Louisiana GOP Senator Bill Cassidy now thinks the second impeachment effort against private-citizen Donald Trump is constitutional after all. And the Louisiana Republican Party is now "profoundly disappointed" with their elected representative.
On Tuesday, Cassidy joined five other Republican Senators in voting with Democrats, declaring the second impeachment effort against former President Trump to be constitutional. The vote followed what many described as a lackluster opening performance by Trump defense lawyer Bruce Castor.
Only hours after the vote, the Louisiana Republican Party issued a statement rebuking the senator's vote and the impeachment charge against the former president.
"The Republican Party of Louisiana is profoundly disappointed by Senator Bill Cassidy's vote on the constitutionality of the impeachment trial now underway against former President, now private citizen, Donald J. Trump," reads the statement. "We feel that an impeachment trial of a private citizen is not only an unconstitutional act, but also an attack on the very foundation of American democracy, which will have far reaching and unforeseen consequences for our republic."
The state party wrote the former president "is innocent of the politically motivated, bogus charges" against him, and characterized the ongoing impeachment trial as "a kangaroo court presided over by an openly hostile political opponent."
Louisiana Republicans also saluted the state's junior U.S. senator, John Kennedy, "for remaining steadfast in his opposition to the fake impeachment trial now underway in Washington, DC."
Republican lawmakers who aligned themselves with Democrats in the latest impeachment effort against Trump are coming under fire back at home. The Wyoming Republican Party censured at-large Rep. Liz Cheney and called for the representative to resign following her vote on impeachment. Other GOP House members who followed Cheney's lead now find themselves contending with similar censures and new opponents in their primaries.