Sen. Rand Paul said the impeachment of former President Donald Trump in the Senate is “dead on arrival” after 45 Republicans voted against holding the trial.
“We had 45 people, 45 Republican senators say that the whole charade is unconstitutional. So, what does that mean? It means … the trial is dead on arrival. There will be a show. There will be a parade of partisanship, but the Democrats really will not be able to win. They will be able to play a partisan game that they wish to play. But it’s all over,” Paul said Tuesday evening on Fox News Primetime with Maria Bartiromo.
The Kentucky senator called for a motion on stopping the trial because Trump is no longer in office, and thus, Paul said, the impeachment is “unconstitutional.”
Five Republican senators voted in support of putting Trump on trial for allegedly inciting an insurrection on Jan. 6, including Susan Collins, Ben Sasse, Lisa Murkowski, Pat Toomey, and Mitt Romney. It would require a supermajority vote in the Senate to convict Trump, meaning 17 Republicans would need to vote that the former president is guilty of the charge.
Paul added in his interview with Bartiromo that there is a “double standard” among Democrats in regards to inciting violence.
“One of Bernie Sanders’s supporters came to the ballfield, nearly killed Steve Scalise … but nobody talked about impeaching Bernie Sanders. Maxine Waters has said, ‘Get up in their face.’ So has Cory Booker. ‘Become a mob. We want you to mob them at restaurants and cause mayhem.’ That sounds like an incitement to violence, but nobody’s talking about impeaching Maxine Waters. Nobody’s talking about impeaching Bernie Sanders or Cory Booker for saying, ‘Get up in their face,’” he said.
“So, it’s a significant hypocrisy and double standard that they’re putting forward, and they should be called out on it. We should not be shy about calling them out about their hypocrisy.”
Paul’s interview comes after he delivered a floor speech on Tuesday arguing that the impeachment would only further “divide the country” while noting that Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts won’t preside over the trial.
“If we are about to try to impeach a president, where is the chief justice?” Paul asked. “If the accused is no longer president, where is the constitutional power to impeach him?”
“Impeachment is for removal from office, and the accused here has already left office,” Paul said. “Hyperpartisan Democrats are about to drag our great country down into the gutter of rancor and vitriol, the likes of which has never been seen in our nation’s history.”
