During today’s impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump in the U.S. Senate, senators voted 56-44 to proceed.
Alaska’s Senate team, Sens. Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski, split their votes; Murkowski voted with five other Republicans and all 50 Democrats to proceed.
Democrats will open their arguments on Wednesday afternoon, and will try to make the case that Trump incited an “insurrection,” by encouraging his supporters to storm the Capitol on Jan. 6 to disrupt the certification of the Electoral College vote.
The Republicans who voted against proceeding with the trial believe that the former president can’t be put through an impeachment trial because he is no longer president and the action is unconstitutional.
That makes it seem almost certain that Trump will avoid final conviction by the Senate, as the constitutionalists only need 34 votes to avoid a historic case of an impeachment conviction of a past president. The House members managing the trial will need to convince 11 constitutionally minded Republicans to find Trump guilty, which appears unlikely.
Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota sent out a press release on Tuesday, in which he said, “Welcome to the stupidest week in the Senate.”
