From The Nation
A refusal to convict a guilty insurrectionist, and a failure to call witnesses against him, is a tragic abandonment of accountability
Every member of the United States Senate swears an oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic" and makes a commitment to "bear true faith and allegiance to the same." After the House of Representatives impeached Donald Trump for the incitement of insurrection that resulted in the deadly January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol of the United States, the duty of true faith and allegiance to the Constitution demanded that senators try and convict the 45th president for the high crimes he committed.
On Saturday, a bipartisan majority consisting of 57 senators -- 50 Democrats and seven Republicans -- judged Trump to be guilty, embracing the conclusion of Representative Jamie Raskin, the Maryland Democrat who served as the lead House impeachment manager, that "Donald Trump committed a massive crime against our Constitution and our people and the worst violation of the presidential oath of office in the history of the United States of America. For this, he was impeached by the House of Representatives and he must be convicted by the United States Senate." It was, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) noted, "the largest and most bipartisan vote of any presidential impeachment trial in American history."
Yet 43 Republicans voted against finding Trump guilty, preventing the Senate from achieving the two-thirds majority needed to hold the most dangerous and destructive president in the country's history to account for his seditious acts. Schumer labeled that choice a "vote of infamy."
The 43 Republicans who abandoned their oaths of office in order to defend Trump failed the Constitution.
That was not, however, the only failure to show true faith and allegiance to the Constitution that occurred on Saturday.
With their decision to shut down an effort by House impeachment managers to call witnesses in the trial of Donald John Trump, senators of both parties chose political pragmatism over constitutional duty.