Congressional Democrats say Trump acquittal was foregone conclusion

Democratic members of Congress said on Sunday that the acquittal of former President Trump at the conclusion of his second impeachment trial one day earlier had been a foregone conclusion.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the lead House impeachment manager, said he had “no regrets” about the trial, however.

“We have no regrets at all. We left it totally out there on the floor of the U.S. Senate, and every senator knew exactly what happened. And just go back and listen to McConnell’s speech,” Raskin said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” referencing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s floor speech blasting Trump shortly after the Kentucky Republican voted to acquit the former president. 

“It could be First Amendment. It could be bill of attainder. It could be due process. I mean, all of them are nonsense,” Raskin told host Chuck Todd. “I thought that I successfully demolished them at the trial, but, you know, there’s no reasoning with people who basically are, you know, acting like members of a religious cult and when they leave office should be selling flowers at Dulles airport.”

Raskin’s fellow impeachment manager Del. Stacey Plaskett (D-Virgin Islands) expressed similar sentiments on CNN’s “State of the Union,” defending the Democrats’ decision not to call witnesses.

McConnell, she said, “agreed with us. They all agreed with us. … We didn’t need more witnesses. We needed more senators with spines.”

“We didn’t back down” on witnesses, said Plaskett, who noted that Democrats successfully entered a statement from Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.) into the record. Herrera Beutler said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) had told her Trump said the rioters at the Capitol on Jan. 6 were “more upset about the election” than McCarthy was.

“I think what we did was we got what we wanted, which was her statement,” Plaskett added.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) similarly said the Senate was “never going to reach” the required two-thirds majority to convict without McConnell’s support.

“We were never going to reach 67 votes in the Senate without Mitch McConnell voting guilty. So he went up on the floor afterwards. He basically gave the speech that Jamie Raskin would have given to the Senate and then tried to justify his vote for acquittal,” Durbin said on “Meet the Press.”

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), meanwhile, said the trial would serve as a historical referendum on Trump.

“It’s not what we accomplished. … It’s what our republic accomplished,” Klobuchar said on “Fox News Sunday.” “We’ve got to make sure that this doesn’t happen again. What this was about to me was about not hiding history.”

The Minnesota senator credited the seven “courageous Republicans” who voted to convict Trump, making the votes in both the House impeachment and the Senate trial the most bipartisan in the nation’s history.

On the other side of the aisle, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) defended his vote  to acquit Trump, conceding the former president’s repeated claims of voter fraud were “not sound and not true” but calling them “politically protected speech.”

Graham said he had recently spoken to Trump and that the former president was “mad at some folks” but “ready to move on.”

The South Carolina senator during an appearance on “Fox News Sunday” also referenced McConnell’s speech. 

“That speech you will see in 2022 campaigns. I would imagine if you’re a Republican running in Georgia, Arizona, New Hampshire, where we have a chance to take back the Senate, they may be playing Sen. McConnell’s speech and asking you about it if you’re a candidate,” he said.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), one of the seven Republicans to vote to convict, also said on ABC’s “This Week” that it was clear Trump “wished that lawmakers be intimidated” while finalizing the Electoral College results.

“And even after he knew there was violence taking place, he continued to basically sanction the mob being there. And not until later that he actually asked them to leave,” Cassidy said. “All of that points to a motive and a method and that is wrong. He should be held accountable.”