Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a key centrist Republican, announced she will vote against convicting President Trump on both articles of impeachment.
“I cannot vote to convict,” Murkowski told the Senate Monday evening. “The Constitution provides for impeachment but does not demand it in all instances.”
Murkowski, who called Trump’s behavior toward Ukraine “shameful and wrong,” has split with the president on key issues in the past, including voting against the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
In this instance, Murkowski argued, the House could have considered censure in response to its allegations the president abused the power of his office by withholding security aid from Ukraine in order to pressure its government officials to investigate Democrats, including former Vice President Joe Biden.
“The response to the president’s behavior is not to disenfranchise nearly 63 million Americans and remove him from the ballot,” Murkowski said. “The House could have pursued censure and not immediately jumped to the remedy of last resort.”
WATCH: “The president’s behavior is shameful and wrong,” Sen. Murkowski says, but adds that “I cannot vote to convict. The Constitution provides for impeachment, but does not demand it in all instances.” pic.twitter.com/0FVOA77QWG
— NBC Politics (@NBCPolitics) February 4, 2020
The Senate is expected to vote to acquit the president on Wednesday after the House passed two articles of impeachment charging the president with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress in December.
Murkowski is the second senator to raise censuring the president instead of impeachment. Earlier on Monday, Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, suggested the Senate could censure Trump instead of voting to convict him on the impeachment articles.
