By: Matt Zhang
On February 9, 2021, the mood in the Senate Chamber was tense as they determined the outcome of President Trump’s second impeachment trial— the 4th impeachment trial in the history of the USA. Over the next couple of days, the votes began rolling in and people started to silently pray for their desired outcome. Finally, on February 13, the final day of the trial, the impeachment trial ended with a failed impeachment.
More than a year later, many people still have questions about the trial and its outcome. They remain curious about why Trump was not impeached based on the trial’s results.
Daniel L. Zelenko— a co-chair of the white-collar defense practice at Crowell & Moring and former federal prosecutor—says that to impeach Trump, it is necessary to have “contemporaneous evidence that he was saying that he knew the election was not stolen but tried to stay in power anyway. The problem with Trump is that you have to try and get inside his mind, and he has such a history of lying and pushing falsehoods that it makes it difficult to determine what he really believes.”
Thus, one must prove that Trump knew he lost the election and actively tried to keep his power. This is difficult because he has a history of lying which makes it hard to understand what really goes on inside his head. In addition, impeaching a president is much more difficult than one might think.
According to the Constitution, two-thirds of the Senate must agree to an impeachment. Additionally, before the Senate can even vote, the House of Representatives must have a two-thirds majority vote before passing the notion to the Senate. In Trump’s case, the impeachment trial failed since only 57 senators voted to have Trump impeached and 43 voted against it. They still needed 10 more senators to vote for the impeachment. 100% of the Democratic senators voted for the impeachment while only 7 Republicans voted for the impeachment.
Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/18/us/politics/trump-jan-6-legal-defense.html
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/02/08/us/politics/trump-second-impeachment-timeline.html