had 47 senators that voted guilty and 53 that voted not guilty on the second article of impeachment. For the vote on Article Ⅰ: Abuse of Power, all 45 Democrat Senators plus the two Democratic-leaning Independent Senators voted guilty on both Articles of Impeachment.
The only senator to step out of their political party lines was Utah’s Republican Senator Mitt Romney. Romney voted guilty only for the first Article of Impeachment.
Romney did not vote guilty for the second Article of Impeachment, instead voting not guilty. Since Romney voted not guilty on the second Article of Impeachment, all 53 Republican senators voted not guilty on the second Article of Impeachment.
The United States Senate voting to acquit Trump was a huge blow to all of the Democrats on Capitol Hill because on December 18, 2019, the United States House of Representatives voted to impeach Trump on both of the charges of the two Articles of Impeachments.
The United States House of Representatives voted 230 in favor of Trump being guilty of Article Ⅰ: Abuse of Power and 197 in favor of Trump being not guilty of Article Ⅰ: Abuse of Power.
The United States House of Representatives voted 229 in favor of Trump being guilty of Article Ⅱ: Obstruction of Congress and 198 voted in favor of Trump being not guilty of Article Ⅱ: Obstruction of Congress.
Since the Democrats primarily rule the United States House of Representatives, it came as no surprise that Trump was impeached in the House of Representatives but not the Senate because President Trump is a Republican and the Senate is primarily ruled by Republicans.
In my opinion, Trump should not be impeached on two articles of impeachment because he didn’t do anything that would be illegal in my eyes. Yet, I do believe that Trump should be impeached for a different reason that the House Democrats didn’t use in their articles of impeachment.
My reason that I believe that the president should’ve been impeached is the fact that Trump attempted to intimidate a witness during his impeachment hearings.
During Marie Yovanovitch’s public testimony, Trump was tweeting out tweets that sounded like he was trying to scare Yovanovitch into not telling the truth. It confuses me as to why no one used this crucial information in the case against Trump because witness intimidation is genuinely a crime.
DISCLAIMER: This article is the sole opinion of Andrew Chase
Andrew Chase can be contacted at achase@kscequinox.com
