Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said in an email to colleagues that he will vote to acquit Donald Trump in the former president\u2019s second impeachment trial.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs I have said for some time, today\u2019s vote is a vote of conscience and I know we will all treat it as such. I have been asked directly by a number of you how I intend to vote, so thought it right to make that known prior to the final vote. While a close call, I am persuaded that impeachments are a tool primarily of removal and we therefore lack jurisdiction,\u201d McConnell wrote.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s legal team argued that a former president could not be subject to an impeachment trial, even though constitutional scholars disagree with that argument and there is precedent for trying former officials.<\/p>\n
McConnell appeared to accept that argument. Yet the timing of Trump\u2019s second impeachment trial \u2015 held after he left office \u2015 was McConnell\u2019s choice.<\/p>\n
While McConnell let it be known in the days after the Jan. 6 insurrection that he was furious with Trump and was not ruling out a conviction, he also took steps to block swift impeachment proceedings while still serving as majority leader.<\/p>\n
The Senate trial did not begin until Feb. 8, weeks after the House voted on Jan. 13 to charge Trump with one article of impeachment for \u201cincitement of insurrection.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Jan. 26, around a week after President Joe Biden assumed office, McConnell voted with 44 other Republicans to dismiss Trump\u2019s second impeachment trial on grounds of unconstitutionality.<\/p>\n
Opponents argue that this interpretation of the Constitution leaves the door wide open for presidents to act with impunity in the last weeks of their terms. At the end of his message to colleagues on Saturday, McConnell reconciled the issue for himself by stating that presidents can still face criminal prosecution for acts committed while in office.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Constitution makes perfectly clear that Presidential criminal misconduct while in office can be prosecuted after the President has left office, which in my view alleviates the otherwise troubling \u2018January exception\u2019 argument raised by the House,\u201d he wrote. \u201cGiven these conclusions, I will vote to acquit.\u201d<\/p>\n
House impeachment managers, however, argued that Trump had violated the oath of office he took to \u201cpreserve, protect and defend\u201d the United States Constitution, which plainly says impeachment is the remedy for such an offense by an elected official.<\/p>\n