Former vice presidential candidate and Democrat Senator Tim Kaine is publicly floating the idea of a censure for former President Donald Trump rather than following through with a lengthy, time consuming and divisive impeachment process.
IMPEACHMENT: @timkaine tells reporters trial is not a good use of time right now since know Trump won't be convicted, suggests his censure resolution passing as way to avoid going forward with the Trump trial.
— Erik Wasson (@elwasson) January 27, 2021
.@timkaine confirms our reporting. He tells reporters that after yday's vote on Rand Paul's motion there's "maybe a little more interest now"
— Alayna Treene (@alaynatreene) January 27, 2021
"I've drafted something I haven’t filed it yet...But I'm hoping that we might find... it could be an alternative" https://t.co/ozhBvYpnMV
Kaine's comments come a day after Republican Senator Rand Paul forced a vote on the Senate floor about the constitutionality of impeaching a former president who is no longer in office. Forty-five Republican senators voted that an impeachment trial of former President Trump would be unconstitutional.
The Senate just voted on my constitutional point of order.
— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) January 26, 2021
45 Senators agreed that this sham of a “trial” is unconstitutional.
That is more than will be needed to acquit and to eventually end this partisan impeachment process.
This “trial” is dead on arrival in the Senate.
Paul discussed the vote during an interview with Fox News Tuesday night.
"We put forward a motion that said that basically you can't impeach a private individual. You can impeach a President, but this is why the Chief Justice didn't show up. If it was the President, the Chief Justice shows up. The fact that the Chief Justice wouldn't come and refused to come, means that this is a private citizen but the constitution doesn't allow for impeachment of a private citizen so we put this issue forward. But the most important take away from the issue is, they don't have the votes to convict," Paul said.
"We had 45 people, 45 Republican Senators, say that the whole charade is unconstitutional. So what does that mean? It means that impeachment, the trial, is dead on arrival," he continued. "There will be a show, a parade of partisanship, but the Democrats will not be able to win. They'll play a partisan game they wish to play but it's all over. This shows that they don't have the votes to win so they will just slog through this and they will try and punish Republicans but that's all this has ever been about. Not justice. It's about a partisan game."
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