U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Texas) said Wednesday (Jan. 13) that the Senate does not have the constitutional authority to impeach an outgoing president and therefore cannot proceed with impeachment of President Trump after he leaves office.
The Senate lacks the constitutional authority to initiate impeachment proceedings against a former president,” Cotton said in a statement. America’s forefathers designed the impeachment process as a way to remove public officials from office, not as a punishment for private citizens.”
Cotton said he will oppose the Senate impeachment trial after House Democrats, joined by 10 Republicans, voted 232-197 to pass a second impeachment against Trump. And 197 other House Republicans also opposed impeachment.
The only charge in this impeachment is reportedly that the president incited the uprising that led to the January 6 mob break-in of the U.S. Capitol. The impeachment took only seven hours to complete, making it the fastest impeachment in U.S. history. It was also the first time in U.S. history that a president was impeached twice.
Republicans criticized the hasty decision, arguing that it did not provide the president with due (defense) process or give the American people procedural confidence. Democrats, on the other hand, defended the rushed process by arguing that Trump poses a threat to the country every day he is in office.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “We know the president of the United States instigated this riot and launched an armed rebellion against our country …… He has to go, and he is a clear and present threat to the country that we all love.” And every Democrat voted for impeachment.
Cotton said the Senate will not be able to complete an impeachment trial until Jan. 20, when Biden will be sworn in. He said, “The House has passed a bill of impeachment against the president, but under the rules and precedent, the Senate cannot begin and complete a fair trial before the president leaves office next week.”
Cotton condemned the violence in Congress last week, when a number of mobs and protesters illegally entered the Capitol building while the vast majority of Trump supporters were peacefully rallying outside.
On Jan. 7, Trump denounced the violence as a “heinous attack” that “insults the status of American democracy. On January 7, Trump denounced the violence as a “heinous attack” that “insults the status of American democracy.
Rep. Tom Cotton (R-CA) speaking on May 5, 2020.
In his statement, Cotton quoted Abraham Lincoln’s words, “No grievance should be remedied by the law of the mob,” and said, “Those words are as true today as they were when Abraham Lincoln spoke them. I said that last summer when the mob violently attacked our streets, so I say it again, those directly responsible for the mob violence at our nation’s Capitol last week, should be held accountable to the law.”
He believes that loyalty to the Constitution must always be the highest honor for Americans, which is why he opposes the impeachment process against the former president.
The 10 Republicans who voted for the president’s impeachment in the House of Representatives were Liz Cheney, John Katko, Adam Kinzinger, Fred Upton, Jaime Herrera Beutler, Dan Newhouse), Anthony Gonzalez, Tom Rice, David Valadao and Peter Meijer.
And Cheney, as the number three man in the Republican Party, was also strongly opposed for his inability to speak out for the Republican Party’s ideas.
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