This past weekend, the Senate wrapped up President Donald J. Trump’s second impeachment hearing. Unlike the President’s first Senate impeachment trial, which took about 3 weeks, this one was done in less than a week.
The House Managers’ defense took days to show their evidence. Their argument primarily rested in clips and screenshots of President Trump at rallies or his tweets and the January 6th Capitol insurrection. While the event at the Capitol was certainly lamentable, the Managers were unable to garner enough Republican support to prove that Trump’s influence led to the violence.
Trump’s defense team took 3 hours to present their case. In summary and as NPR reported:
“Trump’s lawyers argued…that House Democrats are driven by pure, unadulterated hatred for Donald Trump in these proceedings. They say that Democrats want to eliminate him as a political rival by disqualifying him from holding future office. They said that Trump ran as a law and order candidate, as a pro-police guy, so he couldn’t possibly have incited violence against police. They say that Trump wanted a peaceful protest on January 6 but that it was hijacked by violent extremists. And they flatly deny the charge in the article of impeachment that he incited the violence at the Capitol.”
On Saturday morning the upper chamber voted to not call witnesses, essentially ending the hearing. And, later that day the Senate acquitted President Trump 57-43. The Democrats needed 17 Republicans to find Trump guilty. They were only able to garner the support of six: Senators Richard Burr (NC), Bill Cassidy (LA), Susan Collins (ME), Lisa Murkowski (AK), Ben Sasse (NE), Pat Toomey (PA), and Mitt Romney (UT).
With this loss, you’d think the Democrats would put their hatred for Trump to rest. However, on Tuesday, February 16, Representative Bennie Thompson (D-MS) and the NAACP filed a lawsuit against President Trump and Rudy Giuliani. As NBC News reported, “The lawsuit, the first over the Capitol riot to name Trump, said the attack was “the intended and foreseeable culmination of a carefully coordinated campaign to interfere with the legal process required to confirm the tally of votes cast in the Electoral College.”’ Time will only tell if Washington’s Democrats think that items besides a President, who is no longer in office, is worth their time.