If the House lodges articles of indictment for the second time in its single term this week, the Senate will hear him and determine whether he will have to be removed from office again and disqualified. The article of indictment accuses the president of inciting insurgency, after urging supporters last week to ‘fight like hell’ before storming the Capitol, which led to the deaths of six people and evacuated Congress.
Incoming Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, has indicated that he wants a process of indictment to begin immediately after the article of the indictment is received by the Senate.
Most Democratic senators are calling for the immediate removal of Mr. Trump, including the two independent members of the Senate, Angus King of Maine and Bernie Sanders of Vermont. But the crossbar for the Senate to remove the president is higher than accusation, which requires only a simple majority in the House.
Two-thirds of the Senate – 67 senators – are required to plead guilty. CBS News has asked the 51 current GOP senators how they are going to vote. Twenty answered.
One Republican, Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, adopted the idea of a quick departure through the office of Trump and believes he should resign. But while he believes the president has committed ‘impeccable transgressions’, Toomey is not sure it is’ practical’ to oust him in just a few days, he told NBC News’ ‘Meet the Press’.
The other 19 respondents responded with statements, pointed to person interviews or did not comment.
Mitt Romney, a Utah senator, was the only Republican senator who voted in February 2020 to remove Trump on one of two charges. After the January 6 attacks, he said on the Senate floor that the objections and attacks were the result of a selfish man injured pride and the outrage of supporters he had deliberately misinformed over the past two months. ‘
In a statement Wednesday, he said that “when the president incites an attack on Congress, there must be a significant consequence.”
“We will consider the options and the best rate for our country in the coming days,” he added.
Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Ben Sasse of Nebraska are also not closing the door on charges, according to statements to CBS News. Sasse said on CBS This Morning last week that he would “definitely consider the articles” the House is offering. A Collins spokeswoman said she would not comment on the indictment “because of the Senate’s constitutional role in the proceedings, which includes the sitting of a jury.”
Iowa Senator Joni Ernst said Mr. Trump “has not shown good leadership” and “bears some responsibility for what happened.”
Nine senators told CBS News they did not support the indictment: Marco Rubio of Florida, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Cindy Hyde-Smith and Roger Wicker of Mississippi, Roy Blunt of Missouri, Steve Daines of Montana, Kevin Cramer of North Dakota , Tim Scott of South Carolina and Ted Cruz of Texas.
Others said there was no time for Mr. Not to accuse Trump, because the incoming Biden-Harris government will take office in days, and they predicted that an accusation process would be divisive.
“Is there a likelihood that he will possibly be removed by now January 20?” Roy Blunt, senator from Missouri, said on Face the Nation. “If there is no additional event, I believe, there is no possibility.”
Accusations are a ‘biased exercise that will further embitter and divide the country’, Kent Paul Senator Rand Paul, who voted on January 6 to accept the outcome of the election college, told WDRB.
A handful of Republican senators voted on the day of the attack on the Capitol to object to the outcome of the Arizona and Pennsylvania Electoral College: Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, Roger Marshall of Kansas, Hyde-Smith, Josh Hawley of Missouri and Cruz . Wyoming Senator Cynthia Loomis and Florida Senator Rick Scott did not vote for the objection in Arizona, but for Pennsylvania. Louisiana Senator John Kennedy voted to contest the results in Arizona, but did not do so for Pennsylvania.
Scott, who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, did not disclose his position on the indictment. Instead, he denounced the riots in the Capitol and insisted that Mr. Trump reconsidered his decision to leave the inauguration.
The other Florida senator, Marco Rubio, denied the allegations and told Fox News Sunday that it would mean Biden’s elected president’s first weeks would be about ‘removing a president not yet in office. office is not. ‘
Here is the list of GOP senators and what they said about the vote on the accusation:
Will consider it
- Pat Toomey (Pennsylvania)
- Ben Sasse (Nebraska)
- Mitt Romney (Utah)
Oppose
- Marco Rubio (Florida)
- Rand Paul (Kentucky)
- Cindy Hyde-Smith (Mississippi)
- Roger Wicker (Mississippi)
- Roy Blunt (Missouri)
- Steve Daines (Montana)
- Kevin Cramer (North Dakota)
- Tim Scott (South Carolina)
- Ted Cruz (Texas)
Answered but did not want to say what voice would be
- Mike Crapo (Idaho)
- Susan Collins (Maine)
- Joni Ernst (Iowa)
- Todd Young (Indiana)
- Rick Scott (Florida)
- Jim Risch (Idaho)
- John Cornyn (Texas)
- Cynthia Lummis (Wyoming)
Did not respond to CBS News’ request for comment
- Richard Shelby (Alabama)
- Tommy Tuberville, Alabama
- Daniel Sullivan (Alaska)
- Lisa Murkowski (Alaska)
- John Boozman (Arkansas)
- Tom Cotton (Arkansas)
- Kelly Loeffler (Georgia)
- Mike Braun (Indiana)
- Chuck Grassley (Iowa)
- Roger Marshall (Kansas)
- Jerry Moran (Kansas)
- Mitch McConnell (Kentucky)
- Bill Cassidy (Louisiana)
- John Kennedy (Louisiana)
- Josh Hawley (Missouri)
- Deb Fischer (Nebraska)
- Richard Burr (North Carolina)
- Thom Tillis (North Carolina)
- John Hoeven (North Dakota)
- Rob Portman (Ohio)
- Jim Inhofe (Oklahoma)
- James Lankford (Oklahoma)
- Lindsey Graham (South Carolina)
- Mike Rounds (South Dakota)
- John Thune (South Dakota)
- Bill Hagerty (Tennessee)
- Marsha Blackburn (Tennessee)
- Mike Lee (Utah)
- Shelley Moore Capito (West Virginia)
- Ron Johnson (Wisconsin)
- John Barrasso (Wyoming)
Alan He, Bo Erickson, Cara Korte, John Nolen, Timothy Perry and Sarah Ewall-Wice contributed reporting to this story