Senate Votes To Acquit Donald Trump After Democrats Choose Recess Over Witnesses

Donald Trump has officially been found not guilty on the impeachment charge of inciting an insurrection. After a brief trial in the Senate, the vote came down to 57-43 in favor of conviction, but a 2/3 vote was needed to convict.

The timeline leading up to this acquital was a weird one.

On Friday night, Trump’s legal team concluded their arguments against convicting him. Trump’s lawyer decided to go out on a truly spectacular low note, asserting that if Democrats wanted depositions from witnesses, they’d have to go to his office in “Phillydelphia” and give them there. This is weird and false on a few different levels, and he rightfully got laughed at by what sounds to be a significant number of lawmakers present.

Anyway, that was expected to be it, and the final vote was set to happen Saturday. Then, in a last-minute twist, Democrats decided they wanted to hold a vote on allowing witnesses to be called, which would prolong the trial for days, if not weeks.

There was some speculation that this decision was a direct response to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s declaration that he’d already made up his mind to vote to acquit, but the much more likely explanation is that it was a response to a statement made by Republican congress member Jaime Herrera Beutler.

In that statement, Herrera Beutler detailed a conversation that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy had with Donald Trump on January 6 during the riot in the U.S. Capitol, which he then relayed to Herrera Beutler.

“When McCarthy finally reached the president on January 6 and asked him to publicly and forcefully call off the riot,” the statement reads, “the president initially repeated the falsehood that it was antifa that had breached the Capitol. McCarthy refuted that and told the president that these were Trump supporters.

Trump replied: ‘Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are,’ ” according to Herrera Beutler.

It made sense that this would drive Democrats to move to call witnesses, especially since Herrera Beutler’s statement ends by calling on the “patriots” who were standing next to Trump “or even” Mike Pence while these conversations were happening to come forward. “If you have something to add here, now would be the time,” her statement reads.

That sounds like a clear signal that there is more information out there. So it was exciting that the vote to call witnesses passed because it meant we might actually get to hear it.

That excitement lasted a couple of hours.

When lawmakers reconvened two hours later, House impeachment managers and Trump’s team announced that they’d reached a deal: Herrera Beutler’s statement would be allowed into evidence, and no witnesses would be called. They would just move right on to their closing statements.

It was an incredibly disappointing move.

There are many who will say that there would be no point in calling witnesses, since the majority of Republicans were always going to vote this way–that acquital was a foregone conclusion.

That may be true–it almost definitely is–but giving in to that line of thinking is still incredibly cowardly. They’re going to do what they’re going to do, sure. But why shouldn’t Democrats have the same level of commitment to making their case as strongly as possible?

This was never about changing Republicans’ minds. At least, it shouldn’t have been. It should have been about setting clear ethical standards of what will and won’t be accepted from political leadership–declaring loudly that criminal, treasonous acts won’t be tolerated. And instead, Democrats roll over because they don’t think they’ll get the final result they want, as if that means the message still shouldn’t be made clear.

(image: congress.gov via Getty Images)
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Vivian Kane

Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.

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