So Mitch votes to acquit, then comes out with a speech basically laying out why he shouldn't have voted to acquit.
Actually, Mitch was explaining why it wasn't the Senate's job to convict Trump now that he's out of office.
I get that. That was a bit of hyperbole on my part. But the bottom line, if the sole sticking point is, "Can a President (in this case) be tried and convicted post holding office?" and one sides with the idea that , "No, s/he cannot," then yeah, no matter what criminal act the now ex-President committed whilst being President is not for the Senate to try and convict on.
But if you remove that one sticking point, a constitutional conundrum, and side with, "Yes, the Senate can try and convict an ex-President for deeds committed during his/her presidency", Mitch does comes right out and implicate DJT. (Though a second sticking point he remarks on is the strict definition of "incitement", as almost, "If you don't agree with my constitutional interpretation, then, well, "
incitement" was probably too high of a bar to surmount anyway".)
He opens and immediately condemns with this:
"Let me just put that aside for a moment and reiterate something I said weeks ago. There’s no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. No question about it.The president did not act swiftly. He did not do his job. He didn’t take steps so federal law could be faithfully executed and order restored. No, instead, according to public reports, he watched television happily as the chaos unfolded. He kept pressing his scheme to overturn the election.
This was an intensifying crescendo of conspiracy theories orchestrated by an outgoing president who seemed determined to either overturn the voter’s decision or else torch our institutions on the way out. The unconscionable behavior did not end when the violence actually began."
There's your case right there. Done. But again, the constitutional sticking point comes into play:
"But in this case, the question is moot because former President Trump is constitutionally not eligible for conviction...the Senate’s sole power to try all impeachments, would create an unlimited circular logic empowering Congress to ban any private citizen from federal office."And closes with: "
The Senate’s decision today does not condone anything that happened on or before that terrible day. It simply shows that senators did what the former president failed to do. We put our constitutional duty first."
So yeah, I get it. But damn, had it not been for, in a way, almost a legal technicality, Mitch would have to of voted for conviction. And I wonder if that's what he was getting at.
I also wonder, going forward, if a President shoots someone in the face on 5th avenue near the end of their term, all timing & partisan circumstances being the same as today, would the Senate constitutionally allow for a high crimes impeachment conviction if the trial occurred after the term ended? Or, as Mitch stated, would they still skip it and let the criminal/civil court system handle it? Is there a line there; 100% overtly, unquestionably guilty versus the definition of a word, like "incitement"?
Poll